Gaza children dying as they wait for Israel to enable evacuations

The lives of many people in Gaza are still in danger.

Two 10-year-old boys lie in different wards of Nasser Hospital, one of whom was hit by Israeli fire and was paralyzed from the neck down, and the other with a brain tumor.

With a fragile ceasefire now in place, they are among nearly 15,000 patients who the World Health Organization (WHO) says require urgent medical evacuation.

Ola Abu Said sits and gently caresses his son Amar’s hair. His family says he was hit by a stray bullet fired from an Israeli drone while he was in his tent in southern Gaza. He was paralyzed between two vertebrae.

“He needs urgent surgery but the situation is complicated. Doctors said it could lead to his death, paralysis or brain haemorrhage. He needs surgery in a well-equipped place,” Ola said.

Gaza right now is nothing more than that. After two years of war, hospitals remained in a critical situation.

Sitting by the bedside of her younger brother Ahmed al-Jadd, his sister Shahd says her brother provided her with constant comfort during two years of war and displacement.

“He is only 10 years old and when our situation got this bad, he would go out and sell water to bring us some money,” he says. A few months ago he showed the first signs of ill health.

“Ahmad’s mouth started drooping to one side,” explains Shahd. “Once he was saying to me, ‘I’ve got a headache,’ and we just gave him paracetamol, but then his right hand stopped moving.”

This man, who was once a university student, is desperate to go abroad to have his brother’s tumor removed.

“We can’t lose him. We’ve already lost our father, our home and our dreams,” says Shahd. “When the ceasefire happened, it gave us some hope that there might be a 1% chance of Ahmed traveling and receiving treatment.”

On Wednesday, WHO coordinated the first medical convoy to leave Gaza since the fragile ceasefire began on October 10. 41 patients and 145 caregivers were taken to hospitals abroad via Israel’s Kerem Shalom crossing point, and ambulances and buses took the group to Jordan. Some remained there for maintenance.

The UN agency called for the number of medical evacuations to be rapidly increased to deal with the thousands of ill and injured cases. He wants to be able to take patients out of Gaza’s Rafah border crossing with Egypt, as he did before.

However, Israel said it would keep the crossing closed until Hamas “fulfilled” its commitments under the Gaza ceasefire agreement by returning the bodies of the dead hostages. Israel has kept the Gaza side of the Egyptian border closed since May 2024, when it took control during the war.

Speaking at a press conference on Thursday, WHO chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the “most effective measure” would be for Israel to allow Gaza patients to be treated in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, as it was before the war.

Senior EU officials and foreign ministers of more than 20 countries, including the UK, had previously called for this and offered “financial contributions, provision of necessary medical personnel or equipment”.

CEO of Augusta Victoria Hospital in Mount Olivet, Dr. “If this route is reopened to the East Jerusalem Hospital Network and hospitals in the West Bank, hundreds of patients could be treated easily and efficiently in a short time,” says Fadi Atrash.

“We can treat at least 50 patients a day for chemotherapy and radiation therapy, and even more. Other hospitals can perform multiple surgeries,” the doctor told me.

“Directing them to East Jerusalem is the shortest distance, the most effective way because we have the mechanism. We speak the same language, we have the same culture, in most cases, Gaza patients have medical files. They had been treated in East Jerusalem hospitals for more than a decade after the war.”

The BBC asked Cogat, the Israeli defense agency that controls Gaza crossings, why the medical route was not approved. Cogat said that this was a decision taken by the political level and referred questions to the prime minister’s office, but no further explanation was given.

Following the Hamas-led attacks on October 7, 2023, Israel cited security reasons for not allowing Gazan patients to cross into other Palestinian areas. It was also noted that the main crossing point for the people in Erez was targeted by Hamas fighters during the attack.

Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry says at least 740 people, including about 140 children, will die on waiting lists by August 2025.

Dr. Nasir Hospital’s pediatrics and obstetrics department director. Ahmed al-Farra expresses his disappointment.

“The hardest feeling is when a doctor is there, can diagnose a condition, but cannot perform the necessary tests and lacks the necessary treatments,” says Dr al-Farra. “This has happened in many cases, and unfortunately, lives are lost every day due to our incompetence.”

Hope is gone for more patients since the ceasefire.

A funeral ceremony was held in the hospital garden for eight-year-old Saadi Abu Taha, who died of bowel cancer last week.

A day later, three-year-old Zain Tafesh and eight-year-old Luay Dweik died of hepatitis.

There are many more Gazans who will have no chance of living in peace unless action is taken.