GAZA – Dozens of sick and injured children, including 20 cancer patients, have been evacuated from Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing, the first to leave since Israel launched its offensive in Rafah last month.

The 68 were transferred to Cairo, Egypt, on Thursday, Israeli authorities say. COGAT, the Israeli agency responsible for approving aid into Gaza, coordinated the passage along with the Israeli military, the US, Egypt and the World Health Organization (WHO). The news provided a moment of relief for the parents, whose children who had been unable to access lifesaving care after more than eight months of Israeli bombardment in Gaza.

“It was a tough time for us in northern Gaza, nine months of exhaustion, displacement,” Samira Al-Saeedi, whose six-year-old daughter Jouri was evacuated, told CNN earlier this week. “People started stealing just to eat… Sick children cannot withstand famine.”

CNN footage from Nasser Hospital on Tuesday showed another evacuee – five-year-old blood cancer patient Yasmin – squirming in pain, her emaciated limbs sprawled on a teal mattress. “She is suffering and moving between hospitals receiving blood treatments… Every day she feels more pain than the day before,” said her mother Umm Ubaida. “She is extremely tired. She can’t wait any longer.” The evacuations come with the southern Rafah crossing, a key transit point, still closed despite negotiations on its re-opening.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus welcomed the evacuation on Friday. He appealed for increased medical passage “via all possible routes including Rafah and Karem Shalom, to Egypt, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and from there to other countries when needed.” But as Israel’s siege persists – and the risk of famine grows – Palestinian officials have warned that the operation was “a drop in the ocean” compared to hundreds more severely ill children who are still trapped in the ravaged enclave.

More than 25,000 sick people require urgent treatment abroad, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza. Among those are 980 children with cancer – including 250 patients who could face “certain death” – the ministry reported on Friday. Israel’s military campaign has depleted the medical system and drained food supplies. (CNN)…[+]