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Medical evacuations from Gaza have completely stopped: WHO

WHO estimates that there are now typically at any given time "around 10,000 people who need to be evacuated... to receive the much-needed medical treatment elsewhere", spokesperson Margaret Harris says.

AP

Since the complete halt to medical evacuations from Gaza on May 8, an additional 1,000 critically ill and wounded patients have been added to that list, Harris said. / Photo: AP

Desperately needed medical evacuations from Gaza — already very limited — came to a full stop when Israel launched its military offensive on Rafah three weeks ago, the World Health Organization has said.

WHO spokesperson Margaret Harris said on Tuesday that since Israel launched its military offensive in the densely crowded southern city of Rafah in early May, "there's been an abrupt halt to all medical evacuations".

She warned that the cut-off obviously meant more people will die waiting for treatment.

The United Nations health agency has long been pleading for Israeli permission to evacuate more critically ill and severely wounded people from Gaza.

Thousands of Gaza residents are estimated to require urgent medical evacuation but few have been able to leave the besieged Palestinian territory since war erupted there nearly eight months ago.

Before the war in Gaza erupted, around 50 to 100 people left the enclave every day with medical referrals for complex treatments that were not available in the Palestinian territory, including for cancer.

"Those people didn't go away simply because conflict started, so they all still need a referral," Harris told reporters in Geneva.

And since services in Gaza have been disastrously disrupted by the conflict, far more people need to leave to get services they used to access inside the enclave, like chemotherapy or dialysis, she said.

Around 9,000 patients need emergency evacuation from Gaza — WHO

Trauma-related patients

In addition, thousands now need to evacuate after suffering severe trauma injuries in the war.

WHO estimates that there are now typically at any given time "around 10,000 people who need to be evacuated... to receive the much-needed medical treatment elsewhere", Harris said.

They include more than 6,000 trauma-related patients and at least 2,000 patients with serious chronic conditions, like cancer, she said.

Since the complete halt to medical evacuations from Gaza on May 8, an additional 1,000 critically ill and wounded patients have been added to that list, Harris said.

Before the cut-off, WHO had received approval from Israel for 5,800 medical evacuations — around just half of the number it had requested since the war began.

Of those 5,800, only 4,900 patients had actually been able to leave, Harris said.