An NHS doctor based in Scarborough has launched an urgent petition calling on the UK government to help evacuate his father from Gaza, after he suffered a severe brain injury.
Khaled Balousha, 61, sustained a traumatic brain injury when he was struck by shrapnel last month outside a shelter in the Southern Gaza Strip, as he was searching for food for his grandchildren.
He is currently in the Jordanian Field Hospital, in a tent, in Khan Yunis, and needs life-saving surgery, which is not available in the region due to the complexity of the treatment and the ongoing conflict. Doctors are now struggling to keep him alive.
His son, Mohammed Balousha, 32, a doctor based in Scarborough who is himself training to become a trauma surgeon, is calling on the UK government to intervene, to allow his father to cross the Rafah border between Gaza and Egypt.
Mohammed says his fathers injuries are serious and can't be dealt with in the field hospital:
The family has secured the full cost of Khaled's treatment and the only remaining obstacle is crossing the border, which now requires government-level coordination, Mohammed says that is proving to be complicated.
Getting accurate information about his fathers condition has become harder in the last 48 hours as the area where his family have been sheltering in Gaza came under attack.
Mohammed has been working for the last four weeks to try and get his dad moved to hospital facilities in Egypt, he says he has now got to the point where he needs assistance from the UK Government.
As part of his efforts to gain government assistance Mohammed contacted the government helpline for people with relatives caught up in the fighting, but he says the response was not positive.
Mohammed is now launched a petition to urge the government to intervene in the case, he's also attempting to contact ministers directly and says that just this week he has had a more positive response from the office of local MP Sir Robert Goodwill.
The petition at https://www.change.org/p/urge-the-uk-to-intervene-to-evacuate-nhs-doctor-s-father-from-gaza-for-life-saving-surgery has received over 1500 signatures so far. Mohammed says the petition is an important way of drawing the government's attention to the situation.
Mohammed says he's had strong support from his friends and colleagues here in the UK.
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