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Over 10,000 Palestinians in Gaza are in urgent need of medical evacuation, including thousands of children, UN officials have warned ahead of the planned reopening of the Rafah crossing in southern Gaza on Saturday.
The World Health Organization (WHO) says that an estimated 12,000 to 14,000 Palestinians need medical care outside of Gaza. The group has called for an “accelerated pace of evacuations through all possible routes” in order for the patients to obtain the care they need.
Meanwhile, 2,500 Palestinian children are at imminent risk of death and need evacuation urgently, the UN has further warned.
Some of these patients have just weeks or days to live, officials and health care workers have said; like 2-year-old Habiba al-Askari, who may die within days due to a rare but treatable condition. As CNN has documented, al-Askari’s family has obtained permission for her to seek treatment in Jordan — but Israel has delayed her evacuation, leaving her and her family in the lurch.
“I was deeply moved by the testimonies and impressed by the dedication of 4 American doctors that have worked in Gaza,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres. “2,500 children must be immediately evacuated with the guarantee that they will be able to return to their families and communities.”
Since Israel’s genocide began in October 2023, Israel has been blocking the vast majority of vital medical evacuations, leaving many to languish and die without the specialized care they require. This was a major escalation of Israel’s decades of restriction of medical care for Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
UN officials have previously called for Israel to allow medical evacuations from Gaza amid the genocide, citing the thousands of patients with severe injuries from Israeli attacks, as well as diseases like cancer, who cannot access health care within the Strip — in large part because of Israel’s wholesale destruction of Gaza’s health care system.
On Saturday, officials are set to reopen the Rafah crossing in southern Gaza, which has been seized and shut down by Israel since May. Before Israel launched its siege of Rafah, the Rafah crossing was a vital crossing for Palestinians. Most of the humanitarian assistance entering the Gaza Strip entered through Rafah, and most at-risk patients were evacuated there.
As part of the ceasefire agreement, initially, 50 injured fighters and 50 civilians will be allowed through the crossing, as well as 100 others, likely students, on humanitarian grounds.
The crossing will be overseen by officials from the Palestinian Authority and monitors from Europe, officials say.
It’s unclear whether the crossing will be open for more evacuations after the initial round. However, WHO’s representative for the occupied Palestinian territory, Rik Peeperkorn, noted that it would take over a decade to evacuate critically ill patients at this rate.
“If we continue at this pace we have, we will be busy for the next 15 years,” Peeperkorn said.
It’s also unclear if the evacuated Palestinians will be allowed to return to Gaza, as Israeli officials and key figures like President Donald Trump have called for the permanent expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza, in clear calls for ethnic cleansing.
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