Al-Shifa Hospital director says blocking medical evacuations by way of Rafah crossing may very well be ‘dying sentence’ for a lot of.
Revealed On 3 Feb 2026
United Nations chief Antonio Guterres once more has known as on Israel to instantly enable humanitarian assist into the Gaza Strip, because the Israeli authorities proceed to block dozens of Palestinians from exiting the war-ravaged enclave to hunt medical therapy.
Guterres made the enchantment on Tuesday, as greater than 100 sick and injured Palestinians congregated on the newly reopened Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, hoping to entry medical care overseas.
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“I additionally name for the facilitation of fast and unimpeded passage of humanitarian reduction at scale – together with by way of the Rafah crossing,” Guterres stated throughout an tackle at UN headquarters in New York.
Reporting from southern Gaza’s Khan Younis, Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary stated solely 16 Palestinians had been allowed to cross into Egypt by way of Rafah on Tuesday. A day earlier, solely 5 individuals had been permitted to leave, whereas 12 had been allowed again into Gaza.
That’s far beneath the 50 Palestinians who Israeli officers stated can be allowed to journey in every route by way of the crossing.
“There isn’t a clarification as to why crossings are being delayed at Rafah,” Khoudary stated. “The method is taking a particularly very long time.”
She added that Palestinians have been pressured to go away all their belongings when passing by way of the crossing, which till Monday had been principally closed for almost two years throughout Israel’s genocidal conflict in opposition to Palestinians in Gaza.
“There are about 20,000 individuals ready [in Gaza] for pressing medical consideration overseas,” Khoudary stated.
Palestinian man shot lifeless
In the meantime, Israeli forces shot and killed a 19-year-old Palestinian close to Khan Younis, regardless of a purported “ceasefire” deal that entered into drive in October.
Gaza’s Nasser Hospital stated the person was shot in an space away from the place the Israeli army has seized whole management.
His dying brings the variety of Palestinians killed in Israeli assaults on Gaza because the begin of the “ceasefire” in mid-October to 529, based on the enclave’s Well being Ministry.
Most of Gaza’s hospitals and medical infrastructure were obliterated in Israel’s genocidal conflict, leaving critically injured and chronically in poor health sufferers with little recourse contained in the territory.
One injured man, 37-year-old Shadi Soboh, stated he has been ready for 10 months after receiving clearance to journey overseas for a bone transplant surgical procedure.
“The place is the Board of Peace? The place is the world? Are they ready for my leg to get amputated?” he stated, referring to a mechanism arrange by United States President Donald Trump to supervise the reconstruction of Gaza.
Muhammad Abu Salmiya, director of Gaza Metropolis’s al-Shifa Hospital, additionally implored Israel to urgently allow the entry of medical provides and gear.
Till then, he wrote on Fb, “denying the evacuation of sufferers and stopping the entry of medicines is a dying sentence for them.”
The Rafah crossing was imagined to reopen in mid-October as a part of phase one of the US-brokered “ceasefire” agreement.
However Israel refused to open the passage till it introduced again the stays of deceased captives held in Gaza, the last of which it received on January 26.
