Israel plans “10 years” in Gaza

For long and difficult weeks, Suad Hamdan (52 years old), a resident of Jabalia Camp in the northern Gaza Strip, struggled with death in her home, while her family tried to find any hospital specialized in caring for cancer patients, in the Gaza Strip or outside it, to no avail, until she died. Of compound pain: the pain of a malignant disease, and the greater pain left by the war.

Since before the Israeli war that began last October, the Gaza Strip has been suffering from the lack of a hospital dedicated to treating cancer patients. They were forced to obtain medical referrals to hospitals outside the Gaza Strip (the West Bank or Israel), but with the continuation of the current war, patients have no choice but to face death without treatment.

Hamdan is one of dozens of cases of cancer who have lost their lives since the war on Gaza, at a time when other cases are still fighting death.

Hossam, Hamdan’s son, said that his mother lost her life after suffering severely from the disease. He added to Asharq Al-Awsat: “It is more difficult than death itself to see your mother go through this pain every day and you are unable to do anything (to relieve her).” He continued: “Her pain was double.” She didn’t die from a missile. She died a slow and difficult death. We tried every way. No hospitals, no medical care, no transfers, nothing (can be done). “You just have to wait for death.”

Since the beginning of the war, Hossam tried to coordinate with the Ministry of Health and international and relief organizations in order to transfer his mother abroad, but to no avail. Then he tried to transfer her at least to hospitals in the south of the Gaza Strip in order to receive normal medical care, but also to no avail, until she died.

There is no accurate number of cancer patients in the Gaza Strip, but the numbers issued by the concerned authorities there speak of about 2,000 patients, hundreds of them in the areas of the northern Gaza Strip that are subjected to a war of starvation and deprivation of food and medicines.

Medical sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that at least 57 cancer patients died in the first three months of the war due to not receiving any doses of the required medications.

Among these is the young woman Hadeel Hussein, a resident of the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood north of Gaza City, whose brother Ahmed told Asharq Al-Awsat that she continued to struggle with death for two weeks, during the month of November, until she surrendered her soul.

Before the war, Hadeel was supposed to be treated abroad, and her condition was reassuring.

Like Hadeel, death threatens many children who were receiving partial treatment at Al-Rantisi Oncology Hospital, which is designated to provide medical services for children with cancer, before Israeli forces stormed it and destroyed parts of it.

Dr. Ashraf Al-Qudra, spokesman for the Ministry of Health in Gaza, told Asharq Al-Awsat that cancer patients, along with hundreds of patients with various diseases in the northern Gaza Strip, face slow death due to being denied treatment, the occupation targeting hospitals, and preventing the entry of medicines.

Al-Qudra confirmed that there are attempts by the health system to evacuate cancer patients and transfer them for treatment abroad.

He added: “There are about 60 injured people who were able to leave the Gaza Strip to several countries, including Turkey and the Emirates, but the biggest problem is those who are still in the northern region.”

The patients who left Gaza were displaced from their areas of residence in the north at the beginning of the war.

The child Aseel Karam, who is receiving treatment in a hospital in Turkey, was one of the survivors.

Her mother said that her 12-year-old daughter survived three times; The first time was when she fled from the “Rantisi Oncology Hospital” before it was stormed, the second was when she fled certain death that struck her home in the Beach Camp, just days after she fled the hospital, and the third was when she left the Gaza Strip towards Turkey.

Aseel, who suffers from leukemia, is receiving treatment today in an Istanbul hospital. Her mother confirmed to Asharq Al-Awsat that she was improving, which would not have happened if she had stayed in Gaza.

Turkey, the UAE, and several countries announced their intention to host many cancer patients and their families in Gaza, but the occupation forces prevented hundreds of them from leaving.