Ankara (Reuters) – More than 100 evacuees from Gaza are set to arrive in Turkey on Monday, including dozens of people who will receive medical treatment there, Turkey’s health minister and foreign ministry spokesman said.
Sixty-one patients, accompanied by 49 relatives, arrived in Egypt from Gaza on Sunday evening and were scheduled to fly to Ankara on Monday after spending the night at Al Arish hospital, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said.
He said last week that Ankara wanted to bring as many of the nearly 1,000 cancer patients from Gaza to Turkey as possible. The first 27 patients arrived in Ankara last Thursday.
Separately, a group of 87 people, consisting of Turks, Turkish Cypriots and their relatives, arrived in Egypt from Gaza on Sunday and was set to fly to Istanbul late on Monday, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Oncu Keceli said.
Forty-four Turks who travelled from Gaza to Egypt at the weekend arrived in Istanbul on Sunday, footage shared by the foreign ministry showed.
Keceli also said that if conditions on the ground permit, Turkey aimed to get around 100 more people out of Gaza on Monday.
Speaking in parliament, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said Turkey’s efforts to get its citizens out of Gaza were continuing.
“Until today, we have secured the exit from Gaza of 170 of our citizens and their relatives,” he said, adding there would be further evacuations on Monday and Tuesday.
A month ago, Turkish Deputy Foreign Minister Ahmet Yildiz said some 700 people, including Turkish, Palestinian, and northern Cypriot citizens, had applied to Turkey to be evacuated from Gaza. Around 300 of them were Turkish citizens.
