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Spain will evacuate 13 seriously ill children from Gaza along with their family members for medical treatment, Defence Minister Margarita Robles announced on Wednesday. A Spanish military aircraft, an A400 transport plane specially outfitted with medical facilities, is due to depart later in the day for Jordan’s capital, Amman, to collect the patients and bring them to Spain.
This initiative is part of Spain’s ongoing humanitarian support for Palestinians affected by the war in Gaza, which erupted following Hamas’s attack on Israel in October 2023. Since then, Spain has taken in multiple young patients in need of urgent medical attention.
Spain’s left-leaning government has emerged as one of the most outspoken critics within the European Union of Israel’s prolonged military offensive in the densely populated Gaza Strip. “The situation in Gaza is absolutely terrible. The level of cruelty shown by Netanyahu is absolutely unacceptable, and I believe the international community must respond,” Robles said, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Earlier this week, Spain pledged to drop 12 tonnes of food aid into Gaza to help combat the growing threat of famine after nearly two years of war. A similar operation in March saw 26 tonnes of food delivered by air.
The recent conflict began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas launched a cross-border attack that left 1,219 people dead in Israel, according to official Israeli figures. Israel has since carried out a large-scale bombardment in Gaza, which the Gaza health ministry reports has killed more than 60,000 people, the majority of them women and children.
