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Rimas Abu Lehia was injured five months ago when Israel Troops open fire on a hungry crowd in Gaza who besieged aid trucks demanding food, one bullet shattering a 15-year-old man Palestine The girl’s left knee.
Now, her best chance of walking again is to travel abroad for surgery. She is among a long list of more than 20,000 Palestinians, including 4,500 children, who have been waiting, some for more than a year, to be evacuated to receive treatment for war wounds or chronic illnesses, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
Their hopes depend on the reopening of the crucial Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, a key point in the nearly four-month ceasefire agreement between Israel and Egypt. Hamas. Israel announced that the crossing would be open in both directions on Sunday.
Israel’s military agency, which coordinates aid to Gaza, said on Friday it would allow “only limited movement of people.” Previously, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel will allow 50 patients to leave per day; others have said up to 150 per day.
According to the United Nations, the number of patients allowed to be discharged from hospital has increased significantly to about 25 per week since the ceasefire began. But it will still take 130 to 400 days to get everyone in need out.
Abu Lehia said her life depends on the border crossing being open.
“I wish I didn’t have to sit in this chair,” she said, crying, pointing to the wheelchair she used to get around. “I need help standing up, getting dressed, going to the bathroom.”
Gaza hospitals damaged, evacuation vital
After Hamas attacked southern Israel in October 2023, triggering war, Israel’s operations in Gaza devastated the region’s health sector – the few hospitals still functioning were overwhelmed by casualties. There is a shortage of medical supplies, and Israel has restricted the entry of aid.
Hospitals are unable to perform complex surgeries for the many injured, including thousands of amputees, or to treat many chronic conditions. Gaza’s only specialized cancer hospital closed early in the war and Israeli forces blew it up in early 2025. The military said without providing evidence that Hamas militants were using the hospital, even though it was located in an area controlled by Israel for much of the war.
According to the World Health Organization, more than 10,000 patients have left Gaza for treatment abroad since the war began.
After Israeli forces captured and closed the Rafah crossing in May 2024, only about 17 patients were evacuated from Gaza each week until the ceasefire, except for a brief spike of more than 200 patients per week during a two-month ceasefire in early 2025, according to the World Health Organization.
About 440 people seeking evacuation had life-threatening injuries or illnesses, according to the health ministry. The Health Ministry said on Tuesday that more than 1,200 patients had died while awaiting evacuation.
A U.N. official said one reason for the slow pace of evacuations is the reluctance of many countries to accept patients because Israel has given no assurances that they will be allowed to return to the Gaza Strip. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue. Most evacuees went to Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Türkiye.
He said it was unclear whether that would change with Rafa taking over. Even if there are “daily or almost daily evacuations,” he said, the numbers are not very high. In addition, Israel has said that only about 50 Palestinians are allowed into Gaza every day, while tens of thousands of Palestinians hope to return.
Since the war began, Israel has also banned sending patients to hospitals in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, a move that cuts off a major outlet for Palestinians who previously had no access to care in Gaza, the official said.
Five human rights groups have asked Israel’s High Court to lift the ban. The court has yet to rule. Nonetheless, a cancer patient in Gaza was allowed to travel to the West Bank for treatment on January 11 after the Jerusalem District Court accepted a petition filed by Israeli rights group Gisha regarding the patient’s case.
Thousands of cancer patients need to be evacuated
The Ministry of Health says there are more than 11,000 cancer patients in Gaza and about 75% of necessary chemotherapy drugs are unavailable. The report added that at least 4,000 cancer patients require emergency treatment abroad.
Ahmed Barham, a 22-year-old college student, has been battling leukemia. His father, Mohamed Barham, said he had two surgeries to remove lymph nodes in June but the disease was still spreading “at an alarming rate”.
“There’s no cure here,” Barham Sr. said.
His son, who has lost 35 kilograms (77 pounds), was put on an emergency referral list last week to travel abroad, but there is still no confirmation of travel.
“My son died right in front of my eyes,” the father said.
Desperately hoping that Rafa can open
Mahmoud Abu Ishaq, 14, has been on a referral list for treatment abroad for more than a year.
The roof of his home collapsed when Israel attacked near the southern town of Beni Suhayra. The boy suffered injuries that resulted in a detached retina.
“Now he is completely blind,” said his father, Fawaz Abu Ishaq. “We are waiting for the crossing to open.”
Abu Lehia told The Associated Press that she was injured while searching for her younger brother Muhannad in August while leaving her family tent in the southern city of Khan Younis. The boy had gone out earlier that morning, hoping to get some food from the rescue truck.
At the time, when Gaza was close to famine, large crowds often waited for trucks and pulled boxes of food from the trucks, and Israeli troops often opened fire on the crowds. Gaza health officials said the Israeli military said its forces fired warning shots, but hundreds died within months.
When Abreshia reached the edge of the military-controlled zone through which the truck passed, Israeli troops opened fire and dozens of people fled. Abu Lehia said a bullet hit her knee and she fell to the ground screaming.
At nearby Al-Nasser Hospital, she underwent multiple surgeries but could not repair her knee. Doctors told her she would need knee replacement surgery outside Gaza.
Officials told her family last month that she would be evacuated in January. But her father, Sarhan Abu Lehia, said nothing had happened so far.
“Her condition was getting worse day by day,” he said. “She sat alone and cried.”
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Magdi reported from Cairo. Associated Press writer Lee Keith in Cairo contributed to this report.