Gazans need medical evacuation: MSF

A Doctors Without Borders official has pleaded for countries to open their doors to tens of thousands of Gazans in dire need of medical evacuation, warning that hundreds have already died waiting.

“The need is really huge,” said Hani Isleem, who coordinates medical evacuations from Gaza for the charity, known by its French acronym MSF.

The numbers taken in by countries so far remains “just a drop in the ocean”, Isleem told AFP in an interview on Tuesday.

The World Health Organization estimates that more than 8,000 patients have been evacuated out of Gaza since the war erupted following Hamas’s attack inside Israel on October 7, 2023.

It says more than 16,500 patients still need treatment outside of the Palestinian territory. Speaking at the MSF headquarters in Geneva after accompanying seriously ill and injured Gaza children to Switzerland for treatment, Isleem said that number was based only on patients registered for medical evacuation and the true figure was higher.”Our estimate is that it is three to four times that number,” he said.

To date, over 30 countries have taken patients, but only a handful, including Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, have accepted large numbers.

In Europe, Italy has taken over 200 patients, compared to France, which by the end of October had taken 27, and Germany none.

Evacuation pace slowing

Switzerland in November took in 20 Gaza children who arrived in two batches.

The 13 children aged two months to 16 years whom Isleem accompanied last week included four babies with severe congenital heart disease, as well as cancer patients and children requiring complex orthopaedic surgery.

Without the evacuation, some of those children would not have made it, he said, pointing out that the babies basically went straight to surgery after their arrival in Switzerland to avoid “irreversible damage”. Isleem lamented that as conditions in Gaza become more desperate, the pace of medical evacuations has slowed.