More than two years of carnage in Gaza and the decimation of its health system by Israeli forces has left thousands in need of medical care no longer available in the Strip. There are now more than 18,500 Palestinians awaiting medical evacuation from Gaza, and more than 1 in 5 of them are children.
Yet only a small portion of those in need of medical evacuation have been able to do so. Critical cases are being delayed or denied, often with fatal consequences. At least 1,000 patients have died while awaiting medical evacuation, according to the Ministry of Health, including one of our Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) colleagues, Abed El Hameed Qaradaya, who died while awaiting clearance for surgery that could have saved his life.
MSF is calling on Israeli authorities to facilitate medical evacuations for all patients who need it, with full respect to their right to a safe, voluntary, and dignified return to Gaza. And they must be allowed to travel with at least one caregiver. Further, more countries must open their doors to medical evacuees. While some countries—such as Egypt, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Türkiye, and Jordan—have carried their share of the responsibility, others have accepted very few patients, if any at all. This inaction is indefensible.
MSF has been able to evacuate a small number of patients for specialized, lifesaving care, including at our reconstructive surgery hospital in Amman, Jordan. But this is only a drop in the ocean. These are the stories of people waiting for a chance to survive.
“I wish to get to them out in time before I lose them”
I have three children who need evacuation, meaning they need medical treatment abroad. I have medical transfer [referrals] for them. A daughter of mine has already died from the same disease that the other three have. This was also due to a lack of treatment. Even though things were better before the war, there was always a lack of medication in Gaza.
We are from Rafah. We were displaced to Al-Mawasi, Khan Younis. I sometimes struggle to reach the hospital, especially at night. If one of my children has an asthma attack I don’t know how to act. One time, I left at 1 a.m., carrying them, running to the hospital. It’s a long distance.
Qasem has acute malnutrition. His health was better before the period of famine. Then he started to lose weight and had acute malnutrition. He started to swell—his hands swelled, his legs swelled, and his face swelled. He couldn’t breathe; he would turn blue. It shocked me that Qasem reached this stage, the same as his sister. We didn't make it in time for her. She had liver failure due to the lack of proteins and she died.
Things were okay back then; there was treatment even if it was little. But now, there is nothing. I am afraid that what happened to his sister will happen to Qasem and his other siblings. That's why I wish to get to them out in time before I lose them.
Two months ago, the tanks invaded us and no one knew they were coming. Suddenly, everyone started running. We fled. I didn't even have time to take the nebulizer machine for my sick children. I couldn't find it. After the Israelis withdrew and we went back to check our tents, we didn't find anything. The nebulizer was broken. The medicines Qasem takes, his vitamins and proteins, all of it was gone. Nothing. We found nothing.
“Many times, Khader was about to die in my arms”
My son has a disease called carbohydrate malabsorption syndrome. He used to drink a special milk formula to regulate his blood sugar and his problems. For two years, due to the war, that milk has been cut off for him. So he developed problems in his kidney. The right kidney, which was originally in his pelvis, wasted away. And the left kidney expanded due to urine retention, and he developed sugar spikes.
Khader is a normal child. He loves to go out, he loves to move a lot, but because of his condition, I haven't sent him to school. He has constant diarrhea, 24 hours spent going back and forth to the bathroom every 10–15 minutes. I wish I could say he goes out to play with the kids. He goes out, but he can't even reach the door—he comes back for the bathroom.
Many times, Khader was about to die in my arms. I didn't have money to call a car to take him to the hospital. I would wait until ambulances had finished with injury cases and other urgent cases, so that someone could just come and save Khader. The situation has been like this for two years.
I felt all his sickness. Since he was 40 days old, he has been suffering in this way. His condition worsened because of the war. There is no food provided, there is no milk. It was cut off for him.
“There is no difference between before the ceasefire and after”
On October 1, we were bombed by the occupation in a tent in Zawaida, in Deir al-Balah. I remained for about 15 minutes lying on the ground, my legs injured. My mother, father, grandmother, and my older sister were all killed. After that, young men from the street took me by car to the [MSF] field hospital in Deir al-Balah. They bandaged my legs and gave me medications.
After that, they transferred me by ambulance to Nasser Hospital due to the lack of vascular doctors at the field hospital. There, they performed an amputation on my right leg and put a plate in my left leg, and they opened my abdomen because of shrapnel in the small intestines and shrapnel in the large intestines. My abdomen was opened three times due to a problem in the intestines. Now, my abdomen has been sutured and my left leg has a skin graft—it has been sutured—and my right leg has been sutured.
There is no difference between before the ceasefire and after. I am newly injured and have just lost my family. It doesn't feel any different. It doesn't feel any different, ceasefire or not.
“Within eight minutes the whole house was destroyed”
I was in my family's house, a six-story building. [The Israeli forces] asked us to evacuate. I was 30 meters away from my son. They hit my son, and he was killed on the spot. After that, they targeted me too with a missile. It was in the Zaytoun neighborhood. Within eight minutes the whole house was destroyed.
I stayed in the Mamadani [Al-Ahli Baptist] Hospital for nearly two and a half months. Then they asked me to evacuate.
The situation has deteriorated for us in Gaza, around the Baptist area and such. So I evacuated to a tent in Tal El Hawa. I set my tent near a house. Then the Israelis threatened to bomb the house. People carried me, as I cannot walk at all due to my injuries. They took me and we ran. They bombed the house; it was completely destroyed. Nothing remained, not a thing.
The transfer for evacuation has been issued for a while. We are waiting. We hope to God that, God, He will relieve. I have a son who’s a cancer patient and is waiting to be evacuated too. It's been a month since he was supposed to travel.
“There is no room for delay”
Stories, he loves to listen to lots of stories. And he is very social. He loves to draw, loves to color, loves to play a lot. [A doctor] told me that his condition was stable and he was fine, and his heart muscle had improved—but due to the situation we are in, and the period of poor nutrition, and the fire and smoke, and the streets, and the life we are living, he suffered a relapse. His heart muscle weakness reached 20 percent. He couldn't bear any sound or noise. He was in so much pain and was irritable and couldn't tolerate anyone around him. Even his brothers, he can't tolerate them.
Yamen was once a playful and social child who loved stories, drawing, and coloring, but he has struggled to play since his heart condition deteriorated after months of displacement, poor nutrition, and harsh living conditions. Palestine 2025 © Nour Alsaqqa/MSF
He started telling me, "Let's go," meaning he can't bear being in the tent. “I want to go home." The hospital became his place.
When I give him the phone to talk to his siblings, he tells me, "I can't talk to anyone." I have the referral for medical evacuation, but Yamen’s condition cannot handle delays. I see the referrals and evacuations around me, people telling me you want an evacuation in a month or two, our children have been waiting for months and years ... But I see that Yamen's relapse is urgent, his condition is worsening day by day. I mean, there is no room for delay.
“All I want is to stand on my feet”
What happened is that I came to Deir al-Balah—it was my first time visiting the south—and the airstrike happened in a tent next to the place where I was. I was admitted to the hospital and stayed for 13 hours in surgery. My left leg was amputated. My right leg suffered from complex fractures and an external fixator was installed. And also, a neck incision was made and a tracheostomy was placed.
I have two referrals. One referral from this injury that I am suffering from ... and the other from a previous injury, back in November. [The first injury] was when [Israeli forces] bombed my uncle's house, and all the neighbors' houses were completely bombed. I was trapped under the rubble for 23 hours. I got out from under the rubble after struggling, by the grace of God. I stayed in the hospital for 45 days. And I had a fracture in my spinal column.
Death. I was only thinking about death. It was very cold. I kept imagining things no one would think about. I was screaming, screaming from the pain, because my leg was trapped under [rubble] piled on it. The feeling was difficult—whether I would be saved from death or not. When they reached me, I lost consciousness, [then] I found myself in the hospital.
Why aren’t we being medically evacuated? We are all injured. I hope I can leave for treatment. All I want is to stand on my feet, that’s all I want. I want them to fit me with a prosthetic limb and perform the surgeries on my other foot, so I can stand on my feet again.
