In brief
In Gaza, countless children remain in life-threatening situations as they await urgent medical evacuations. Following a fragile ceasefire, hospitals are filled with patients in dire need of treatment, but bureaucratic hurdles hinder their escape for sufficient healthcare. Emotional accounts from families highlight the struggles faced amid a backdrop of continuous conflict.
So many lives in Gaza still hang in the balance.In different wards of Nasser Hospital lie two 10-year-old boys, one shot by Israeli fire and paralyzed from the neck down, another with a brain tumour.Now that a fragile ceasefire is in place, they are among some 15,000 patients who the World Health Organization (WHO) says are in need of urgent medical evacuations.Three year-old Zain Tafesh died from leukemia earlier this week.Ola Abu Said sits gently stroking the hair of her son Amar. His family says he was in their tent in southern Gaza when he was hit by a stray bullet fired by an Israeli drone. It is lodged between two of his vertebrae, leaving him paralyzed.Right now, Gaza is anything but that. After two years of war, its hospitals have been left in a critical state.Sitting by the bedside of her younger brother, Ahmed al-Jadd, his sister Shahd says her brother was a constant comfort to her through two years of war and displacement.On Wednesday, the WHO coordinated the first medical convoy to exit Gaza since the fragile ceasefire began. Some have stayed for care in Jordan.The UN agency has called for numbers of medical evacuations to be rapidly increased to deal with the thousands of sick and wounded.The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says that in the year to August 2025, at least 740 people, including nearly 140 children, died while on waiting lists.Dr. Ahmed al-Farra expressed frustration at the ongoing situation, stating, It's the most difficult feeling for a doctor to be present, able to diagnose a condition but unable to carry out essential tests and lacking necessary treatments.
