At least 1,000 people have died in the Gaza Strip between July 2024 and the end of last month while waiting to be evacuated for medical reasons, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced today.

“1,092 patients died between July 2024 and November 28, 2025 while awaiting medical evacuation,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a post on the social media platform X, noting that the figure, which comes from Gaza’s Ministry of Health, is “likely an underestimate.”

“Since October 2023, the WHO and its partners have evacuated more than 10,600 patients from Gaza suffering from serious health conditions, including more than 5,600 children in need of intensive care,” the WHO chief added.

Tedros also called on “more countries to accept patients from Gaza and for medical evacuations to resume to the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.”

“Lives depend on it,” he stressed.

After more than two years of war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, a ceasefire came into effect on October 10 under pressure from the United States, but medical evacuations continue to take place only at a very limited pace.

A few weeks ago, the WHO said that at least 16,500 Gaza residents were still waiting for urgent medical evacuation.

However, an official from Doctors Without Borders (MSF) told Agence France-Presse in early December that these figures include only officially registered patients, and that the real number of patients waiting to be evacuated is far higher.

To date, 30 countries have accepted patients from Gaza, but only a few—among them Egypt and the United Arab Emirates—have taken in patients in large numbers, according to MSF.