KUALA LUMPUR, April 17 (Bernama) — With an alarming average of at least 70 children in Gaza injured every day due to the ongoing Israel’s military aggression, the need for medical evacuations is increasingly needed to ensure children receive urgent medical care they desperately need, a UNICEF official said Tuesday.
UNICEF Communication Specialist Tess Ingram said children are wearing a tremendous share of the scars of this war, with thousands of injured children in Gaza struggling to receive the medical care they need.
Detailing her recent two-week visit to Gaza in a UN press briefing in Geneva, Ingram said medical directors of some of the 11 partially functioning hospitals that remain told her that the lack of staff and supplies – needles, stitches, anaesthetic – is negatively impacting the care they can provide, especially for surgeries.
Medivacs are difficult to get where less than half of the patients who submitted requests for medical evacuation have been approved, she said.
“Only about 3,500 people, mostly children, have been medically evacuated abroad. That’s less than 20 a day.
“Urgent medical cases in Gaza must be able to safely access critical health services or be allowed to leave. Sick and injured children who are evacuated must be accompanied by family members,” she said in her briefing note.
Citing the latest statistic from the Palestinian Health Ministry, she said more than 12,000 children – or almost 70 children every day – were injured in Gaza since Oct 7.
“This is almost certainly an underestimate because only a small number of all reported injuries are disaggregated to specify when it is a child that has been injured.
“With one child killed or injured every ten minutes, above anything else, we need a ceasefire. It is the only way to stop the killing and maiming of children,” she said.
Israel has waged a deadly military offensive on the Gaza Strip since Oct 7, 2023, killing nearly 33,800 Palestinians and injuring nearly 76,400 others amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities.
— BERNAMA
