1,000 women and children will be evacuated from Gaza for medical treatment in Europe

The World Health Organization's regional director for Europe says 1,000 women and children in need of medical assistance will be evacuated from Gaza to Europe in the near future.

Israel's siege in the war-torn Gaza Strip is exacerbating the dire medical challenges. "Israel has committed to carry out an additional 1,000 medical evacuations to the European Union in the coming months," Hans Kluge, WHO regional director for Europe, told AFP in an interview Monday.

He said the WHO and relevant European countries will facilitate medical evacuation operations.

United Nations investigators said last week that Israel had committed crimes against humanity by deliberately targeting medical facilities in Gaza, killing and mistreating local medical staff. The WHO representative in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Rik Peeperkorn, said in May that about 10,000 people needed to be evacuated from Gaza to receive emergency medical care.

Over the past year, WHO Europe has assisted in the evacuation of 600 patients from Gaza to seven European countries for emergency medical treatment. "We couldn't have done this if we hadn't kept the dialogue [open]," Krueger says.

Mr Krueger added that the same was true in Ukraine, where "I maintain a [open] dialogue with all partners".

He said that the 15,000 patients in Donbass are being treated, that health issues must not be politicized, that the most important medicine is peace, and that health workers must be allowed to work in conflict areas.

The Palestinian Authority says more than 42,000 people have been killed in Gaza, most of its 2.3 million people have been displaced and much of the territory has been destroyed since a new round of fighting broke out in October.