Gaza’s Wounded Cry Out as the World Remains Silent
The Palestinian Information Center
(October 24, 2025) — Gaza is not just a headline on the evening news, it is an open wound on the conscience of the world. Tens of thousands of injured and wounded are pleading for help in destroyed or non-operational hospitals, facing a total collapse of medical care. They await urgent evacuation for life-saving treatment, while even the most basic medical services have become unattainable.
Despite countless official and unofficial reports, no statistics can fully capture the suffering, or secure emergency humanitarian corridors for those in need. According to observers, these individuals are not numbers, but human beings, mostly children, trapped between the violence of war and the silence of the international community. Their crisis worsens daily as Israel continues to shut crossings and block medical supplies, leaving no horizon for hope.
22,000 patients await evacuation as Israel manipulates agreements
Dr. Munir al-Bursh, Director-General of the Ministry of Health in Gaza, confirmed that more than 22,000 patients urgently require treatment outside the Strip due to the collapse of the health system caused by direct targeting of hospitals and deprivation of critical equipment, medicines, and medical supplies.
“We are trying to restore limited operations in some hospitals despite our extremely restricted capabilities,” he said. “But the occupation is deliberately obstructing and refusing to implement agreed measures.”
He added that Israel intentionally burned vital laboratories and continues to target medical personnel. The number of healthcare workers killed has reached 1,772, a crime that remains unaccountable.
Al-Bursh called for the immediate release of Palestinian medical staff detained in Israeli prisons and urged international investigations into the bodies of martyrs returned from detention. “We received the bodies of 165 martyrs, and it became clear they were subjected to severe forms of torture.”
WHO: 15,000 Need Immediate Evacuation
The catastrophic situation has prompted an urgent warning from the World Health Organization (WHO). Dr. Hanan Balkhy, WHO Regional Director, said the fragile truce in Gaza must be used immediately to facilitate emergency medical evacuations, noting over 15,000 critically ill and wounded people require immediate transfer outside the Strip.
She emphasized that the WHO’s emergency plan prioritizes the “rehabilitation of hospitals,” including fuel and vital supplies, to reactivate life-saving services, most of which are currently out of operation.
German Cities Offer Help…
Federal Government Blocks Initiative
In a striking example of double standards, a German humanitarian initiative to receive wounded Gazan children was blocked by the federal government, despite broad support from major cities including Hanover, Bremen, Bonn, Frankfurt, Leipzig, Düsseldorf, and Kiel, and backing from Palestinian and Jewish communities as well as Protestant churches in Lower Saxony.
Hanover had launched an initiative in July to receive around 20 injured children from Gaza for treatment in Germany. The federal government halted the plan.
Belit Onay, Mayor of Hanover, expressed deep disappointment, “The Interior Ministry’s decision was disheartening and inexplicable. Our cities showed genuine readiness to treat innocent children wounded by war, yet we were faced with a wall of bureaucracy and rejection.”
Stefan Schostok, head of the Hanover region and member of the Social Democratic Party, described the decision as “harsh and inhumane,” adding, “More than 16,000 people in Gaza need treatment abroad. Denying children this opportunity is unjustifiable.”
Double Standards:
When the Right to Life Becomes a Privilege
This official German stance exposes a glaring example of Western double standards: European hospitals open their doors to refugees from other regions but close them to Gaza’s children, who pose no threat except revealing the painful truth that the right to medical care has become a political privilege rather than a universal human right.
As Gaza remains under intense blockade, with even basic medical supplies denied entry, the positions of powerful governments appear not to alleviate suffering, but to compound it.
Observers stress that the people of Gaza are only asking for what international law and human rights conventions guarantee: the right to treatment, to life, and to dignity. Instead, they face a global system that differentiates between the wounded based on geography, and between children based on nationality.
A Narrow Window of Hope
The WHO has warned that the current temporary truce represents a critical window for action. Thousands of lives could still be saved, if the international community shows the will to act, and humanitarian values are placed above political calculations.
UN officials warn that ignoring this crisis does not only claim new victims but erodes the very values the modern world claims to uphold. Countries, Germany among them, still have the opportunity to reconsider their position and prove that human conscience is not subdued by bureaucracy.
In Gaza, time is not measured in hours, but in lives lost. Every passing minute means another soul perishes, another cry added to the voices of those still clinging to life.
