Patients and injured people evacuated from Gaza for treatment

Palestinian health authorities say 45 patients and injured people have been evacuated for treatment outside the war-ravaged Gaza Strip.

They left the European Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis early on Tuesday and travelled through the Kerem Shalom Crossing into Israel. They will receive treatment in the United Arab Emirates.

The patients are accompanied by over 100 of their relatives, according to the hospital.

Among them was a 10-year-old boy, Abdullah Abu Yousef, who is suffering from kidney failure. The child was accompanied by his sister after the Israeli authorities rejected his mother’s application to join him.

Israel says it screens those accompanying the patients for security.

“The boy is sick,” said his mother, Abeer Abu Yousef. “He requires haemodialysis three to four days a week.”

The Health Ministry said several thousand Palestinians in Gaza require medical treatment abroad.

Israel has controlled all entry and exit points since capturing the southern city of Rafah in May.

The Israeli offensive, launched after Hamas’ October 7 attack in 2023, has gutted the territory’s healthcare system and forced most of its hospitals to close.

Those that remain open are only partially functioning.

The UN Human Rights Office says Israel’s attacks on and around hospitals have pushed Gaza’s health system “to the brink of total collapse” and may have violated international law.

Israeli forces have besieged and raided at least 10 hospitals across Gaza since the start of the war, some of them multiple times.

Israel accuses Hamas militants of using health facilities for military purposes but has provided little evidence for the claim.

Last week, Israeli troops raided Kamal Adwan Hospital in isolated northern Gaza and detained its director. The army said it apprehended 240 suspected militants.

The UN report said it documented 136 strikes on at least 27 hospitals and 12 other medical facilities from October 12 2023 to June 30 2024.

“This report graphically details the destruction of the health care system in Gaza, and the extent of killing of patients, staff, and other civilians in these attacks in blatant disregard for international humanitarian and human rights law,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said.

The report noted Israel’s allegations and that hospitals lose their protection under international law if they are used for military purposes.

But it said “insufficient information has so far been made available to substantiate these allegations, which have remained vague and broad, and in some cases appear contradicted by publicly available information”.

Israel has long dismissed such allegations from UN bodies, which it says are biased against it.