Thousands of children in Gaza Require Immediate Medical Airlifts Due to Injuries
In the heart of Gaza City's al Zeitoun neighbourhood, eight-year-old Retal lies motionless on the floor of her apartment, her torso covered in bandages and her eyes full of pain. Retal, who lost her brother Karam, 12, and sister Judy, 10, in a shelling attack on July 5, 2025, has undergone nine abdominal surgeries but has yet to recover.
Over the past two years, at least 19,000 children have been killed and 42,000 injured in the Gaza Strip. The number of children medically evacuated from Gaza has dropped significantly, with the average dropping from 296 per month in the first four months of 2024 to fewer than one child per day by late 2024.
Gaza's health system is struggling to cope with the sheer number of life-threatening injuries such as head trauma, amputations, and burns. The remaining hospitals are operating under extreme strain and cannot provide the lifesaving medical care that injured children like Retal urgently need.
UNICEF has warned that, if the slow pace of medevac permissions continues, it would take more than seven years to evacuate the 2,500 children needing urgent medical care. The organisation has the ability to safely transport badly injured children out of Gaza, but the lives of 450,000 children, including the desperately ill like Retal, are in the balance as the bombardment of Gaza City intensifies.
UNICEF spokesperson Tess Ingram spoke about the delayed evacuation of children with urgent medical needs from Gaza in 2024, urging for medical evacuations at speed and at scale, with the guarantee that all evacuated patients can return to Gaza. The international community is being called upon to open their borders and open their hearts for children like Retal.
Sadly, Retal's condition is getting worse by the day, and she is dying a slow death. The world must act now to ensure that children like Retal receive the medical care they desperately need and deserve.
Read also:
- United States tariffs pose a threat to India, necessitating the recruitment of adept negotiators or strategists, similar to those who had influenced Trump's decisions.
- Weekly happenings in the German Federal Parliament (Bundestag)
- Southwest region's most popular posts, accompanied by an inquiry:
- Discussion between Putin and Trump in Alaska could potentially overshadow Ukraine's concerns
