ABU DHABI — The United Arab Emirates evacuated 252 folks from Gaza on the night time of Sept. 11, as a part of its ongoing efforts to offer humanitarian assist and medical care for these affected by the battle within the Strip, which is nearing the one-year mark.
Amongst these rescued had been 97 critically wounded individuals who had been accompanied by 155 of their members of the family. Of the overall quantity, 142 had been youngsters.
The evacuees boarded the airplane from Ramon Airport within the southern Israeli metropolis of Eilat. They made the journey to the Purple Sea port metropolis through the Kerem Shalom crossing that hyperlinks Israel with the Gaza Strip.
That is the UAE’s second flight transporting injured individuals in addition to most cancers sufferers from Israel’s southernmost metropolis. The primary UAE flight with Gaza youngsters on board landed in February.
Over 41,000 folks have died within the Gaza Strip and over 90,000 have been injured because of an ongoing Israeli offensive following the Oct. 7 assault on Israel by Hamas that left round 1,200 useless and 250 taken hostage.
“This is without doubt one of the initiatives for those who can fly and for those who do get permitted to get out,” Maha Barakat, a medical physician and an assistant minister for well being and life sciences on the UAE Ministry of Overseas Affairs, informed Al-Monitor. “We deliver them right here to deal with them, and now we have a humanitarian metropolis the place their relations can keep … we will take care of them till they’re properly sufficient to return.”
Humanitarian efforts
The UAE runs a 100-bed floating hospital moored on the port of El Arish in Egypt, near the border with Gaza. The UAE additionally runs a 150-bed discipline hospital within the Gaza Strip to take care of the sick and injured. The UAE’s evacuation of the wounded and the sick from Gaza is a part of a broader plan by the nation’s president, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, to deal with 1,000 injured youngsters and 1,000 most cancers sufferers at hospitals in Abu Dhabi.
Al-Monitor’s Gulf Correspondent, @jcgnana, experiences from on the bottom in Abu Dhabi as sufferers are transported to the UAE for remedy. pic.twitter.com/kOXBh2CJZM
— Al-Monitor (@AlMonitor) September 12, 2024
“Now we have nearly 1,000 already within the United Arab Emirates,” Barakat mentioned. “We proceed to assist. So this isn’t over but. There are a lot of sufferers for whom we’re preventing to get approval to get out. As soon as we get that approval, we’ll deal with them inside the well being care system in Abu Dhabi.”
Barakat mentioned the UAE was attempting to help displaced injured and sick people who couldn’t make it to the Egyptian border following the closure of the Rafah border crossing in Could.
Maysa, 15, and Yara, 10, had been on the flight. Their father, who accompanied them, mentioned the youngsters had misplaced their eyesight in Khan Younis within the southern Gaza Strip because of Israeli bombardment.
“They had been in a faculty after they had been hit together with 4 different youngsters within the household,” he mentioned, holding up an image of their brother, who had a visual head damage and didn’t get approval to go away Gaza.
The household managed the journey through the Kerem Shalom airport to Eilat over two days, he mentioned.
