‘We just sit and cry’: Gaza’s cancer patients die waiting for treatment
Doctors say cancer-related deaths have tripled since Israel’s war on Gaza began, as Israel blocks patients from leaving and restricts the entry of chemotherapy drugs.
For Hani Naim, the wait is not for a cure, but for permission to save his own life.
Living with cancer for six years, Naim had been approved for treatment abroad. But like thousands of others, he remains trapped in Gaza, barred from leaving by tightening Israeli restrictions.
“I used to receive treatment in the West Bank and Jerusalem,” Naim told Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum. “Today, I cannot access any treatment at all. I need radiotherapy, and it no longer exists in Gaza.”
Naim is one of 11,000 cancer patients currently stranded in the enclave, where the healthcare system has collapsed entirely.
According to doctors, the number of cancer-related deaths has tripled since the October 2023 start of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. With no chemotherapy, no radiotherapy, and no way out, a cancer diagnosis has become, for many, an immediate death sentence.
A ‘ghost hospital’
The epicentre of this crisis is the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital. Once the sole facility providing specialised oncology care in the Gaza Strip, it now stands as a hollowed-out shell.
“It resembles a ghost hospital after being turned into a military site during the war,” Abu Azzoum reported. “Israeli forces blew it up, leaving patients to fend for themselves.”
With the main facility destroyed, doctors have been forced into makeshift clinics with zero resources.
Israel continues to consolidate its annexation of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, UN report
The Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights told the General Assembly Fourth Committee that “the conduct of hostilities in Gaza has been emblematic of what comes with the systematic violation of international human rights and humanitarian law,” enabled by “pervasive impunity.” While welcoming the ceasefire and the relief it has brought after “two years of unspeakable suffering,” she warned that “the killing and suffering in Gaza continues.” Since the ceasefire, hundreds of Palestinians have reportedly been killed or injured, Israel retains “on-the-ground control of approximately half of Gaza,” and humanitarian aid allowed in remains “a drop in the ocean,” despite binding orders and an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice.
She stressed that “the root cause of the cycles of killing and repression has not been addressed,” namely “the denial of the Palestinians’ human rights, including their right to self-determination.” Citing the Secretary-General’s latest report, she highlighted the acceleration of illegal settlement expansion and annexation, noting that over “737,000 Israeli settlers” now live in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem. The report concludes that the ongoing “forcible transfer of Palestinians” and the transfer of Israel’s civilian population into occupied territory may amount to “war crimes and possibly a crime against humanity,” and calls on Israel to “end its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including by evacuating all Israeli settlers.”
