Türkiye welcomed over two dozen Palestinian cancer patients, the first group who crossed from Gaza into Egypt, for treatment in the early hours of Thursday.
Two Turkish planes carrying the patients, many of them children, landed at Ankara Airport shortly after 12:30 a.m. local time. Later in the day, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan personally paid a visit to welcome the patients and extended his well wishes as he was briefed about their conditions at the Bilkent City Hospital.
Türkiye has sent a total of 666 tons of aid, including a ship last Saturday loaded with material for field hospitals, ambulances and generators to Egypt to treat civilians who have been able to flee Israel’s relentless attacks against Hamas resistance group in the enclave.
Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip in response to a Hamas incursion on Oct. 7, which killed an estimated 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and saw 240 hostages taken to Gaza.
Israel’s ensuing aerial bombardment and ground offensive have killed 11,500 people, including thousands of children and internally displaced 1.6 million people – about two-thirds of Gaza’s population. It also targeted several hospitals, including the enclave’s only cancer treatment facility, the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital.
Already hit by a 16-year Israeli blockade, the enclave in the past month has been cut off from water, electricity and fuel, with many hospitals having to shut down as a result.
Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said 27 patients had been flown to Türkiye from Egypt, along with 13 companions, without specifying whether these were doctors or family members.
He added that the cancer patients had been able to cross from Gaza into Egypt via the Rafah border crossing.
Koca had been in Egypt for discussions on delivering humanitarian aid to Gaza. On Wednesday, he and his Egyptian counterpart, Khaled Abdel Ghaffar, visited Palestinian patients evacuated to the Nasr Research Institute Hospital and Sheik Zuwaid Hospital in Cairo.
He said the patients could be transferred to Türkiye thanks to “coordination between Türkiye, Egypt and Israel” after the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital went out of commission due to lack of fuel.
Most of the patients expressed their pleasure at the Turkish initiative during the journey, Anadolu Agency (AA) reported.
One patient, 17-year-old Mahmoud Qadir Ibrahim Abu Neda, who has been treated for cancer for a decade, recalled the moment the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital was struck.
“We were inside when it was targeted,” Abu Neda told AA from his sickbed in Ankara. “After the attacks, we were all psychologically destroyed. We had no strength left in us and we didn’t know what to do.”
Thanking Türkiye for its care of Palestinians and particularly patients in Gaza, Abu Neda said: “We had been in true despair, feeling like we had no more chance of getting out of Gaza, finding care or cure to cancer. We felt like we would die in the war. We thank the Turkish government and everyone who brought us here.”
Another 54-year-old Yusra Abdullah evacuee said she wished for “all countries to be like Türkiye.”
“Everyone is supposed to be sensitive about the humanitarian situation in Gaza. We are just like everybody else; that’s why we would want people to stand with us,” she said.
Patients of Gaza get neither psychological nor physical comfort, Abdullah added. “We’re exhausted even when we visit a hospital. I only felt comfortable when I went to the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital,” she recalled.
Turkish officials are also looking to bring to Türkiye premature babies who are facing the risk of death after they have been cut off from life support at the Al-Shifa Hospital since fuel ran out, according to Koca.
Some 36 premature babies, along with 650 patients, 500 health care workers and 2,000 internally displaced people, are stranded at Gaza’s largest medical facility.
Israeli soldiers stormed Al-Shifa earlier this week, alleging Hamas was operating a “command node” and “storing weapons” under the compound.
Koca on Thursday said Ankara had relayed its request to relevant authorities, expressing its readiness to meet every technical demand about the babies’ transfer. “We are in talks right now. We are determined to bring more cancer patients and especially sick children.”
Türkiye is waiting for Egypt’s permission to open its first field hospital at the Rafah crossing.
“I hope that in the near future – our efforts are going in this direction – we will be able to establish a field hospital in Gaza, in the area near the Rafah gate,” Koca said.
Türkiye is the first country Egypt has allowed to deliver aid via ship and pull out patients from Gaza.
“We believe this was a very important step,” Koca noted, assuring Ankara’s diplomatic and field efforts to “help alleviate the suffering of Palestinians will increasingly continue.”
Türkiye has long championed the Palestinian cause and, more recently, has stepped up its verbal criticism against Israel for the soaring civilian toll of its military operation.
Speaking before members of his ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), President Erdoğan on Wednesday called Israel “a terror state” that was committing “genocide.”
He accused Israel of pursuing a strategy of “destroying an entire city with its people.” He lamented that some members of the international community did not stand on the “right side” of the matter, namely the United States.
“War is not a word we can use to describe what is happening in Gaza. Even wars have ethics, laws and limits,” he said.
Blaming those supplying weapons, munitions and intelligence to Israel for “the blood of children killed in Gaza,” Erdoğan reiterated his call for world leaders to do something.
