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At least 740 Palestinians in Gaza died over a period of 13 months while awaiting medical evacuation that never came, the UN has reported, as Israel denied tens of thousands of Palestinians of this crucial lifeline.
This death toll includes at least 137 children who were on the evacuation list and died between July 2024 and August 2025, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported this week.
There are still 15,600 Palestinians who are awaiting medical transport, officials reported. One in four of them are children.
“These patients cannot wait for the healthcare system to be rebuilt. They need urgent care today,” wrote Médecins sans Frontières International President Javid Abdelmoneim in an open letter this week.
“These were preventable deaths — not only because of the destruction of hospitals, but due to political inaction,” Abdelmoneim wrote.
Israel has nearly totally destroyed Gaza’s medical system, and there are no treatment options for chronic conditions like cancer or kidney failure, or for those who are in need of complex treatments for injuries inflicted by Israel’s genocidal bombing and starvation campaign.
The UN and other aid organizations have called for Israel to open all crossings into Gaza in order to allow a surge of aid and medical evacuations. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the BBC that no evacuation flights have taken off for the past two weeks due to Israeli holidays.
Israel has refused to open crossings into Gaza and allow for full humanitarian access, violating the ceasefire deal signed on October 9. Palestinian officials reported that, as of Monday, the 10th day of the ceasefire, only 986 aid trucks had entered the besieged territory, despite the deal stipulating that 6,600 trucks should have entered at that point.
“The situation still remains catastrophic because what’s entering is not enough,” said Tedros. “There is no dent in hunger because there is not enough food.”
Meanwhile, UN Population Fund Executive Director Andrew Saberton said this week that there is no longer such a thing as a “normal birth in Gaza now” and that pregnant Palestinians are being forced to give birth in the street.
“They often don’t even have access to a private space in a tent. We have stories of women giving birth actually in the rubble, beside the road,” Saberton said.
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