At least 29 Palestinian children have been evacuated from Gaza through Israel to Jordan for medical treatment, the Associated Press reported Tuesday, citing “health officials” in the coastal enclave.
The officials at Nasser Hospital in the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis told AP that the 29 children, accompanied by 43 relatives, left by Jordanian ambulances through Gaza’s Kerem Shalom border crossing, passing through southern Israel on their way to hospitals in Amman.
Jordan’s King Abdullah II, during a White House meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump last month, offered to take in some 2,000 Palestinian children for treatment. They will reportedly return to the war-torn enclave after completing their medical procedures in Jordan.
According to a report by Israel’s Kan News public broadcaster, the first group included 40 sick children and an unknown number of relatives.
Abdullah during the meeting with Trump said that while Amman would accept children with cancer and other severe illnesses for treatment, the kingdom did not agree with Trump’s plan for the United States to oversee the enclave’s reconstruction and relocate its population to other nations.
Jordan and the United Arab Emirates are among the Arab countries that have previously accepted medical evacuees from Gaza for treatment.
Trump said he and Abdullah would have a longer, private discussion about the U.S. president’s Gaza plan, which according to Trump would include the resettlement of some two million Palestinians living in the coastal enclave to Jordan, Egypt or other regional countries.
“I believe we’ll have a parcel of land in Jordan,” Trump said. “I believe we’ll have a parcel of land in Egypt. We may have someplace else, but I think when we finish our talks, we’ll have a place where they’re going to live very happily and very safely.”