TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - More than 1,000 patients in the Gaza Strip have died while awaiting medical evacuation since mid-2024, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday. WHO warned that the actual number is likely higher.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated, as reported by ISNA News, that 1,092 patients had died while waiting for medical evacuation from July 2024 to November 2025. This occurred amid ongoing movement restrictions and Gaza's collapsing healthcare system.
According to WHO, since October 2023, the organization and its partners have facilitated the evacuation of over 10,600 patients from Gaza suffering from serious health conditions.
Of this number, over 5,600 patients were children in need of continued care and life-saving interventions.
Tedros urged more countries to be willing to accept patients from the Gaza Strip and called for the resumption of the medical evacuation pathway to the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
He emphasized that delays in medical evacuation continued to claim lives.
As reported by France24, as of December 1, more than 30 countries have received patients from Gaza. However, only a handful of countries, including Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, have accepted them in large numbers.
The healthcare system in Gaza has been devastated due to Israeli genocide and military aggression, severe shortages of medicines and fuel, and the destruction of hospitals and medical infrastructure, preventing many patients from accessing specialized treatments such as cancer care, dialysis, or complex surgeries.
WHO has repeatedly warned that delays and restrictions on medical evacuation have cost lives, especially among children and patients with chronic or life-threatening conditions.
On Friday, WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic also informed reporters in Geneva, Switzerland, that around 18,500 patients still required treatment outside of Gaza, including over 4,000 children.
An official from Doctors Without Borders (MSF) earlier this month stated that the WHO figures only referred to registered patients and that the actual number of people urgently needing evacuation was several times higher.
Meanwhile, UNICEF spokesperson Ricardo Pires told reporters that a third child had died from hypothermia in Gaza due to "horrendous weather and cold."
"We have seen reports that in December, up to now, three children have died of hypothermia, including yesterday, a 29-month-old baby who couldn't endure the disease, the cold temperatures, the lack of medical infrastructure, medicines, and support to help her survive, so the baby died of hypothermia," he said.
The Gaza government media office has repeatedly accused Israel of failing to fulfill its obligations under the ceasefire and its humanitarian protocols, including the entry of materials for housing and the delivery of 300,000 tents and mobile homes for refugee families.
Separately, the Gaza Health Ministry stated in a release that hospitals in the besieged area received one casualty and 13 wounded individuals in the past 24 hours, due to the ongoing Israeli aggression.
Despite the ceasefire, Israeli forces continue to carry out deadly attacks in the blockaded Gaza Strip, killing 395 Palestinian civilians and injuring 1,088 others, in addition to the recovery of 634 bodies, according to the ministry's statement.
The statement further reported that the death toll in Gaza since October 2023 had risen to 70,669, with another 171,165 injured.
“Many victims remain trapped under rubble of the destroyed buildings or on roads, as ambulance and civil defense teams are still unable to reach them,” it added.
Around 250,000 Palestinian families live in refugee camps, many in vulnerable makeshift tents susceptible to flooding and freezing conditions.
Read: WHO: US$7 Billion Required to Rebuild Gaza's Health Services
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