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Mideast War Gaza Medical Evacuations
Nima al-Askari, right, cares for her 4-year-old son, Qusay al-Askari, in Deir al-Ballah, Gaza Strip, on Nov. 16, 2024. Nima al-Askari said she was told by doctors that her son could become paralyzed if he doesn't get surgery in the next two or three months for a heart defect that constricts his aorta. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Ailing kids wait months for Israeli permission to leave Gaza for treatment. Some die in the meantime

UNICEF estimates that 2,500 ailing children need immediate evacuation from Gaza for treatment abroad

By WAFAA SHURAFA and FATMA KHALED
Published - Dec 06, 2024, 09:36 AM ET
Last Updated - Dec 16, 2024, 05:04 PM EST

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — The 12-year-old Palestinian boy was lying in a hospital bed in central Gaza, wracked with leukemia, malnourished and whimpering in pain despite the morphine doctors were giving him, when Rosalia Bollen, a UNICEF official, said she saw him in late October.

Islam al-Rayahen’s family had asked Israeli authorities six times over the past months for permission to evacuate him from Gaza for a desperately needed stem cell transplant, Bollen said. Six times, the request was refused for unexplained security reasons, she said.

Islam died three days after she saw him, Bollen said.

Thousands of patients in Gaza are waiting for Israeli permission for urgently needed medical evacuation from Gaza for treatment of war wounds or chronic diseases they can’t get after the destruction of much of the territory’s health care system by Israel’s 15-month military campaign.

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