Palestinians wounded in Israeli assault on Gaza cross into Egypt for treatment

Palestinians injured in the ongoing Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip began on Monday to arrive in Egypt for medical treatment via the border crossing at Rafah. 

At least 200 people, including 59 children, have been killed in Gaza as a result of Israeli airstrikes and 1,305 people have been injured, the Palestinian Health Ministry announced on Monday.

At the time of writing, the first three injured Palestinians, including one child, had crossed from the Gaza Strip into North Sinai. Several medical and administrative sources in the Sinai Peninsula told Mada Masr on Friday that Arish General Hospital, Sheikh Zuwayed Hospital and Bir al-Abd Hospital were being prepared to receive Palestinians injured in Gaza.

On the ground in North Sinai, residents of Sheikh Zuwayed started a blood donation campaign, anticipating any emergency blood transfusions that may be needed to treat wounded Palestinians, while families in the governorate’s capital, Arish, announced that they would provide accommodation for those accompanying the wounded.

Meanwhile, a total of 1,800 doctors have volunteered to travel to Gaza and Sinai to help treat those injured in the assault on Gaza, Secretary-General of the Egyptian Doctors Syndicate Osama Abdel Hay told Mada Masr. He said applications will remain open in case new needs arise, or in case doctors need to be redistributed to the Sinai hospitals receiving the wounded in coordination with the Health Ministry. The Doctors Syndicate issued a call for volunteers on Friday. 

Abdel Hay said on Sunday that the syndicate is coordinating with the Foreign Ministry and has sent names and photos of the medical volunteers to secure their travel. The syndicate will sort the applicants and prioritize doctors whose specialties are needed in the Gaza Strip, including neurosurgeons, vascular surgeons, pulmonologists and intensive care physicians, Abdel Hay said.

Dr. Mohamed Hammouda, a kidney surgeon currently working at Sheikh Zayed al-Nahyan Hospital in Mansheyet Nasser, who was among those who volunteered to go to Gaza to treat the wounded, told Mada Masr that “traveling to Gaza would be a priority” in his case since some patients will need immediate medical care and would not be able to wait to be transferred to Egypt.

Hammouda was uncertain whether assignment to Gaza would be qualified as a work assignment or if he would be required to take leave. “A similar assignment [in Gaza] several years ago” worked out well, he said, adding that the syndicate intervened to ensure that the Health Ministry recorded it as work. 

Egyptian authorities opened the Rafah crossing a day ahead of schedule on Sunday afternoon after it was originally scheduled to remain closed from Wednesday through Sunday as a five-day national holiday was called across the country for Eid-al-Fitr.

Meanwhile, medical and administrative sources denied claims that 95 Palestinians wounded in the airstrikes entered Egypt on Sunday, saying that only students, those seeking other types of medical care in Egypt and other humanitarian cases had been permitted to cross into Egypt on Sunday.

A number of ambulances and a medical team were stationed at the crossing on Sunday to examine incoming patients and determine which hospitals would receive them, an administrative source at the Rafah crossing told Mada Masr.

Vehicles carrying aid provisions also began to cross into Gaza on Monday, which has already received four vehicles carrying medical equipment from the Egyptian Red Crescent and 15 vehicles transporting fuel. Another 20 vehicles carrying fuel and 13 carrying food provisions are poised to cross the border, while travelers are permitted to cross at Rafah according to the normal criteria.