Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has delayed a flight that was scheduled to carry more than 150 injured and sick Palestinian children to the United Arab Emirates for treatment. It is not known if or when the flight will be rescheduled.
Last week, Netanyahu instructed his government to develop a plan to transfer patients out of Gaza and into a third country. Citing government officials, Israeli media reported on Sunday that Netanyahu made the decision after an explosion on a football field in Israel-occupied Golan Heights killed 12 Arab Druze children. Israel blames Hezbollah for the attack, but the Lebanese group denied the accusations and said it was an Israeli air defense missile that fell on the field.
Golan Heights is part of Syria and has been illegally occupied by Israel since 1967 and was unilaterally annexed by Israel in 1981, a move condemned by the United Nations Security Council.
The original decision to evacuate the sick and injured children came after the human-rights group Physicians for Human Rights - Israel petitioned the country’s high court asking for a court order to force the government to evacuate the sick and wounded. The Physicians for Human Rights decried Netanyahu’s reversal, calling it “a cruel game by the Israeli government with children’s lives,” adding that the Golan Heights tragedy “must not be exploited for cynical political purposes; endangering the lives of sick children in Gaza will not bring back the children of the north.”
A court hearing on the petition from the group is scheduled for August 4. Last week, Netanyahu canceled a plan ordered by Israel’s defense minister to build a field hospital for children in Gaza.
According to an estimate in late June by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, nearly 15,000 children have been killed in Gaza since October 7.
“Gaza has become a graveyard for children, with thousands of others missing, their fates unknown,” Save the Children’s Regional Director for the Middle East Jeremy Stoner said. “There must be an independent investigation and those responsible must be held accountable.”