The Latest | Families bid a tearful goodbye as 21 critically ill children are set to leave Gaza

Families bid a tearful goodbye as 21 critically ill children are set to exit Gaza for treatment abroad. It’s the first medical evacuation since Gaza's sole travel crossing shut down after Israeli forces captured it in early May. The kids and their adult escorts left Nasser Hospital in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis on Thursday, bound for the Kerem Shalom cargo crossing with Israel. It was not clear where they would receive treatment. The nearly nine-month Israel-Hamas war has devastated Gaza’s health sector and forced most of its hospitals to close. The head of Gaza’s hospitals said over 25,000 patients require treatment abroad. That includes some 980 children with cancer, a quarter of whom need “urgent and immediate evacuation.”