The partial opening of the Rafah border has created a sense of disappointment across Gaza with families and children in urgent need of medical evacuation being left in limbo waiting for news, Save the Children said.
The crossing will allow only 150 people to leave and 50 to return each day, despite 20,000 people, including 4,000 children, needing medical evacuation for care that is not available in Gaza.
Under the new restrictions, it would take over a year for those that need medical evacuations to leave Gaza. The Gaza Ministry of Health has said 1,268 patients have already died while waiting to leave for urgent medical treatment.
Under the new conditions no goods or aid are permitted to enter Gaza, continuing to leave critical humanitarian supplies blocked at the border. No students can leave to study abroad and families who hoped for reunification are continuing to wait.
Shurouq, Multimedia Manager Gaza, Save the Children, said: “The sense of uncertainty and disappointment is hovering everywhere in Gaza, I feel as though I can touch it in the air. According to the reports, only 150 people are allowed to leave and enter Gaza, this is a drop in the ocean of the number of people that desperately need medical evacuation.
“Under the new restrictions it would take over a year for those that need urgent medical evacuations to leave Gaza, in the time people are forced to wait children will die, they cannot wait any longer.
“According to on the ground reports only 15 people have been informed that they are authorised to be evacuated today. These families have gathered in hospitals in Khan Younis to be evacuated.
“For the thousands of other families and children in urgent need of medical evacuation, they are being left in an agonising limbo anxiously waiting for news. Parents are being forced to separate from their children.
“I have just spoken to a mother of a 12-year-old injured boy who has told me how she is faced with the impossible decision to take her child to be medically evacuated, forcing her leave their four other children behind in makeshift tents under the risk of Israeli strikes. This left me speechless. How can we separate children from their parents, even when their lives depend on it?
“We must not be fooled by the headlines that the crossing has been opened.
“Families are currently left devastated by no mention of family reunification, access to education for those students hoping to study abroad or any increase in aid to enter Gaza.
“Rafah border must be opened without restrictions, anything less is a dangerous facade. People had clung to hope that things might change if the border opened, they had hoped for a break from the horror and the ability to gain a sense of freedom. But the news is another blow to the people of Gaza, leaving them feeling like they are pawns under Israeli control, continuing to be trapped and controlled.”
