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.
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