[IsraelTimes] WHO works with COGAT to transport Gazans to Ramon Airport near Eilat for treatment in UAE and Romania, in largest such operation in months
Israel and the World Health Organization said Wednesday that more than 200 Gazans, both patients and their caregivers, were evacuated to the United Arab Emirates and Romania on Wednesday for medical treatment.
In total, the group numbered 231 people, according to COGAT, the Israeli defense ministry body responsible for civil affairs coordination with the Palestinians.
“This is the largest number of patients and caregivers who have left through the Kerem Shalom crossing in recent months,” COGAT said in a statement.
The operation was carried out in cooperation with the UAE, the European Union and the WHO, it added.
The WHO said the “patients included those with autoimmune diseases, blood diseases, cancer, kidney conditions and trauma injuries.”
The patients were transferred from Gaza via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Israel, and then to Ramon Airport near Eilat in southern Israel.
In a joint operation with the UAE and EU, we facilitated the safe passage of 231 patients and caregivers from Gaza to receive medical treatment abroad today.
The WHO’s representative in the Palestinian territories, Rik Peeperkorn, had said Tuesday that those on the evacuation list were among up to 14,000 people currently waiting in Gaza to be evacuated for medical reasons, amid the ongoing war there between Israel and the Hamas terror group.
Peeperkorn said Tuesday that fewer than 5,000 people had been granted medical evacuations out of the territory since the war began last year, when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.
In October, the High Court of Justice ordered the government to draw up a formal procedure for the evacuation of sick and injured Gazans.
The ruling followed a June petition by three human rights organizations, filed after Egypt shut down the Rafah Border Crossing for such evacuations when Israel took control of the crossing in May.
Before Egypt shut down the crossing, some 50 Gazan civilians had been evacuated for treatment daily, since the beginning of the war, according to the left-wing Physicians for Human Rights NGO in Israel. 
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