Mohammed Rajab Mqat could not grasp that the crew on the evacuation flight from Gaza was offering him an entire roast beef sandwich — not one to be split with his four children traveling with him.
“Wait, is this for each of us?” the 37-year-old Palestinian father asked, when each was given a tray with a sandwich, fruit, orange juice and water. After nearly two years of the war in Gaza, Mr. Mqat said his weight had dwindled from more than 240 pounds to 165.
“Famine slaughtered us,” he said as they headed last month to the United Arab Emirates to get medical treatment for his 10-year-old son, who was hurt in an airstrike in March.
The medical evacuation flight organized by the United Arab Emirates provided a route to safety for 155 Gazans. Their injuries and hunger were a visceral reminder of the continuing Israeli bombardment and the deepening humanitarian crisis in a war that has killed tens of thousands of people in Gaza. It’s a situation made more acute by the Israeli military’s ground offensive in Gaza City.
Since November 2023, shortly after the war began, the Emirates has operated 27 such flights from Gaza, ferrying 2,904 patients and family members to a government complex in Abu Dhabi, according to the Emirati Foreign Ministry. Evacuations are in conjunction with the World Health Organization.
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