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‘We need all routes to open’: in Gaza WHO calls for ramp-up of medevacs, easier access for essentials

Two weeks since a ceasefire agreement entered into force in Gaza the World Health Organization (WHO) noted progress on the flow of aid while calling for more evacuations of critical patients and eased entry for essential medicines and supplies.

Speaking from Jerusalem on Friday, WHO’s representative in the occupied Palestinian territory, Dr. Rik Peeperkorn, said that while the agency has been rapidly scaling up its operations, more access routes into the enclave are needed.

“Opening up all the crossings is critical and even more so to get diverse food, shelter and all shelter-related items with the winter approaching,” he said, briefing reporters in Geneva.

Only the Kerem Shalom and Kissufim crossings in the southern half of the Strip are open. Dr. Peeperkorn reiterated recent calls from humanitarians to open the Rafah crossing for people and goods, as well as Zikim and Erez crossings, as their closure limits direct access to the famine-stricken north, “making it difficult to deliver critical support… to health facilities on the scale required”.

The WHO representative highlighted the devastation of Gaza’s health system following two years of a brutal war and underscored the urgent need for more hospital capacity, currently limited to some 2,100 inpatient beds across for a population of 2.1 million.

Several major health facilities including Kamal Adwan, Al-Awda, Indonesian and European Gaza Hospital lie beyond the “yellow line” to which Israeli forces withdrew earlier this month as part of the first stage of the US-driven peace plan for Gaza, making them “inaccessible for people and non-functional”, Dr. Peeperkorn said.

More than 170,000 people have been injured over the course of the conflict and lives are on the line as many critical patients are unable to access treatment within the enclave. Dr. Peeperkorn said that on Thursday WHO carried out the first medical evacuation since the ceasefire, of 41 patients and 145 companions, to various countries.

The agency aims to scale up medical evacuations to a minimum of 50 patients per day plus companions, in line with the previous ceasefire.

“All medical corridors need to be opened,” Dr. Peeperkorn insisted, as some 15,000 people including almost 4,000 children are in need of medical evacuation. “The most important one would be the reopening of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem referral hospitals... It is vital and it's the most cost-effective route.”

The WHO representative added that the reopening of this route would be a “game changer”. He also called for the reopening of Rafah crossing for daily medical evacuations into Egypt while also “continuing regular medevacs through Kerem Shalom to Ramon Airport [in Israel] and Jordan”.

“The other key ask is that we need more countries to step forward to receive patients,” Dr. Peeperkorn said. “For next week, we have two medevac plans, but… we want to be able to do medevacs every day.”

Asked about his impressions following the first meetings earlier this week of the Civil-Military Coordination Centre set up by the US to oversee the implementation of the ceasefire, the UN health agency representative said that he wants to be “hopeful”.

The meetings brought together Israeli authorities and the UN and partners. Dr. Peeperkorn said that the new mechanism should facilitate the rapid entry of aid and also, in the future, of “massive supplies for recovery and reconstruction”.

On Thursday the Deputy Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Ramiz Alakbarov, told the Security Council that the UN is “closely engaging in all relevant coordination mechanisms” and welcomed efforts to facilitate a scaling up of assistance, including through the new Centre.

WHO’s Dr. Peeperkorn highlighted the most urgent improvements to be made and described concrete steps to shorten approval delays for Gaza-bound relief items.

“We made a consolidated list of essential medicines and medical supplies… priority items which are used in every hospital around the world,” he said. “We want to get a kind of a blanket approval for that list… that would help a lot.”

Dr. Peeperkorn also expressed hope for a “completely different approach” towards so-called dual-use items, the entry of which is restricted due to concerns around potential military applications.

“We need CT scans in, we need spare parts in, we need MRIs in, we need X-rays in, we need ultrasounds in,” he said. “All of that has been consistently delayed or has been made very difficult... I do expect with the Civil-Military Coordination Centre that this will be facilitated in the future,” he explained.

“We all know that this will be a long and winding road, with a lot of setbacks and obstructions,” the UN health agency representative said. “But we can only be hopeful that this ceasefire will hold, that we go to peace and we get to a proper political solution.”

-ENDS -

Gaza health update - WHO 24 October 2025

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