Paul Hefel-James is an independent journalist based in Beirut. He covers humanitarianism, migration and climate and energy challenges in the region. Follow him on X @paul_hj_.
An untreated congenital heart condition would be life-threatening anywhere, but in Gaza, it is a death sentence. Hala, a nine-year-old girl from Khan Younis, is among the fortunate few who received a medical evacuation to Amman, Jordan, for treatment.
In March 2025, King Abdullah II of Jordan announced a medical corridor initiative to bring 2,000 children from Gaza to Jordan for lifesaving medical treatment. A network of ministries, international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and hospitals work to identify urgent cases amid Israel's ongoing genocide and secure their evacuation — with the understanding that, once treated, patients will return to Gaza.
Sahar, Hala's mother, spent early June 2025 shuttling between hospitals in Khan Younis to find treatment for her daughter. After visiting two facilities, a doctor diagnosed Hala with an atrial septal defect — a hole in the heart's wall separating its upper chambers. The condition is typically detected and treated early without complication, but Hala was nine years old, and the hole was growing.
A cardiologist at the Kuwaiti Hospital in Gaza reported Hala's condition and requested an urgent referral for medical evacuation. Hala, her parents and her three siblings waited, living in a tent near the sea. After a month, the Gaza Ministry of Health told them to prepare to leave. "They said, 'Don't bring anything, only the clothes you are wearing and the medical report,'" Sahar explained.
Asked what would have happened if Hala had remained in Gaza, Dr. Laila Tutunji — her physician at Abdali Hospital in Amman — said, "Most of them would die. With the current state of health care in Gaza, I don't think they can perform congenital heart surgeries there."
Abdali Hospital has received evacuees since July 2025, with Hala among the first arrivals. Since then, the hospital and other partners in the Private Hospitals Association have treated successive groups of patients from Gaza. As of Feb. 23, 2026, the Jordanian Armed Forces have received 25 groups of medical evacuees from Gaza since the initiative began.
The destruction of Gaza's health care infrastructure and Israel's obstruction of medical and humanitarian aid deliveries have left patients with untreated infections, limited diagnostic tools and inadequate sanitation.
- Paul Hefel-James
The Palestine Red Crescent Society collected Hala, her mother and her siblings at 3 a.m. and transported them to Amman. The 18-hour journey was persistently delayed by frequent stops at Israeli checkpoints.
All medical evacuations from Gaza require a lengthy approval process, beginning with a local medical referral to Gaza's Ministry of Health. A committee reviews medical reports and shares an approved list with the World Health Organization (WHO), which liaises with host governments and Israel's Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT). Upon arrival in a host country, patients require not only costly medical treatment but also housing, basic necessities and, when possible, access to education.
The Jordan Red Crescent Hospital (JNRCS), a 126-bed facility, has received 46 medical evacuees and 68 companions from Gaza since August 2025, according to Atta Durrani, head of delegation in Jordan for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). It provides private rooms, clothing, food, psychosocial support and other services throughout treatment. According to Durrani, the hospital has secured funding and resources to treat 250 evacuees from Gaza in 2026. It primarily treats children with orthopedic and war-related injuries, including trauma from shrapnel. Most patients require six to eight weeks for treatment and recovery, after which the Jordanian government coordinates their return to Gaza.
Other hospitals in Jordan, including Abdali Hospital and the King Hussein Cancer Center, specialize in complex conditions requiring longer-term care.
Fajr Global, an international humanitarian organization founded in 2022, supports patients throughout the process. By mid-February, it helped evacuate 76 patients and over 140 companions to Amman. According to President and CEO Mosab Nasser, the organization screens between 50 and 100 cases in Gaza each week. Its medical evacuations team evaluates each case, consulting physicians in Egypt and the United States, before submitting approved lists to the WHO. Fajr Global resumes support once patients arrive in Amman, working with private hospitals to secure treatment and provide additional support.
The fallout from the genocide is personal for Nasser: "My family was terribly affected by it. My brothers lost their homes. I've lost 75 members of my family, including my mother, my nephews. So, my perspective about life changed."
Nasser co-founded the organization with orthopedic surgeon Dr. Khaled Saleh after pivoting from a 25-year career in the oil and gas industry. A trained geophysicist, he saw the organization as a way to build local capacity in humanitarian response, a mission that became more urgent after Oct. 7, 2023.
"I didn't become a humanitarian; I lost my own family members in this war," Nasser said.
Like Nasser, doctors treating evacuees in Jordan often have firsthand experience of the human toll of Israel's genocide. Dr. Rassoul Abu Nuwar, general surgeon at Abdali Hospital, joined one of the first United Nations medical convoys to Gaza in January 2024. At the European Hospital, he treated war-related injuries with dwindling supplies.
"They were high-velocity injuries — projectile injuries — and some of them appeared to be explosive injuries. [There were] a lot of burn injuries as well," he said. "Even some of the most basic medical equipment, we didn't have. The most basic was gauze."
His colleague, Dr. Mutaz Jadaan, orthopedic spine surgeon at Abdali Hospital, recalls similar scenes. In February 2024, during his first medical mission to Gaza since the genocide began, he saw "lots of amputations, unfortunately, lots of fatal injuries, lots of chemical burns with phosphorus. Most of the injured were kids," he said. "We saw a few sniper bullet [wounds] in kids. There were injuries as well from rigged cans, canned food. They would be rigged with explosives."
On a second mission in May 2024, Jadaan and his team were stranded in Gaza when Israel invaded Rafah and closed the border with Egypt. "Hell opened on Rafah," he said. Prices skyrocketed and essential medical supplies were cut off, sitting idly in trucks and warehouses mere miles away.
When the Jordanian government evacuated him, he left with mixed feelings: "You build that kind of rapport and then the moment you want to leave, you feel how horrible it is that you're going to leave them behind. You don't know if you're ever going to see them again, if you're going to be able to come back."
When Hala arrived at Abdali Hospital on July 16, 2025, doctors first worked to stabilize her and treat infections before the procedure to address her heart defect. "Most of the patients are showing up with these horrible bacterial infections that are resistant to so many kinds of antibiotics," Dr. Abu Nuwar explained.
The destruction of Gaza's health care infrastructure and Israel's obstruction of medical and humanitarian aid deliveries have left patients with untreated infections, limited diagnostic tools and inadequate sanitation. Prolonged, untreated infections increase the risk of antibiotic resistance, particularly among displaced populations living without clean water.
"The medical sector — health sector — in Gaza is devastated," JNRCS director of strategic affairs Mutlaq El-Hadid said. "It's frustrating to see how international humanitarian law has been violated continuously and the world has become deaf, mute, [with] no one calling for the right to protect humanitarians, medical staff, human beings, civilians."
The frustration intensified after a Feb. 23, 2026, report by Earshot and Forensic Architecture concluded that Israeli soldiers executed 15 Palestinian aid workers on March 23, 2025, and attempted to cover up the murder. According to the latest report from the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Israel has killed at least 588 aid workers in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023.
Hala was among the first patients to arrive at Abdali Hospital. Providing support beyond her medical care was a learning process. "As they came, we learned about their needs and what we need to prepare," Dr. Tutunji said, including housing, living expenses, education and a level of integration during their stay.
"They left [Gaza] when they had been displaced two or three times, bombed day and night and followed by drones. So, when they left, of course, it was a relief," she said.
A month after Hala's admission, Dr. Tutunji performed open-heart surgery to repair the defect. "She was a beautiful patient," Dr. Tutunji remembered. "She decided she wants to become a doctor or a nurse and went with the nurses to do rounds with the patients and get their vital signs." Hala and her family remained in the hospital until late September before moving into housing provided through Gaza Kinder Relief, the Jordanian Ministry of Health and the Private Hospitals Association.
Dr. Tutunji conducted a final follow-up with Hala in February. Now that her treatment is complete, the family is scheduled to return, but the ongoing war is preventing their travel.
- Paul Hefel-James
Her 12-year-old brother Anas now attends school in Amman, while eight-year-old Mohamed has made friends. When Hala and her five-year-old sister, Sabah, bounded into the common area of their building where I spoke to Sahar, they sported matching shirts with rhinestone cherries, alongside the phrase "You glow girl" in cursive.
Hala flips through my notebook and makes sure I write down "I love Jordan" in English and Arabic. Anas is keen to show off his navigation skills in the new city, claiming that he could find his way back from any street. Even under abnormal circumstances, the children delight in a version of the childhoods denied to them over the past two years.
But thoughts of home are never far away. Hala and her family will soon return to Khan Younis, to the tent by the sea and their father. "First I will go to my father and sit in his lap," Anas said, though he is more reluctant than the others. Sahar misses her husband and says Mohamed lies awake at night thinking about his father.
At the same time, she has heard from friends in Gaza who warn her not to return. "The tent is not clean, there are mice and the situation is not yet stable. There is fear also about a new conflict," she said.
Those fears were realized as Israel and the United States launched an attack against Iran on the morning of Feb. 28. In the weeks since, the conflict has expanded across the region, with mounting civilian casualties. That same day, COGAT announced the closure of all crossings into Gaza, including the recently reopened Rafah border crossing.
The measure froze returns, the rotation of humanitarian workers and the already limited entry of supplies before a partial reopening of the Karem Abu Salem crossing began on March 3. "A mechanism tailored to the current security situation has been formulated," a statement from the authority read.
COGAT has repeatedly adjusted border access. When the Rafah crossing reopened on March 19, nine patients were allowed to cross the border for medical attention, with only 17 additional patients permitted the following week. Since Feb. 28, just 625 medical cases have crossed through Rafah for treatment. The limited crossings pale in comparison to the estimated 18,000 patients in Gaza who require urgent medical treatment. On April 7, the WHO announced a suspension of all medical evacuations through Rafah after Israel killed one of its contractors; by April 12, the organization stated it had received safety commitments from "relevant parties" and was ready to resume operations.
Dr. Tutunji conducted a final follow-up with Hala in February. Now that her treatment is complete, the family is scheduled to return, but the ongoing war is preventing their travel. "It's not easy telling them because they have nothing to go back to. They don't have a home," Dr. Abu Nuwar said of his patients. Nevertheless, Sahar has been asking hospital staff for weeks when they will be allowed to return. Mohamed cried when the last group of evacuees returned in early February and his name was not on the list.
"Lots of people want to get treated and then go back," Dr. Jadaan said. "There are people that want to leave [Gaza], but they are a minority. They know that if they leave Gaza, they will never see it again."
While most patients look forward to reuniting with family members, El-Hadid is conscious of the conditions they will face. "Some are afraid of return, of course, but it's a harsh reality," he said. "If I lie to them and say that things will be okay, but then they have to return, then they will lose hope in all humanity."
Not all returns to Gaza have been voluntary. Drop Site News reported that Jordanian authorities forcibly returned a group of medical evacuees in December 2025 without prior warning. "We need the guarantee that if there is a return, it will be a dignified return to Gaza, at least from Jordan's side," Al-Ajlouni said. "From the other side, no one has any control." Tellingly, when families cross the border, Israeli authorities seize belongings, including winter coats, sweaters and other donated items.
Doctors treating patients from Gaza ensure all necessary procedures and rehabilitation are completed before sending families back. According to Dr. Tutunji, the hospital advises children on how to look out for signs and symptoms that require immediate attention and trains caregivers on how to provide support once they return.
Dr. Jadaan also puts his faith in the medical professionals still working in Gaza. "I've never met any medical staff better equipped to deal with war injuries than the medical staff in Gaza. They're able to treat these patients; it's just their inability comes from the lack of facilities. When you send someone back who requires minimal follow-up, they will have the care they need over there," he said.
Despite the skill of the medical staff, Israel's destruction of health care infrastructure, targeting of medical workers and blockade on supplies remain a harsh reality for those with illness or injury. Chronic conditions, which may not fit the criteria for urgent medical evacuation, affect an estimated 350,000 patients in Gaza. Tens of thousands more are adjusting to life-altering war injuries.
While emergency medical evacuations are saving the lives of patients like Hala, they have not been carried out at the scale necessary to address the extent of medical needs in Gaza and have been subject to repeated closures. The WHO estimates that rebuilding Gaza's health care infrastructure alone would require $7 billion and years of work.
For now, Hala's family is not thinking about any of those problems. Mohamed has big plans for his return: "I will go around all of Gaza and see all my friends."
The views and positions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of DAWN.
