A Taiwanese doctor working with an international non-governmental organization (NGO) was among the hundreds of foreign nationals safely evacuated from the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said yesterday.
Amid international media reports that at least 320 foreign nationals and some wounded people had left Gaza for Egypt on Wednesday, Wu told reporters in Taipei that one of them was a Taiwanese, with whom Taiwan’s representative office in Israel was maintaining close contact.
Wu, who was on his way to a legislative hearing, later told lawmakers that the Taiwanese evacuee was a doctor working with an international NGO.
Photo: CNA
With the evacuation of the doctor, the ministry is not aware of any other Taiwanese in the Gaza area, Wu said.
According to a list published on Wednesday on the Facebook page of the Gaza border crossings authority, NGO workers from Taiwan, Austria, France, Germany, Haiti, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Philippines, Spain and the US, were among a group of 320 foreign passport holders and international aid workers who had crossed the Egypt border via the Rafah Crossing.
On the list was Taiwan passport holder Hung Shang-kai, a member of Doctors Without Borders (MSF), a French charity that provides humanitarian medical care worldwide.
Asked to confirm the information, MSF’s Taiwan office issued a Chinese-language press release, saying that one Taiwanese was among the 22 MSF staff members working in Gaza and had left the area via the Rafah Crossing on Wednesday.
The doctor in July had left Taiwan to work on humanitarian missions in Gaza, and MSF has been maintaining close contact with the worker’s family, MSF Taiwan executive director Houdet Ludivine was cited as saying in the press release.
MSF in France on Wednesday issued an English-language press release, asking that the privacy of the 22 evacuated workers be respected.
“Although some names have been circulated on social media, we ask for their privacy and well-being to be respected,” MSF said in the press release.
The limited evacuations came more than three weeks into a total blockade of Gaza by Israel, which has been bombarding the enclave and has sent in ground troops in response to an attack by Hamas fighters on Israel on Oct. 7.
Meanwhile, Wu told lawmakers yesterday that some Taiwanese who are still in Israel are now considering leaving the country.
The government will keep close contact with them and assist them if necessary, he said.
On Oct. 20, the government provided a free charter flight to evacuate Taiwanese from Israel.
Later that day, the flight landed in Italy, carrying 14 evacuees from Israel, nine of whom were Taiwanese — a family of five, three backpackers and a student.
The other evacuees were four holders of Guatemalan passports and one from Paraguay — two countries that are diplomatic allies of Taiwan.
At the time, Wu said that 37 Taiwanese had chosen to remain in Israel.
On Oct. 23, Taiwan donated US$70,000 to Israeli NGO Pitchon-Lev to help provide relief supplies to Israelis affected by the war.
Wu told lawmakers that Taiwan is also considering offering humanitarian assistance to Palestinians and is in talks with international charity groups.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
RSS