Sources confirm that the medical evacuation system for critically ill patients in Gaza has collapsed into a bureaucratic nightmare, with documented cases of patients waiting up to 14 days for approval to leave the besieged territory for urgent treatment. Uncovered documents from the World Health Organisation and internal memos from the Palestinian Ministry of Health reveal a process so choked by red tape and political infighting that it amounts to a death sentence for the most vulnerable.
A 52-year-old cancer patient, whose name is being withheld for safety, was approved for evacuation on 3 March but did not cross into Egypt until 17 March, according to hospital records. The delay, sources say, was caused by a dispute between the Hamas-run health ministry and the Israeli COGAT over which patients qualified as 'urgent'. Meanwhile, the patient's tumour continued to grow. He died two days after arrival in Cairo.
This is not an isolated failure. Medical sources in Gaza City and Khan Younis confirm that at least 40 patients have succumbed or deteriorated irreversibly while waiting for evacuation since January. The system, designed to process 200 patients per month, has been handling fewer than 80, with approval rates plummeting to 35 per cent in February, according to internal WHO spreadsheets.
The bottleneck is not security checks. It is politics. Each evacuation request must be vetted by three separate authorities: the Palestinian Ministry of Health, the Israeli Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, and the Egyptian liaison office in Rafah. Each has its own criteria, each can reject without explanation, and none is accountable for the time lost.
One doctor, speaking on condition of anonymity, described the process as 'a farce of paperwork while people bleed out'. He recounted a 10-month-old girl with a congenital heart defect who waited 18 days for approval, only to be denied at the last minute because her file had been 'misfiled'. She remains in Gaza with worsening symptoms.
The British government, which has funded £15 million in medical evacuations through the UK aid programme, has refused to comment on the delays. A Foreign Office spokesperson said only that 'we urge all parties to facilitate medical evacuations swiftly' - a statement that sources inside the department described as 'not worth the paper it's written on'.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation's own internal audit, leaked to this newsroom, warns that the current system is 'unsustainable and unethical'. It calls for a single, independent, apolitical body to manage evacuations. The report has been buried for three months.
The cost of this farce is measurable in human lives. And the people of Gaza are running out of time. This is a story of power unaccountable, of bureaucratic violence as lethal as any missile. We will continue to follow the paper trail until someone is held to account.
