The trip is the second of its kind to take place this week.
ADVERTISEMENTOn Monday, Belgium will start receiving a total of 12 medical patients from Gaza as the Israel-Hamas war enters its 10th month.
Three of the youngest, aged 6 to 10, need cancer treatment and will be accompanied on the journey by their families.
The move comes just days after Spain welcomed 16 young patients and their relatives, in what is expected to be the start of a wave of similar evacuations after the EU committed help to Gaza in a deal struck in tandem with the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF), and the World Health Organisation.
“These patients have been evacuated through the PCRF prior to the Rafah closure to Egypt, use it as a central hub and then pulled from there to Belgium. And obviously, as you can tell, the trip is not easy. These are patients that have lost everything at home. They have lost their homes. They have lost loved ones,” explained Tareq Hailat, Head of the Treatment Abroad Program for Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF).
The transportation of the children was carried out by a Slovakian medical aircraft, in the second mission of its kind.
“Each country picks based on the criteria that they believe is best for how they can help those patients. And so Spain has had patients that had orthopaedic problems, chronic conditions, cardiac problems. Belgium’s focus was primarily more on the oncology-like patients,” said Hailat.
The patients will remain in Europe for the duration of their treatment and until there is a ceasefire in Gaza, he explains. In the past week, several strikes from both sides have resulted in dozens of child victims.
Children at the heart of the conflict
Israeli airstrikes hit a school used by displaced Palestinians in central Gaza on Saturday, killing at least 30 people including several children as the country’s negotiators prepared to meet international mediators about a proposed cease-fire.
Seven children and seven women were among the dead taken from the girls’ school in Deir al-Balah to Al Aqsa Hospital. Israel’s military said it targeted a Hamas command centre used to direct attacks against Israeli troops and store “large quantities of weapons.” Hamas retaliated by calling the military’s claim false.
Elsewhere, a rocket strike on a soccer field killed at least 12 children and teens Saturday according to Israeli authorities, as fighting between Israel and Lebanese militant groups has escalated.
Israel blamed Hezbollah for the strike in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, which Hezbollah has denied.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Hezbollah “will pay a heavy price for this attack, one that it has not paid so far”.
The Israeli military’s chief spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, called it the deadliest attack on Israeli civilians since the Hamas attack on 7 October that sparked the war in Gaza.
The war in Gaza has killed more than 39,200 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count.
The UN estimated in February that some 17,000 children in the territory are now unaccompanied, and the number is likely to have grown since.