‘Indifferent Bureacracy’ – UNICEF Says Gaza Children are Dying as Israel Denies Medical Evacuations

October 26, 2024 News
Israeli forces carried out a horrific massacre in the Tabaeen school, sheltering displaced Palestinians. (Photo: via QNN TW Page)

By Palestine Chronicle Staff  

“Children are thus being denied the medical care that is a basic human right, and those who barely survived ruthless bombings are condemned to die from their injuries.”

Children who survive Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip are dying because they are prevented from leaving the enclave to receive the urgent care that would save their lives, UNICEF has warned.

“Children are being medically evacuated from Gaza at a rate of fewer than one child per day,” UNICEF Spokesperson James Elder told a press briefing in Geneva on Friday, adding that if “this lethally slow pace continues, it would take more than seven years to evacuate the 2,500 children needing urgent medical care.”

“As a result, children in Gaza are dying – not just from the bombs, bullets and shells that strike them – but because, even when miracles happen, even when the bombs go off and the homes collapse and the casualties mount, but the children survive, they are then prevented from leaving Gaza to receive the urgent care that would save their lives,” Elder emphasized.

This year, from January 1 to May 7, an average of 296 children were medically evacuated each month, he said.

Since the Rafah crossing closed on May 7 due to the ground offensive there, the number of children medically evacuated “has collapsed to just 22 per month,” Elder stated.

“That is, just 127 children – many suffering from head trauma, amputations, burns, cancer, and severe malnutrition – have been allowed to leave since Rafah closed,” he stressed.

‘Brutally Compounded Pain’

The UNICEF spokesman said it was not known how many child patients have been rejected for medevac.

“Only a list of approved patients is provided by Israel’s COGAT – which controls Gaza’s entry and exit points. The status of others is not shared,” he explained.

“When a patient is denied, there is nothing that can be done. Trapped in the grip of an indifferent bureaucracy, children’s pain is brutally compounded,” Elder continued.

‘Basic Human Right’

He said that after more than a year “of attempting to shed light on the atrocities being committed against children in Gaza, perhaps then it is this that is the clearest and most damning reality: children – deeply unwell children – are being denied the medical care that could save them in Gaza, and then prevented from leaving to places where help awaits.”

“Children are thus being denied the medical care that is a basic human right, and those who barely survived ruthless bombings are condemned to die from their injuries,” Elder added.

“This is not a logistical problem – we have the ability to safely transport these children out of Gaza. It is not a capacity problem – indeed, we were evacuating children at higher numbers just months ago. It is simply a problem that is being completely disregarded,” he stated.

Ongoing Genocide

Flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire, Israel has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza.

Currently on trial before the International Court of Justice for genocide against Palestinians, Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza since October 7.

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According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 42,847 Palestinians have, to date, been killed, and 100,544 wounded.

Moreover, at least 11,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.

Israel says that 1,200 soldiers and civilians were killed during the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on October 7. Israeli media published reports suggesting that many Israelis were killed on that day by ‘friendly fire’.

Palestinian and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.

Famine and Displacement

The Israeli war has resulted in an acute famine, mostly in northern Gaza, resulting in the death of many Palestinians, mostly children.

The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.

Later in the war, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians began moving from the south to central Gaza in a constant search for safety.

(The Palestine Chronicle)

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