Rome’s Ministry of Defense announced on Wednesday that 100 Palestinian children injured in war-torn Gaza were to be treated in an Italian hospital.
After more than three months of devastating Israeli shelling and fighting in the besieged Palestinian territory, Gaza’s medical system has almost completely collapsed.
The ministry announced the start of an operation to relocate 100 Palestinian children and their families from the Gaza Strip to hospital facilities in Italy.
The first 30 children will be transferred in the coming days “by airlift between Italy and Egypt by the Air Force,” the ministry said in a communiqué.
He added that 30 more children will arrive later this month aboard the Italian warship Nave Vulcano, which will soon leave the Egyptian port of El Arish.
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The children will be hospitalized in several Italian cities, including Rome, Bologna, Florence and Genoa.
Separately, the ministry said it was in talks with regional countries to set up an army field hospital.
Early Wednesday morning, seven injured Palestinian children arrived in France for treatment, the second such evacuation to the European country after two other Palestinian children arrived in late December. It became.
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The conflict in Gaza erupted when the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, resulting in around 1,000 people, mostly civilians, being killed, according to an AFP tally based on official figures. 1,140 people died.
At least 25,700 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed in Gaza by Israeli artillery and ground attacks, according to the Hamas government, which runs the strip.
The United Nations on Tuesday warned of an “imminent threat of famine” in the region.
bruid/gv