Gaza’s Health Ministry says a group of 50 sick and wounded patients and their attendants are in Egypt for medical treatment abroad.
The Rafah border crossing has opened for the first time in nearly nine months to allow sick and wounded Palestinian patients in Gaza to travel to Egypt for medical treatment abroad.
Gaza’s Health Ministry on Saturday said a group of 50 patients, accompanied by 61 caregivers, crossed from Rafah to reach Egypt.
Egyptian television showed Palestinian Red Cross ambulances pulling up to the crossing gate, and several children being brought out on stretchers and transferred to ambulances on the Egyptian side.
Many of the patients are suffering from chronic diseases, including cancer, and have been unable to get treatment during Israel’s 15-month war.
A total of 400 Palestinians will be allowed to leave Gaza as part of a ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel on January 19.
The reopening of the Rafah crossing represents a significant breakthrough that bolsters the deal. Israel agreed to reopen the crossing after Hamas released the last living female captives in Gaza.
The opening of the key border crossing also came on the heels of Hamas releasing three Israeli captives in Gaza earlier on Saturday in exchange for more than 180 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.
‘Hope the number will increase’
Mohammed Zaqout, director of hospitals in Gaza’s Health Ministry, said more than 6,000 Palestinian patients were ready to be evacuated abroad, and at least 12,000 patients were in urgent need of treatment.
He said the small numbers set to be evacuated will not cover the need, “and we hope the number will increase”.
Arwa Damon, founder of the International Network for Aid, Relief and Assistance (INARA), described to Al Jazeera the “laborious” process to take about 2,500 Palestinian children requiring lifesaving medical care out of Gaza.
She said a child’s parents or guardians apply for a medical evacuation. Then the Health Ministry in Gaza reviews the cases and puts the patients into categories depending on urgency.
“Then there is a whole coordination effort that has to happen with Israel clearing every single one of the names that’s requesting to be evacuated,” Damon added.
“And then, you need the whole mechanism which is coordinated with the WHO to actually get the children out of Gaza and then on to whichever third country has agreed to receive them for medical treatment.”
Damon said this “has always been extraordinarily painful” and a “very slow” process that “quite simply has failed to get medical treatment for all those who need it”.
In Israel’s 15-month genocide on the enclave following Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack, Gaza’s health sector has been decimated, leaving most hospitals out of operation.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians wounded by Israel’s bombardment and ground offensives have been suffering due to a lack of proper medical care.
Israeli forces closed the Rafah crossing in May 2024 after seizing it. Egypt followed suit by shutting down its side of the passage in protest.
Even prior to the Gaza war, Palestinians relied on the crossing heavily, routinely applying for permission to travel outside the territory for lifesaving treatments not available in the enclave, including chemotherapy.
Management of the crossing has been mired with complexities.
Israel has long accused Hamas of using its control of the border to smuggle weapons – a claim Egypt has denied. Israel has also refused to allow the Palestinian Authority (PA) to officially take over the management of the crossing.
Instead, the crossing will be staffed by Palestinians from Gaza who previously served as border officers with the PA, but they will not be allowed to wear official PA insignia, a European diplomat told The Associated Press news agency, on condition of anonymity.
Monitors from the European Union will also be present, as they were before 2007.
“It will support Palestinian border personnel and allow the transfer of individuals out of Gaza, including those who need medical care,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas wrote on X, referring to its monitoring mission at the crossing.