Israel permits 19 sick, injured children out of Gaza in first medical evacuation

Israeli authorities claim 68 people, including 19 sick or injured children and their companions, have been permitted out of the Gaza Strip and into Egypt in the first medical evacuation since early May, when the territory’s sole border crossing was closed after Israel conquered it.

The nearly nine-month Israel-Hamas war has decimated Gaza’s health-care system, forcing most hospitals to close. According to health officials, thousands of people require medical care abroad, including hundreds of critical situations.

The children and their companions left Gaza via the Kerem Shalom cargo crossing, and the patients were to travel to Egypt and farther abroad for medical treatment.

Six of the children were transferred to Nasser Hospital from Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City earlier this week. Five have cancer and one suffers from metabolic syndrome. That evacuation was organized by the World Health Organization.

The Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, the only one available for people to travel in or out, shut down after Israeli forces captured it during their operation in the city early last month.

Egypt has refused to reopen its side of the crossing until the Gaza side is returned to Palestinian control.

On Thursday, the Israeli military ordered new evacuations from Gaza City neighborhoods that were heavily bombed and largely emptied early in the war.

The latest orders apply to Shijaiyah and other neighborhoods where residents reported heavy bombing on Thursday.

First responders with Gaza’s Civil Defense said airstrikes hit five homes, killing at least three people and wounding another six.

It said rescuers were still digging through the rubble for survivors.
Gaza City was heavily bombed in the opening weeks of the war.

Israel ordered the evacuation of all of northern Gaza, including the territory’s largest city, later that month. Hundreds of thousands of people have remained in the north, even as Israeli troops have surrounded and largely isolated it.

International criticism has been growing over Israel’s campaign against Hamas as Palestinians face severe and widespread hunger. The eight-month war has largely cut off the flow of food, medicine and basic goods to Gaza, and people there are now totally dependent on aid.