1,000 women and children from Gaza will soon be evacuated to Europe for medical care, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) Europe department, Hans Kluge, said in an interview with AFP on Monday (October 21).
In the interview, Hans Kluge said that many women and children in Gaza are being deprived of medical care due to the Israeli aggression. Israel has committed to the European Union to allow another 1,000 women and children to be evacuated to Europe for medical care within the next month. They will be assisted by European countries as well as the UN health agency.
UN investigators accused Israel of “crimes against humanity” on Thursday, saying that it is deliberately targeting health facilities in Gaza and killing and torturing medical workers there.
“This would never have happened if we had not continued the dialogue,” Kluge said. The same applies to Ukraine. Now, 15,000 HIV-AIDS patients are receiving HIV-AIDS drugs in the occupied territory of Donbas. We will always continue to condemn such attacks in the strongest possible terms.”
The 55-year-old Belgian stressed the importance of “not politicizing health.”
“The most important medicine is peace,” said Kluge. “Healthcare workers must be allowed to work in conflict zones,” he said.
Kluge wants to address the worrying situation of young people’s health and the growing inequality between men and women.
The WHO representative in the occupied Palestinian territories, Rick Pieperkorn, said in May that around 10,000 people would need to be evacuated from Gaza for urgent medical care.
WHO Europe has already evacuated 600 people from Gaza to seven European countries for treatment since the fighting began there in October 2023.