Children in Gaza are dying while waiting for life saving treatment outside the territory, as calls grow for Israel to allow more medical evacuations during the current ceasefire.
Health officials say thousands of critically injured or chronically ill people have been left in limbo. Many have conditions that doctors inside Gaza cannot treat because hospitals lack equipment, medicines and working facilities after more than a year of war.
On Wednesday, the World Health Organisation helped the first small group of patients leave since the pause in fighting began on ten October. Forty one people in urgent need of care travelled with family members through the Kerem Shalom crossing into Israel before continuing to Jordan for treatment. Some remained in Amman hospitals.
The WHO says this is nowhere near enough. The agency wants evacuations to increase quickly and to resume movement through the Rafah crossing with Egypt.
WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters that the most helpful change would be to let Gaza patients receive treatment in the occupied West Bank including East Jerusalem.
Top European Union figures and ministers from more than twenty nations including the United Kingdom have already backed that plan. They offered funds and medical teams to step in once permission is granted.
Dr Fadi Atrash runs Augusta Victoria Hospital on the Mount of Olives. He says reopening access to his facility and others nearby would save lives within days.
Israel has not approved the plan. Cogat which oversees Gaza crossings said the decision rests with political leaders. Questions to the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu received no further reply.
The health ministry in Gaza run by Hamas reports that between August 2024 and August 2025 at least 740 people including almost 140 children died while waiting for permission to leave.
Doctors say they face agonising choices each day. At Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza Dr Ahmed al Farra who leads paediatrics and maternity described his despair.
It is the most difficult feeling for a doctor to diagnose a child and still be unable to provide the treatment they need he said. We lose patients every day because we do not have the tools to save them.
In the past week alone three young children under his care passed away. Eight year old Saadi Abu Taha had intestinal cancer. Three year old Zain Tafesh and eight year old Luay Dweik both died from hepatitis.
Israel has said the Rafah crossing will stay closed until Hamas returns the bodies of Israeli hostages under the terms of the ceasefire.
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Africa Digital News, New York
