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Sick children in Gaza hospitals desperately await medical evacuations
Families of sick Palestinian children in Gaza say they are unable to receive the medical care they desperately need and are awaiting medical evacuations.
In central Gaza’s Al-Aqsa Hospital, Nihal al-Sawwaf said her infant Ahmed needed urgent medical evacuation to receive treatment for his seizures. “My baby has spent his whole life moving between hospitals,” she told Al Jazeera’s Ibrahim al-Khalili. “We have the referral but we’re still trapped here.”
Asmaa, another woman at the hospital, said she was desperate to get treatment for her four-year-old daughter outside Gaza. “The war has ended yet, and we haven’t received any call or update about her evacuation,” she said. “Restrictions at the crossing continue to prevent her from getting care.”
Medical evacuations to take place on Wednesday
At least 22,000 Palestinians need medical evacuations, according to the Health Ministry. So the 50 people due to be evacuated are a small number in terms of those who need it.
Exactly how they will leave remains in question. We’ve contacted people at Rafah crossing, and they’ve said the crossing will not open and the patients will not leave through that route.
What we’ve learned is that the patients will gather at the Palestinian Red Crescent medical point in al-Mawasi and will be leaving early tomorrow morning.
It doesn’t really matter how they leave – what is important is that they are able to leave the Strip and receive medical treatment abroad.
But Palestinians were expecting that, with the ceasefire, the Rafah crossing would open. Obviously, things are not going as planned, and people are frustrated by not knowing when the crossing will be open and when they will be able to leave.
‘Everything was black. I realised I had gone blind’
Mahmoud Abu Foul, a Palestinian recently released by Israel, says he lost his eyesight after a severe beating during an interrogation by Israeli intelligence officers.
“They asked me to confess to charges that were not true. When I refused, they beat me on the head until I lost consciousness,” he told Al Jazeera. “When I woke up, I tried to open my eyes but I couldn’t see anything. Everything was black … I realised I had gone blind.”
Mustafa Barghouti, secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative, said Abu Foul had been subjected to torture and electrical shocks during his detention.
Abu Foul, who had one of his legs amputated following an earlier attack in Gaza, said he had also had his spine and ribs broken in a beating by Israeli intelligence, and he was denied the necessary treatment and surgery, resulting in his health deteriorating further.
Released Palestinian prisoner Mahmoud Abu Foul says he was blinded during an interrogation by Israeli intelligence officers
