Over 1,000 patients have died awaiting evacuation from Gaza since July 2024: WHO

GENEVA – More than 1,000 patients have died while waiting for urgent medical evacuation from war-ravaged Gaza in the last year and a half, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Dec 19.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X that the UN agency and its partners had “evacuated over 10,600 patients from Gaza with severe health conditions, including over 5,600 children” since the start of the war
in 2023
.

But he warned that “many more patients remain in Gaza awaiting evacuation to receive appropriate health care”.

Citing numbers from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, Tedros said that 1,092 patients were known to have died while awaiting medical evacuation just between July 2024 and Nov 28.

“This figure is likely underreported,” he warned, calling on “more countries to open doors to patients from Gaza, and for medical evacuation to the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, to be restored”.

“Lives depend on it,” the chief added.

The WHO has previously estimated that more than 16,500 patients still need treatment outside of Gaza, while a top official with the charity Doctors Without Borders told AFP earlier in December the actual number was likely “three to four times that number”.

As at Dec 1, over 30 countries had taken patients from Gaza, but only a handful, including Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, had accepted large numbers.

A US-sponsored ceasefire has halted fighting in Gaza
, which began after Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel on Oct 7, 2023.

But the deal, in effect since Oct 10, remains fragile
as Israel and Hamas accuse each other almost daily of violations. AFP