Ahmed Hammad is a 4-year-old boy with a pacemaker that is just days away from stopping. But so far even the weight of U.S. pressure has not resulted in Israel agreeing to allow his mother to take him for treatment outside Gaza.
His case is one of hundreds where children languish on Israeli military waiting lists for evacuation, according to NPR’s interviews with officials from four non-governmental medical aid groups operating in Gaza that are directly involved in evacuating children. The groups report that nine children on these waiting lists have died recently. Speaking to NPR over the last three weeks, representatives of these groups say they are grappling with what they describe as an inefficient and opaque Israeli military bureaucracy governed by political considerations.
Over the past month, NPR has made four requests to Israeli officials for comments on the evacuation issue and specifically on Ahmed Hammad’s case. There has been no response from the military department that deals with border crossings — Coordination for Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) — nor from the Israeli prime minister’s office.
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