More than 40 wounded Palestinians, the youngest just eight months old, evacuated from Gaza arrived in Malaysia on Friday, the first Asian nation to receive Palestinians as part of efforts to help victims of the 10-month destruction of their territory by Israeli forces.
Two air force transport jets arrived 30 minutes apart, carrying the wounded Palestinians, mostly women and children.
The patients came out on stretchers and wheelchairs, a few were on crutches, relief washed over the faces of accompanying parents cradling toddlers or tightly grasping the hands of small children as they left the planes.
More than half of the patients were children, including 19 under the age of 12, according to details shared by the Armed Forces. Some evacuees had lost limbs, while others had suffered serious injuries caused by shrapnel from bomb blasts.
“We carried out this mission purely on humanitarian considerations, and to show our solidarity against what is happening to the people of Palestine,” Defence Minister Mohamed Khaled Nordin told reporters after receiving the patients.
Accompanied by 86 next of kin, the patients flew 19 hours from Egypt to Subang, with a stopover in Karachi, Pakistan.
Minister Khaled said they have not set a time frame for how long the patients and their families will be allowed to stay in Malaysia, adding that the government is still considering whether to bring in another batch of evacuees.
The patients will be treated at a field hospital at a hangar at the Subang air force base in Selangor state where they landed, before being taken to a military hospital.
The war in Gaza was triggered by Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of nearly 1,200 people, mostly civilians, according to official Israeli figures. Hamas militants also took scores of people hostage into the Gaza Strip.
Israel’s response has been bloody and unrelenting. Gaza is now largely in ruins after more than 10 months of war, and the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry has struggled to count the dead. On Thursday, the death toll surpassed 40,000.
Israel has repeatedly questioned the credibility of the figures put out by the ministry, and US President Joe Biden did so too in the early stages of the war.
But UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres believes that more than 40,000 Palestinians are likely to have been killed, given the large and “disturbing” number of people unaccounted for who may be trapped or dead under the rubble.
Pressure on Israel to agree to a ceasefire has mounted since a strike on a school sheltering civilians killed scores of people in what Israeli forces described as a targeted attack on a militant hideout. Yet, Israel’s attacks continue unabated.
Prime minister Anwar Ibrahim has made Gaza the critical focus of his foreign policy and has been one of the most vocal leaders advocating for the Palestinians and openly displaying his close relationship with leaders of the Hamas movement.
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Anwar said he would welcome wounded Palestinians to his country for treatment at an August 4 rally, condemning the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and the ongoing atrocities in Gaza.
“Malaysia does not bow to Western opinions or any country dictating whom we should support,” Anwar said, adding his country “firmly upholds Hamas’ role” in the struggle for Palestinian and Gaza liberation.
Anwar said that he has been in contact with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi for his help in allowing Malaysia to bring some of the sick and injured Palestinian women and children to be treated in Kuala Lumpur.
