Three children evacuated from the Gaza Strip and suffering from serious illnesses were admitted to the Holy See’s pediatric hospital, the Bambino Gesù, on the evening of March 10, 2024. The Vatican hospital, located on Rome’s Janiculum hill around 10 minutes away from St. Peter’s Square, reported the following day that their clinical conditions were stable.
Of the three children, the eldest is an 8-year-old boy with post-infectious infantile cerebral palsy that is being cared for in the neurology department. The other two are hospitalized in the Department of Metabolic Diseases. One is a 1-year-old baby with an abdominal feeding tube and tracheostomy, suspected of having a genetic syndrome, and the other is a 3-year-old girl who may be affected by Gaucher syndrome, a genetic metabolic disease that causes an enlarged liver and spleen.
A total of 9 Palestinian minors have been treated at the Bambino Gesù hospital since the start of the war between Hamas and Israel on October 7, 2023.
Many children being treated in Italy
As part of evacuation operations carried out in cooperation between Italy, Egypt, and the Israeli and Palestinian authorities, two groups of Palestinian children evacuated from the Gaza Strip for medical reasons arrived on Italian soil on January 29 and February 5. Some were transferred to hospitals in Genoa, Bologna, and Florence.
Children are paying a heavy price in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
According to UNICEF, the Gaza Strip is now the most dangerous place in the world for a child, with over 5,350 children killed in the Israeli offensive, out of a total of over 30,000.
These figures come from the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health in Gaza, but the figures are considered reliable by international organizations. In addition, at least 106 Palestinian minors are reported to have been killed in clashes with settlers and Israeli forces in the West Bank.
On the Israeli side, 36 children were among the nearly 1,200 victims of the October 7 attacks.
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