UK medical associations urge PM to act as European Gaza Hospital evacuated

Over a dozen British medical associations and organisations have called on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to take urgent action as the European Gaza Hospital is evacuated ahead of an anticipated Israeli assault.

In a letter sent on Tuesday, the groups said patients are being evacuated without a humanitarian corridor and on an unstable road to Nasser Hospital which is kilometres away. 

Among patients at the hospital are 48 children, who are registered with the UK-based NGO Children Not Numbers, but only children in the hospital’s intensive care unit are being moved, the letter says. 

“The fate of the remainder [of the children] is currently unknown,” the groups say.

Many British healthcare professions are currently working at the hospital in Khan Younis, one of the few left still operating in the Gaza Strip.

“Should we allow an attack on this critical lifeline, it would indeed be ‘imposing conditions of life calculated to bring about physical destruction in whole or in part’,” the letter says, citing a definition of genocide. 

“We urge you to consider the gravity of this time-critical situation and the potential implications of inaction.”