The World Health Organization has revealed a devastating humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza, with more than 1,000 patients having perished while awaiting urgent medical evacuation between July 2024 and November 2025. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus disclosed these alarming figures through an official statement, emphasizing that the actual death toll is likely significantly higher due to underreporting.
Despite successful medical evacuations of approximately 10,600 critically ill patients from Gaza—including more than 5,600 children—since the conflict began over two years ago, the situation remains dire. WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic confirmed that an estimated 18,500 patients still require immediate treatment outside Gaza’s decimated healthcare system, with over 4,000 being children.
The medical evacuation process faces severe challenges, with only about 30 countries having accepted patients from Gaza. Egypt and the United Arab Emirates have borne the brunt of this medical burden, accepting the majority of evacuated cases. The WHO has issued an urgent appeal for more nations to open their doors to Gaza’s medical patients and to restore evacuation routes to the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
This medical emergency persists despite a US-brokered ceasefire that took effect on October 10, following Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. However, the truce remains precarious, with both sides regularly accusing each other of violations. Medical organizations on the ground, including Doctors Without Borders, warn that the WHO’s figures represent only registered patients, and the actual number requiring emergency evacuation is substantially higher.
The WHO’s statement underscores the critical nature of timely medical intervention, with spokesperson Jasarevic stressing that ‘many of these people don’t have time to wait’ for the political and logistical obstacles to be resolved.