Gaza children flown to Egypt as part of global effort due to ill health

TEL AVIV – People in the crowd bid a tearful farewell to 21 seriously ill children who were evacuated from the Gaza Strip under a secret project to provide them with much-needed scientific assistance, which has been threatened by Israeli attacks on the Palestinian border. The latter was in short supply. ,

According to a doctor involved in the operation, the offer to allow children to fall was made by a global fitness group and an American charity. And it was implemented with the support of the US government, Israel, Egypt, and other countries within the patch.

John Kirby, White Area Nationwide Safety Communications marketing consultant, said, “It took a tremendous effort to get these young children, many of whom were in desperate medical need, to safety, some to hospitals, where they could receive the care they needed. They can get what they need.” instructed NBC News.

Kirby said 16 children are cancer patients.

“They are clearly at a critical stage of their treatment and they were not able to get the lifesaving, critical medical support that they needed to take care of them,” he said. “And now they do. There they are. Safely out.”

As the Rafah crossing into Egypt closed, the US was able to quietly evacuate more than 150 patients, mostly children, out of the crisis-hit area in Gaza in partnership with hospitals, several NGOs, and local authorities. Lend a hand within the lifesaving patch.

But if Israeli military operations like Rafah forced the closure of the crossing in May, it became almost impossible to get the sickest children out.

Faced with a miserable obstacle, the rescuers regrouped and located on a different route.

Kirby declined to elaborate on what was done, but said they expected to continue removing unhealthy children in need of immediate assistance in the coming months.

“As you can imagine, it’s very dangerous and that’s why we needed so much help,” Kirby said. “These kids are in desperate need.”

He also pointed out that transferring the babies is not an easy process as they will require hospital treatment during their growth period.

COGAT, the Israeli military structure that oversees backup distribution into Gaza, noted in a comment that it had helped facilitate the evacuation “in coordination with US government, Egyptian and international community officials.”

The NBC News team spoke to relatives of the sick children at the Nasser Clinic in the southern city of Khan Yunis, just before four ambulances and two buses transported them across the border to Egypt via Israel’s southern Kerem Shalom border crossing.

Ahmed Shalha told NBC News that his 5-year-old daughter, Rawand, has a cyst in her brain and is being treated in Egypt. He said his mother and four sisters were traveling with him.

“It’s very difficult,” he said of taking footage while walking along the bus route.

Nazila Zaroud, another parent, said her 7-year-old daughter, Razan, was living with one kidney and needed treatment because she became unhealthy from eating every day.

“She suffers from inflammation of the lymphatic system, she has swelling, she’s always sick,” he said.

Mohammed Zakout, director of hospitals in the Gaza Strip, confirmed to Newshounds that the 21 children who traveled to Egypt were leukemia and cancer patients.

He said of their conditions, “They are manageable if treatment exists.”

But when he stopped in Gaza, he said he was “going to die.”

In total, there are 250 children who need urgent treatment for life-threatening diseases during this period, Zakout said. Another 25,000 children are being treated for various diseases and war-related accidents.

Getting in and out of Gaza has been difficult enough, but it became absolutely impossible after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7. The Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt – the only border crossing available for the community to travel in or out – was destroyed when Israeli forces captured it early during their operation in the enclave’s southernmost city. Egypt has refused to reopen its part of the crossing until the Gaza Strip returns to Palestinian control.

8 of the children evacuated were moved to monday From the Mamdani Clinic to the Nasser Clinic in northern Gaza City, Palestinian state officials told NBC News shortly after they arrived.

Ouatif Azzam told NBC News that she had brought her two grandsons, Amjad and Ahmed Al Kanou, for treatment.

“One has cancer,” she said, the other was suffering from kidney disease due to low potassium.

Near the beginning of the siege in northern Gaza, he said, “there was no food at all” and people were forced to live “on a few broad beans or chickpeas”.

She said she was grateful to the community and organizations that helped her cope.

The other six children transferred from the Nasser clinic on Thursday came from the al-Ahli clinic in Gaza City earlier in the period, according to the Associated Press. The AP reported that five of them had fatal cases of cancer and one suffered from metabolic syndrome.

Hanan Balki, WHO’s regional director for the Japanese Mediterranean, welcomed the evacuation information. However in a post on X he said: “More than 10,000 patients still require medical care outside the Strip. Of the 13,872 people who have applied for medical evacuation since October 7, only 35% have been evacuated.

“Medical evacuation corridors must be urgently established to ensure a continuous, orderly, safe and timely evacuation of critically ill patients from Gaza by all possible routes,” Balki posted.

Henry Austin reported from Tel Aviv and Andrea Mitchell from Washington, DC