Desperate Times: Gaza's Children Await Life-Saving Care Amidst Ceasefire

Sat Oct 25 2025 20:27:42 GMT+0300 (Eastern European Summer Time)

With the fragile ceasefire holding in Gaza, urgent calls for medical evacuations continue as children suffer from life-threatening conditions, showcasing the dire health crisis in the war-torn region.

As the ceasefire in Gaza shows glimpses of hope, children are desperately waiting for medical evacuations to receive urgent treatments. The World Health Organization estimates approximately 15,000 patients are in dire need of assistance, but many succumb to illnesses as the conflict hampers their access to life-saving care. Recent tragedies include the deaths of young patients at Nasser Hospital. Reports reveal significant delays and obstacles blocking the transfer of many patients to equipped facilities, intensifying the ongoing humanitarian crisis.

So many lives in Gaza still hang in the balance.

In different wards of Nasser Hospital lie two 10-year-old boys, one shot by Israeli fire and paralysed from the neck down, another with a brain tumour.

Now that a fragile ceasefire is in place, they are among some 15,000 patients who the World Health Organization (WHO) says are in need of urgent medical evacuations.

Ola Abu Said sits gently stroking the hair of her son Amar. His family says he was in their tent in southern Gaza when he was hit by a stray bullet fired by an Israeli drone. It is lodged between two of his vertebrae, leaving him paralysed.

He needs surgery urgently, Ola says, but it's complicated. Doctors told us it could cause his death, a stroke or brain hemorrhage. He needs surgery in a well-equipped place.

However, Gaza is anything but that. After two years of war, its hospitals have been left in a critical state.

On Wednesday, the WHO coordinated the first medical convoy to exit Gaza since the fragile ceasefire began on 10 October. It took 41 patients and 145 carers to hospitals abroad via Israel's Kerem Shalom crossing, with ambulances and buses taking the group on to Jordan. Some have stayed for care there.

The UN agency has called for the number of medical evacuations to be rapidly increased to deal with the thousands of cases of sick and wounded. It wants to be able to bring out patients through Gaza's Rafah border crossing with Egypt as it has done previously.

However, Israel has said it is keeping the crossing closed until Hamas 'fulfils' its commitments under the terms of the Gaza ceasefire deal by returning the bodies of deceased hostages.

The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says that in the year to August 2025, at least 740 people, including nearly 140 children, died while on waiting lists.

Since the ceasefire, hope has run out for more of his patients.

Without urgent assistance and expanded medical evacuations, many Gazans remain vulnerable, and the clock is ticking against their survival.