Dozens of patients and the wounded have been evacuated for treatment outside the war-ravaged Gaza Strip, where the United Nations says Israel’s attacks on and around hospitals have pushed health care to the brink.
The 45 patients left the European Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis early Tuesday and traveled through the Kerem Shalom Crossing into Israel, Palestinian health officials said. They will receive treatment in the United Arab Emirates.
Among them was a 10-year-old boy, Abdullah Abu Yousef, suffering from kidney failure. He was accompanied by his sister after the Israeli authorities rejected his mother’s application to join him. Israel says it screens escorts for security.
“The boy is sick,” said his mother, Abeer Abu Yousef. “He requires hemodialysis three to four days a week.”
The Health Ministry says several thousand Palestinians in Gaza need medical treatment abroad. Israel has controlled all entry and exit points since capturing the southern city of Rafah in May. Israel’s offensive, launched after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack has gutted the territory’s health care system and forced most of its hospitals to close. Those that remain open are only partially functioning.

GENEVA: A United Nations report published Tuesday found that Israeli strikes on and near hospitals in the Gaza Strip had left health care in the Palestinian territory on the verge of collapse.

The report by the UN human rights office said such strikes raised grave concerns about Israel’s compliance with international law.

“Israel’s pattern of deadly attacks on and near hospitals in Gaza, and associated combat, pushed the health care system to the brink of total collapse, with catastrophic effect on Palestinians’ access to health and medical care,” the UN human rights office said in a statement.

Its 23-page report, entitled “Attacks on hospitals during the escalation of hostilities in Gaza,” looked at the period from October 7, 2023 to June 30, 2024.

It said that during this time, there were at least 136 strikes on 27 hospitals and 12 other medical facilities, claiming significant casualties among doctors, nurses, medics and other civilians and causing significant damage to, if not the complete destruction of, civilian infrastructure.

The report noted that medical personnel and hospitals are specifically protected under international humanitarian law, provided they do not commit, or are not used to commit, acts harmful to the enemy outside their humanitarian function.

It found that Israel’s repeated claims that Gaza hospitals were being improperly used for military purposes by Palestinian groups “vague.”

“Insufficient information has so far been made publicly available to substantiate these allegations, which have remained vague and broad, and in some cases appear contradicted by publicly available information,” the report said.

UN human rights chief Volker Turk said Gaza hospitals had become a “death trap.”

“As if the relentless bombing and the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza were not enough, the one sanctuary where Palestinians should have felt safe in fact became a death trap,” he said.

“The protection of hospitals during warfare is paramount and must be respected by all sides, at all times.”

The Gaza war was triggered by the unprecedented Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.

That resulted in 1,208 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed more than 45,500 people in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the UN considers reliable.

The report concluded with a call for credible investigations into the incidents detailed, and said they had to be independent given the “limitations” of Israel’s justice system in respect of the conduct of its armed forces.

“It is essential that there be independent, thorough and transparent investigations of all of these incidents, and full accountability for all violations of international humanitarian and human rights law which have taken place,” said Turk.

“All medical workers arbitrarily detained must be immediately released.

“It must also be a priority for Israel, as the occupying power, to ensure and facilitate access to adequate health care for the Palestinian population, and for future recovery and reconstruction efforts to prioritize the restoration of the medical capacity which has been destroyed over the last 14 months of intense conflict.”