Israeli authorities are preparing to send back to Gaza a group of Palestinian patients who were being treated in East Jerusalem hospitals this week.
The group of 22 Palestinians from Gaza includes five newborn babies and their mothers, cancer patients now in remission and some companions who accompanied them, according to hospital officials.
All had received permission from Israeli authorities to travel to Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem for advanced medical care, most before the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7.
But staying in East Jerusalem is no longer an option.
The Israeli Defense Ministry body responsible for Palestinian affairs, COGAT, has been pressuring East Jerusalem hospital officials for months to provide a list of patients who no longer require hospitalized medical treatment to send them back to Gaza, they said. those officials to CNN.
Patients on that list, which has been seen by CNN, are expected to board buses to the Kerem Shalom crossing on the Israel-Gaza border on Wednesday.
Among them will be Nima Abu Garrara, who was brought from Rafah to East Jerusalem while pregnant with twins and gave birth on October 5. The only thing her twins have ever known is the safety of a room at Makassed Hospital.
Soon, that will be uprooted and changed by the reality of war. Abu Garrara fears a bleak future in Gaza, where an Israeli military ground offensive against the southern city of Rafah looms.
“I will be responsible for anything that hurts them,” she said, referring to her twins.
Read more about the patients who will be sent back to Gaza.
