A file photo of Health Minister Khaled Abdel-Ghaffar
This came in an exclusive interview of Abdel-Ghaffar on CNN with Eleni Giokos which was aired on Saturday.
“It is not Egypt’s decision,” Khaled Abdel-Ghaffar said, adding that Egyptian medical teams are already waiting to receive injured Palestinians through the Rafah border crossing.
Asked about whose decision it was, the minister said that he did not know but “certainly someone has to give a clearance for those patients to come out” reasserting that he has no information about whether Israel was the decision maker in that or not.
According to Abdel-Ghaffar, Egypt has allocated 37 hospitals with more than 11 thousand beds and 1,500 ICUs, along with more than 38 thousand physicians and 25 thousand nurses ready to operate.
Asked about whether the injuries he has seen constitute crimes against humanity, Abdel-Ghaffar answered affirmatively.
“How do you explain children playing in a playground, or at school, or getting treated at hospitals, getting killed for no reason? Even a cancer patient, five or six years old getting chemotherapy. What do you call that?” He asked.
Egypt has begun receiving child cancer patients from the war-battered Gaza Strip, shortly after Turkey announced plans to take cancer patients, including children, as per an agreement with Egypt in early November.
According to the agreement, 1,000 Palestinian cancer patients in need of urgent treatment would come through the Rafah crossing to Egypt. Some would continue their treatment in Egypt while others would be transferred to Turkey.
The agreement was announced after the only cancer hospital in Gaza, the Turkish Palestinian Friendship Hospital--which was funded by Turkey--went out of service after running out of fuel.
Egypt’s Minister of Health also told CNN that currently in Gaza there are neonates who need ventilators, but the hospitals are currently out of electricity and gas as well as out of medication.
“They (Palestinian doctors) told me that they are trying to put three neonates in one incubator, can you believe that!? They sent me photos from them,” said Abdel-Ghaffar.
In previous statements, the health minister revealed that Egypt had been asked to receive the neonates at Al-Shifa Hospital, and said Egypt is ready to receive those premature babies at any time.
Asked about the timeline for bringing Al-Shifa's premature babies into Egypt, Abdel-Ghaffar said “Unfortunately, this is not in our hands.”
He added that an Egyptian ambulance is standing by at the border, ready to move them as soon as they cross the Rafah border crossing
“The hospitals are ready with ventilators and incubators for that purpose already,” he added, emphasizing that “the other side” needs to get them into Egypt.
When asked about the Egyptian side's investigation into injuries coming from Gaza, the minister responded that his medical teams have not seen injuries like the ones coming from Gaza in regular medical practice.
The injuries are mainly caused by shrapnel and debris, causing fractures of all kinds, deep wounds, tissue loss, organ damage, quadriplegia, hemiplegia, and limb amputation.
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