From Gaza to Geneva: Swiss doctor evacuates injured children

When Swiss doctor Raouf Salti realised he could not go to Gaza to help injured children, he decided he would do everything he could to get them to Geneva to receive medical care.

After dealing with swathes of red tape, Salti received permission for four children, including a 16-year-old who lost a kidney and had his leg amputated, to cross into Egypt from Gaza and fly to Switzerland on Monday.

Salti, who went to Egypt to pick them up, waved as he was greeted by his team at Geneva airport with Zeina, a wide-eyed 17-month-old who was rescued from under rubble in Gaza, in his arms.

“When I saw the situation kept getting worse, I decided my mission this time would be to go there and bring them here,” said Salti, who has taken part in several international humanitarian trips to Gaza and other parts of the Middle East and Africa over the past 14 years.

Salti, a urological surgeon and descendant of Palestinian refugees, had been scheduled to travel to Gaza on October 19 to carry out operations, including planned kidney surgery on a toddler.

However, his humanitarian mission, part of his work as founder of the NGO Children's Right for Healthcare, was called off due to the Israeli offensive launched in the wake of the October 7 attacks by Hamas gunmen.

The four children who arrived in Geneva on Monday are the second group Salti has managed to evacuate to Switzerland, bringing their number to eight. The children have been granted 90-day visas to receive medical care.

“What is important is giving them a normal life with calm, peace and love. A child's life,” Salti said after arriving at his office with the children and their mothers.

The four were chosen with help from his contacts in Gaza on the basis they were well enough to travel and could be helped in Switzerland.

Yussef, 16, who lost his left leg and had his kidney crushed in an Israeli attack, is emaciated, weighing less than 30kg. Doctors in Gaza amputated the remainder of the leg that had been blown off, but he needs to gain strength and ultimately be given a prosthetic.

Zeina, the 17-month-old, was initially treated at Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest facility in the Gaza Strip, which was raided by Israeli forces in November.

Her tiny left arm, supported by a sling, sustained several fractures doctors attempted to repair using an external fixation but the structure had to be removed due to an infection.

Salti said: “You can't talk about sterile (equipment) there. It doesn't exist.”

Reuters