Ceasefire evacuations bring a lifeline for Gaza’s sick and injured children
A small girl in a pink sweater waved goodbye through the smudged window of a bus as it prepared to depart Gaza on Saturday, packed with 37 ill and injured patients, most of them children with cancer, in need of medical treatment that Gaza's war-ravaged hospitals cannot provide.
A small girl in a pink sweater waved goodbye through the smudged window of a bus as it prepared to depart Gaza on Saturday, packed with 37 ill and injured patients, most of them children with cancer, in need of medical treatment that Gaza's war-ravaged hospitals cannot provide.
It was the first time in nine months that medical evacuees have been able to leave Gaza by the Rafah border crossing, and outside Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, weary mothers held their sick and listless children wrapped up in coats, anxiously waving their documents at officials to confirm their place.
But their departure was bittersweet — only a few patients made the list that day, and each could bring only one companion.
A small boy who tried to squeeze his way onto the bus with his sick brother and mother was escorted off.
“They did not allow me to pass,” Khalil, 8, still sobbing from being separated from his family, told NBC News' crew. “My brother went with my mom, he is sick.”
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