Ben Pawlowski
FIFTEEN children from Gaza have arrived in Madrid to receive ‘urgent medical care’ as part of a deal to fly hundreds of youngsters injured in the Israeli-Palestine conflict to cities across Europe.
According to the Spanish daily El Pais, 13 of the patients have serious trauma injuries, while one has cancer and another is suffering from chronic heart disease.
The serious injuries include a 3-year-old with head trauma, a 10-year-old with multiple facial wounds and a 13-year-old with damage to their limbs.
Several children have also suffered extensive burn wounds.
The children arrived from Cairo, the Egyptian capital, on Thursday accompanied by close family and will be transferred to hospitals across Spain.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez offered a warm welcome to the children on Twitter/X.
He tweeted: “A group of 15 injured Gazan minors have just arrived. In this way, we respond to our commitment to the World Health Organisation, offering them safe treatment and giving them what every child deserves, wherever they were born: a healthy and hopeful childhood. Welcome to Spain”.
The evacuation process forms part of a deal between the EU’s Civil Protection Mechanism, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF) to offer support to those injured in Gaza.
Dr Tedros Abhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of WHO, said: “These very sick children will be getting the care they need thanks to cooperation between several partners and countries. We are immensely grateful for the support and facilitation provided by Egypt and Spain.
“We encourage other countries who have the capacity and medical facilities to welcome people who, through no fault of their own, are caught in the grips of this war”.
Dr Hans Henri P. Klufe, WHO Regional Director for Europe, added; “Gracias, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, Health Minister Monica Garcia, and all who have made this possible. Indeed, ‘to save one child, one life, is to save humankind’, is a concept recognising the interconnectedness of all humanity”.
Since the conflict began in October 2023, around 5,000 people have been evacuated for treatment outside Gaza, with 80% of those taken to Egypt, Qatar, and the UAE.
Some 40,000 Palestinians have died since the October 7 attacks, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, with humanitarian groups warning that shortages of food, water and medicine threaten to worsen a dire situation.
The WHO warned on Tuesday that there is a high risk of polio spreading throughout Gaza and beyond thanks to the dire standards of sanitation and medicine.
On Saturday, four Palestinians reached Formentera after making a dangerous sea crossing from Algeria.
The three men and one woman are reported to be the first Palestinian asylum seekers to have fled Gaza and made the journey to Spain via small boats.
