Toddler who has just days to live evacuated from Gaza for urgent medical care

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - AMMAN — A Palestinian toddler forced to wait weeks for permission to leave Gaza for life saving medical treatment has finally arrived in Jordan. The girl is now in hospital receiving critical medical treatment.

Two-year-old Habiba al-Askari left the besieged Palestinian enclave after a mammoth effort at the “highest level” in Amman, a Jordanian official familiar with the negotiations told CNN. Jordan decided to evacuate her following a CNN report on her story.

Israel initially approved Habiba’s treatment abroad last month, before it denied authorization for medical evacuations for more than two weeks, according to international aid groups.

Doctors believe Habiba has protein C deficiency – a rare but highly treatable genetic condition, which causes excessive blood clotting – and warned that the child will likely lose her right leg and possibly arms.

But thousands of children like Habiba cannot access life-saving care in Gaza, where more than 15 months of Israel’s siege and bombardment has paralyzed the medical system.

Following a CNN report on Habiba last month, Jordan decided to evacuate her to Amman for urgent medical treatment. Israel then delayed the mission, Jordanian officials told CNN last week. Israeli authorities did not respond to CNN’s repeated requests for comment at the time.

On Thursday, Habiba was admitted into intensive care in Gaza’s Nasser Hospital with a lung infection. Her heart stopped twice, according to her mother and health workers who resuscitated her. On Sunday, Israel further delayed clearing the evacuation – postponing the urgent mission and refusing to allow her mother Rana to accompany her daughter.

In CNN video from the hospital over the weekend, Rana, 37, sobbed and embraced her daughter at her bedside. In one scene, Habiba, who is too young to understand her mother’s pain, leaned over and kissed her mother on the cheeks.

“Oh Lord I pray to you for a miracle, but if this is your will, I will accept it” Rana cried before collapsing to the floor. Habiba, sitting up in her bed, stared quietly at the nurses who rushed to pick up her mother.

Jordanian officials worked behind the scenes to obtain Israeli approval for Rana to escort Habiba and the girl’s brother Soheib.

To spare Habiba a long and perilous journey, Jordan had requested an airlift by its military from the Israel-Gaza border, but Israel denied that request, according to a senior Jordanian official, who told CNN Israeli authorities would only approve a land movement.

On Sunday, Israel then authorized Soheib’s journey – before revoking its permission at the last minute, according to Jordanian officials. The official told CNN that they finally obtained approval for the whole family to leave Gaza early Monday.

The senior official described the mission to evacuate Habiba as unnecessarily difficult. “We worked relentlessly, daily, to get Habiba out. It was followed at the highest levels in Jordan,” the official said.

COGAT, the Israeli aid agency, told CNN on Monday: “Israel has approved Habiba Mahmoud Abd al-Nasser Askari’s departure to Jordan for medical treatment, accompanied by her mother and her 10-year-old brother.”

Approvals for the departure of children and their family members for medical treatment were “subject to a security review by relevant authorities before their entry into Israel’s sovereign territory,” COGAT said on January 14.

Israel’s military campaign since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attacks has erased entire families, spawned starvation and disease, and decimated medical infrastructure in Gaza. After a fragile ceasefire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas materialized on January 19, Palestinians say they are struggling to reconcile the psychological trauma and physical destruction wrought by more than a year of war.

On Monday, the toddler and her family were first transferred in an ambulance by Gaza’s health ministry to the Kerem Shalom border crossing with Israel and handed over to a Jordanian medical team.

Habiba was then taken through Israel and into Jordan via the King Hussein Bridge, also known as the Allenby Bridge crossing, where a medical team dispatched at the order of King Abdullah II was waiting in a helicopter to take her to a hospital in Amman.

A CNN team on the ground at the Jordanian side of the border heard sirens and saw blue and red ambulance lights illuminating a path leading to the helicopter. Three military medics met Rana and her two children inside the emergency vehicle Monday evening before the family were transferred into the chopper. The toddler lay swaddled in a blanket with a red fluffy toy as Rana gazed out the window, her eyes weary with exhaustion after her first time leaving Gaza.

Military medics monitored Habiba’s oxygen levels throughout the ten-minute flight to Amman before they arrived at the Queen Rania Al Abdullah Hospital for Children. Habiba was then seen to by medical workers at the facility. Habiba lay in bed and beamed up at her older brother.

COGAT previously told CNN that it has enabled 24 medical evacuations from Gaza through Israel to other countries “in recent months,” for 1,075 Gaza residents seeking medical care. Between 12,000 to 14,000 people still require medical evacuation from Gaza, according to the World Health Organization.

At least 37 patients and 39 companions left Gaza from Rafah, WHO said on Saturday, after the crossing re-opened.

Like Habiba, 2,500 other children in Gaza require urgent medical evacuation, according to the UN. But for those waiting for a lifeline, there is no such promise, according to a humanitarian worker in the region.

Arwa Damon, the founder of the relief organization INARA, told CNN, that Israel’s process for facilitating children’s medical evacuations from Gaza is “never clear.” INARA was not involved in Habiba’s evacuation mission.

“It’s like trying to navigate a twisted reality TV show... where the rules for survival are... constantly shifting and the stakes are a child’s life,” Damon said Monday. “What we have faced trying to get Habiba out is not unique to her, it’s the status quo.” — CNN