A new commentary in The Lancet Global Health calls for reopening the “humanitarian corridor” connecting the Gaza Strip to other Palestinian hospitals for critically ill patients — especially children— who cannot receive proper care in Gaza. 

The comment is co-written by two Israeli physicians, a doctor and humanitarian coordinator from Gaza, California-based humanitarian surgeon Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, Tom Dannenbaum, a Stanford law professor, and Ruth Gibson, a visiting scholar at the Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health. 

“This is a beautiful example of people coming together across national and political divides, despite bombs falling, to save lives and uplift the right to health,” said Gibson, who is senior author.

The comment calls for allowing the safe transit of patients needing lifesaving care from Gaza to the West Bank or East Jerusalem (the separated parts of Palestine) as well as allowing their return to Gaza following treatment. It comes at a time when the WHO reports that half of the hospitals in Gaza are destroyed, and those that remain are only partially functioning. According to the UN, 18,500 patients are awaiting medical evacuation for conditions that cannot be treated in Gaza, many of them children.

“4,000 children, including cancer patients, children still suffering from malnutrition, children with inborn metabolic diseases and congenital malformations, and children with post traumatic injuries that need corrective surgeries can all be treated in the West Bank and East Jerusalem,” said first author Michal Feldon, an Israeli pediatrician, rheumatologist, and volunteer for Physicians for Human Rights Israel.

Feldon’s concern about the humanitarian toll in Gaza led her to develop a remote friendship and collaboration with Dr Ahmad Alfarra, director of the Pediatric and Maternity Ward in Nasser Hospital and another author of the comment. They and others formed a group of Israeli and Palestinian physicians who decided to advocate together for a humanitarian corridor.

“This is the simplest, cheapest, and most sensible solution for the horrible medical crisis in Gaza,” Feldon said, noting the difficulty of getting other countries in Europe and the neighboring region to accept evacuated patients. The comment states that thousands of patients died waiting for medical evacuation between July, 2024, and November, 2025. In the past few months, the authors write, only a few hundred patients have been approved for evacuation into overwhelmed third countries (those not directly involved with the conflict).

Another co-author, Eyad Amawi, a humanitarian coordinator from Gaza, emphasized the importance of bridging geopolitical divides to support the health and save the lives of children.

“Politics doesn’t concern us. Children do,” he said, noting that children continue to be injured by gunfire and that healthcare workers currently lack fuel and spare parts for the generators of the remaining hospitals. “What matters is evacuating wounded and amputated children. What matters is humanitarian work.”

The comment preceded a deliberation by the Israeli High Court of Justice about whether to allow medical evacuations between Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem – a deliberation that has since been postponed until May. 

Regardless of the court’s decision, Feldon said, the collaboration between Israelis, Palestinians, American health personnel, and humanitarian workers has been meaningful in its own right.

“These collaborations have been exciting and different, and for me, they are a source of hope and the belief in humanity,” she said.

Read the full comment here.