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BBC<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\nInjured and critically ill Palestinians are on their way from Gaza to the United Arab Emirates for treatment, the World Health Organization (WHO) says, in the largest single medical evacuation since the war began following the brutal Hamas attack on southern Israel on 7 October.<\/p>\n Later on Tuesday the WHO said 85 sick and severely injured patients from Gaza had been evacuated to Abu Dhabi.<\/p>\n The sweeping Israeli military operations that followed have wrecked Gaza\u2019s healthcare system.<\/p>\n And the main route for medical evacuees through Gaza’s Rafah border crossing with Egypt was shut down after the Israeli military took control there in early May.<\/p>\n The WHO says so far some 5,000 Gazans have received treatment outside of the territory, but another 10,000 still need to leave.<\/p>\n This latest group began to gather on Sunday at pickup points for transport to a central location before departing.<\/p>\n In the central city of Deir al-Balah the bus station was crowded with patients and their families.<\/p>\n \u201cI call on the whole world to look at us with compassion,\u201d said Shaza Abu Selim, who was pushing her daughter, Lamis, in a wheelchair. The young girl needs major surgery for scoliosis, which has been delayed now by six months. She barely moved, her face stained with tears and exhaustion.<\/p>\n \u201cI could not believe it when they contacted me [to say] that my daughter was among those on the list going outside Gaza for treatment,\u201d said her mother. \u201cI do not know when the war will end\u2026 and may God make it easy and heal everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Even before the conflict some Gazans got care outside the territory because the health system wasn\u2019t equipped to deal with complex medical conditions.<\/p>\n But Israeli bombardments have closed hospitals, killed doctors, blocked medicines, and overwhelmed remaining facilities with casualties.<\/p>\n Nasima al-Ajeel\u2019s story encapsulates the misery and desperation this has caused.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were struck\u201d she says. \u201cMy eldest son was killed, my father was killed, my youngest son, Asser, lost his sight.\u201d<\/p>\n Ms al-Ajeel is sitting and holding little Asser, his eyelid closed over an empty socket. Her leg is wrapped in bandages.<\/p>\n \u201cHis left eye was blown out with a skull fracture,\u201d she said. \u201cMy middle son suffers from a leg injury and leg deformities, and I suffer a skull fracture, blindness in my left eye, and a broken shoulder and ribs.”<\/p>\n The Israeli army says it has discovered Hamas combatants and infrastructure inside hospitals and health clinics, something the militant Islamist movement, which controlled Gaza before the war, denies.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n But human rights activists have accused Israel of obstructing medical evacuations.<\/p>\n Physicians for Human Rights in Israel and other groups filed a petition in Israel\u2019s High Court of Justice in early June after the Rafah crossing was closed.<\/p>\n Since Israeli forces captured the border area at the start of their ground operation there two months ago, Egypt has refused to reopen the crossing, the only route out of Gaza that does not lead into Israel and previously a main exit point for fleeing civilians and a major channel for aid.<\/p>\n Egyptian officials have insisted that the Gazan side of the crossing must be returned to Palestinian control.<\/p>\n As a result of the court action, the Israeli government committed to establishing a permanent mechanism for allowing regular medical evacuations.<\/p>\n But it has yet to do so, and on Sunday it announced it was cancelling the expected evacuation without saying why.<\/p>\n The Kan public broadcaster reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had made the decision himself, following a deadly Hezbollah attack in the Israeli occupied Golan Heights at the weekend which killed 12 children and teenagers.<\/p>\n That seems to have been quickly reversed. Azza Ahmed Kafarneh, a 57-year-old mother and grandmother suffering from cancer, told the BBC that the patients had prepared to go back home on hearing the news, but were told to stay because \u201cthere is a big potential that they will agree for you to leave\u201d.<\/p>\n Nothing is certain in this war, and for those fortunate enough to escape it, the goodbyes are bittersweet.<\/p>\n Sarah Marzouk, a 12-year-old girl who says she lost her foot when her neighbour\u2019s house was bombed, was wiping away tears at the bus station on Sunday.<\/p>\n \u201cI wish that the war would end and that all children like me would be able to come with me and have artificial limbs fitted and receive treatment abroad,\u201d she said. \u201cI also hope that I will return to see my father in peace.\u201d<\/p>\n Ms Ahmed Kafarneh said she wouldn\u2019t leave if she didn\u2019t feel so sick. She hasn\u2019t heard of any medical evacuees who\u2019ve returned to Gaza.<\/p>\n \u201cI am confused between leaving my family and going out to get treated,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd things maybe will take a longer time and the war maybe will take a long time and things might get worse. Nobody knows.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"Lamis](\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/480\/cpsprodpb\/ee04\/live\/1a8f7e50-4e70-11ef-b2d2-cdb23d5d7c5b.jpg.webp\")
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"Sarah](\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/480\/cpsprodpb\/10ab\/live\/6dac8060-4e70-11ef-8f0f-0577398c3339.jpg.webp\")
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