To this world, Palestinian cancer patients in Gaza do not merit life-saving care
On 13 October 2023, amid Israel's war on the Gaza Strip, my body began to suffer severe bone aches and general weakness.
Throughout the night - a time the Israeli war machine relentlessly and indiscriminately bombed the densely populated Gaza Strip - I was tormented not only by the ever-present, imminent threat of death but also by a scorching fever of at least 41 degrees Celsius.
Writhing in agony, I let out desperate cries as the fever consumed me.
I was burning. With Israel's complete siege cutting off access to antipyretics, the sensation of my body on fire persisted daily.
After a week of torment, I visited al-Shifa Hospital for a follow-up medical check, where a doctor informed me that inflammation from uncontrolled hyperthermia had "burnt" my lungs.
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Three days later, I was diagnosed with leukaemia.
The doctors instructed me to urgently register on the Ministry of Health website to secure a referral for treatment abroad, explaining that I would have to wait in an endless queue alongside countless other Palestinians, all desperately seeking life‐saving care.
They did not realise that I was not solely Palestinian. Fortunately, I held another nationality - one I choose not to specify so that the focus remains on the fact that it is, above all, non‐Palestinian.
Treatment journey
It was solely because of my other identity that I was acknowledged by the world and granted permission to travel on 11 November 2023 to begin the intensive phase of my chemotherapy.
During my first intrathecal injection - a red‐coloured, excruciatingly painful procedure - I asked my haematologist how long the intensive phase would last.
Approximately 6,000 cancer patients secured medical referrals, yet only 1,500 managed to leave Gaza. By July 2024, 436 cancer patients had already succumbed
He replied that it would require at least one year.
Overwhelmed by the prospect of a long struggle and aching from pain, I wept bitterly while my mother embraced me.
In an effort to lift my spirits, she promised that the time would pass quickly and even pledged to book me a ticket to visit my brother in Egypt once it was all over. As my tears dried up, I managed a sheepish, "Could you also promise me first‐class? Because I think I'll deserve it after all this."
During that year of treatment, while other cancer patients from Gaza were permitted to travel to Jordan, at least two arrived only after their health had severely deteriorated and tragically succumbed to their illness.
I vividly recall 15 October 2024 - the day shouts and cries filled the facility where we were staying, home to many Palestinian cancer patients who had come from Gaza to Jordan. When I stepped outside to check, I was told that Macca Zourob, just two years old, had died from cancer. She had arrived too late.
Abdul-Qader Junaid, 14, arrived in Jordan on 28 November 2024 but tragically died just four days later, on 2 December, as his condition rapidly worsened. His mother, overwhelmed with grief at witnessing her son's death, fainted several times in the hall.
Systematic killings
Meanwhile, the western media - fixated on humanising Israeli soldiers by highlighting their physical appearance and portraying them as "hostages" rather than military personnel - ignored these systematic killings of Palestinian children and failed to report that approximately 12,000 critically ill and injured individuals are held against their will by Israel.
In mid-December 2024, after what can only be described as a gruelling year, my results revealed cancer-free bone marrow cells. My haematologist informed me that I could transition to a three-year maintenance phase - a much lighter, less painful journey.
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Yet, learning that I had completed the intensive phase but still required three more years of treatment left me ambivalent. I found myself envisioning a new, less painful life while dreading the procedures still ahead.
I shared my conflicted thoughts with my ever-sanguine mother, who, as always - and like any Palestinian woman urging me to count my blessings - sighed in relief. She then showed me a video: an interview with Mohammed Mater from 18 November 2024.
Despite the weight of my haematologist's news pressing on my heart - foretelling the acute pain, constant nausea, and everything that came with it - I kept watching. Perhaps, in some way, I didn't want to appear ungrateful to my mother, fearing she might reconsider the plane ticket she had gifted me.
Mohammed was a 22-year-old Palestinian, an ambitious university student who was diagnosed with leukaemia during the war. He required daily transfusions of platelets and haemoglobin and urgently needed chemotherapy.
He never received it. Mohammed succumbed to cancer just two days after the interview.
My thoughts froze. The entire ordeal - platelet and haemoglobin transfusions, sharp intrathecal injections, stabbing biopsies, the searing, throbbing pain of bone marrow procedures - all flickered through my mind before dissolving into silence.
You see, Mohammed and I would have been a perfect match - if only he hadn't been solely Palestinian.
Worthy of life
Before May 2024, approximately 6,000 cancer patients had secured medical referrals, yet only 1,500 managed to leave Gaza; the remaining 4,500 were held hostage by the Israeli blockade, stranded without life‐saving care.
By July 2024, 436 cancer patients had already succumbed to the disease.
Had Macca, Abdul-Qader, and Mohammed been anything but Palestinian their plight might have received attention, condemnation, and urgent global appeals
Had Macca, Abdul-Qader, and Mohammed been anything but Palestinian - had they carried any other nationality - their plight might have received attention, condemnation, and urgent global appeals for their right to travel.
Were they not trapped under Israeli siege, crushed by its war machine, they might have been allowed to leave, to receive the treatment they deserved, to live. But to this world, they were not worthy of such things. Not worthy of life, as any other human would be.
Until Palestinians are recognised as human - until they are granted the most basic rights and no longer have to watch others decide how their homeland will be transformed into the so-called "Riviera of the Middle East" - the Palestinian struggle will persist.
As Dr Refaat Alareer said: "Palestinians will return. The struggle continues because the Nakba never ended."
Funded by US taxpayers and European aid, Israel's insatiable drive to kill, persecute, imprison, torture, maim, expel, dispossess, and hold Palestinians hostage will remain unquenched.
And with western media enabling Israel's propaganda, more children like Macca, Abdul-Qader, and Mohammed will continue to be ignored, dehumanised, and erased.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
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