Now that a fragile ceasefire is in place, they are among some 15,000 patients who the World Health Organization (WHO) says are in need of urgent medical evacuations.

Ola Abu Said sits gently stroking the hair of her son, Amar. His family says he was in their tent in southern Gaza when he was hit by a stray bullet fired by an Israeli drone. It is lodged between two of his vertebrae, leaving him paralyzed. "He needs surgery urgently," Ola says, "but it's complicated. Doctors told us it could cause his death, a stroke or brain hemorrhage. He needs surgery in a well-equipped place." Right now, Gaza is anything but that. After two years of war, its hospitals have been left in a critical state.

Sitting by the bedside of her younger brother, Ahmed al-Jadd, his sister Shahd says her brother was a constant comfort to her through two years of war and displacement. "He's only 10 and, when our situation got so bad, he used to go out and sell water to help bring some money for us," she says. A few months ago, he showed the first signs of ill health. "Ahmad's mouth started drooping to one side," Shahd explains. "One time he kept telling me, 'Shahd my head hurts', and we just gave him paracetamol, but later, his right hand stopped moving."

The one-time university student is desperate for her brother to travel abroad to have his tumor removed. "We can't lose him. We already lost our father, our home and our dreams," Shahd says. "When the ceasefire happened it gave us a bit of a hope that maybe there was a 1 percent chance that Ahmed could travel and get treated." (BBC)