GENEVA (Palestine Foundation Information Center) The Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said Israel is still preventing more than 12,000 sick and wounded Palestinians from leaving the Gaza Strip to receive life-saving medical treatment abroad.
Ghebreyesus added, in a statement on Thursday, that at least 5,383 patients have been evacuated with the WHO’s help since the outbreak of the war in October 2023, leaving more than 12,000 Palestinians still waiting to leave Gaza to receive life-saving medical treatment.
He explained that the rate of evacuations plunged when the Rafah border crossing shut down in May after Israeli troops took it over, noting that only 436 patients have left Gaza since then.
“At this rate, it would take 5-10 years to evacuate all these critically ill patients, including thousands of children,” Ghebreyesus said.
He pointed out that “In the meantime, their conditions get worse, and some die due to the lack of appropriate treatment and medical care.”
Ghebreyesus urged Israel to increase the approval rate for medical evacuations, including no denials of child patients, and to open all possible border crossings and corridors, as the Israeli occupation controls all the entry and exit points in Gaza.
