In his statement to journalists at Al-Arish Airport, Minister Koca said that they sent nearly 660 tons of medicine, medical supplies and medical devices, 20 ambulances and 8 field hospitals to Gaza with 10 planes and 1 ship. Stating that he met with Halid Abdulgaffar, Minister of Health of Egypt, to discuss the cooperation with Egypt in order to see the coordination of the aids on site and to determine the locations of field hospitals, Koca noted that they visited the hospitals. He also stated that they would visit Al-Arish Hospital and continued as follows: “The child patients with cancer is especially in the first place for us but nearly 30 patients, who were in Gaza, crossed the Rafah Border Gate today, the exact number is 26. We planned to take these 26 patients to Türkiye today and the discussions regarding this were positive. Our hope was to try to take these cancer patients to Türkiye today. We have just arrived with the Minister. These patients passed through the Rafah Border Gate. The ambulances are waiting right now and procedures are being carried out. I think we will be able to bring the patients to the airport within half an hour or an hour, and we will soon be visiting the patients." Noting that they are planning to transfer the patients passing through the Rafah Border Gate directly to Türkiye, Minister Koca said, "I hope we will achieve this today without any problems.""We are trying to bring as many patients as possible from Gaza to Türkiye" When a journalist asked about the discussions held with the officials of the Ministry of Health of Israel regarding the transfer of patients, Minister Koca said: "Currently, there is a tripartite coordination team. Appropriate patients and patients whose procedures have been completed are decided together by Egypt, Türkiye and Israel, and they are passed through the Rafah Border Gate is ensured. Therefore, we are in close communication with Israel and the Minister of Health in this sense. We want this war to end as soon as possible. We want to be able to offer aid to all Gazans and Palestinians who need treatment. Türkiye is ready to provide all kinds of assistance in this regard. The arrival of these patients is extremely important. We know that there are nearly 1000 patients with cancer. We also know that there are many patients on dialysis. During this period, we are trying to bring as many patients from Gaza to Türkiye as possible by keeping in touch. I hope we can achieve this." No One Should Doubt That We Will Do Our Utmost Minister Koca was reminded that he visited Gazan children receiving treatment in hospitals, and the following question was asked: "Today you came into contact with the children coming from Gaza. There are thousands of them. What would you say about this?" The Minister replied as follows: "The drama here is very different. We know that nearly 200 patients have arrived so far, but we also know that there are nearly 20 thousand people injured. Therefore, the number of patients coming is very low. There are many patients waiting. This needs to increase gradually. But the Minister of Health also said that there was no patient, who could go out of Egypt, from Gaza. In other words, these are the first patients from Gaza who went out of Egypt and were sent to another country for treatment. We are experiencing this today. And for the first time, a ship from Türkiye went to Egypt in terms of aid. We want to establish a field hospital in Gaza, in the area close to the Rafah Gate, with the follow-up of this tripartite coordination, in the near future. There is a lot to be done. We see that we have a lot of work to do. As Türkiye, we are putting all our efforts into this. No one should doubt this. We want to establish the Field Hospital in Gaza." Noting that they want those being treated in hospitals in Egypt to be evaluated together by Turkish and Egyptian doctors, Minister Koca said, “Teamwork has been carried out regarding that. In the near future, that team will go from Türkiye to Egypt. Therefore, it is planned that the patients passing through the Rafah Gate will firstly be evaluated in these two hospitals and then the suitable patients will be brought back to Türkiye at the second stage. I hope we can complete this successfully without any obstacles.”
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