Statement by WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom on evacuations of patients from Gaza

WHO has repeatedly raised the alarm that patients in Gaza need urgent medical evacuation for life-saving treatment, yet the pace of evacuations remains excruciatingly slow.

Only 5383 patients have been evacuated with support from WHO since October 2023, of which only 436 since the Rafah crossing was closed.

Over 12,000 people still need medical evacuation. At this rate, it would take 5-10 years to evacuate all these critically ill patients, including thousands of children. In the meantime, their conditions get worse and some die.

On 31 December 2024, 55 patients and 72 companions were evacuated to the UAE. We thank the  government for their continued support – they have helped with the medical evacuation of over 1200 patients so far.

We also thank Egypt, Qatar, Türkiye, Algeria, Italy, Romania, Spain, Ireland, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Tunisia, Oman, Jordan and the USA for their support with medical evacuations and health care.

Too many people’s lives remain at risk. We urge Israel to:

1) Increase the approval rate for medical evacuations, including no denials of child patients;
2) Expedite the process of approvals for medical evacuations;
3) Allow all possible corridors and border crossings to be used for safe medical evacuations.

We also call on all countries to help by receiving patients and offering specialized health care to prevent more suffering and deaths.