Gaza- Nizar Al-Muslimi was displaced with his family from the north of the Gaza Strip to the south, in perfect health, not suffering from any illness or taking any medications, while today he is drowning in a complete coma in the Nasser Medical Complex, unable to feel his companions and not aware of what is going on around him.
Al-Musalmi (65 years old) and his family (9 members) lived in a house in the town of Beit Lahia, and after the outbreak of war last October 7, they were forced to repeatedly move until they reached the city of Rafah in the far south of the Gaza Strip, which they left in the wake of an Israeli ground invasion in May. Last May.
Muhammad, Al-Musalmi’s eldest son, says that his father was in good health and did not suffer from any chronic diseases. He suffered a sudden and rapid health setback, and they believe it is the result of this war and the journey of displacement and suffering from one tent to another.
Big shock
“Shortly after the recent displacement from Mawasi Rafah to neighboring Mawasi Khan Yunis, my father complained of sudden pain and we thought it was the result of exhaustion and the suffering of repeated displacement, but our shock was great when my father was diagnosed with brain cancer,” Muhammad added to Tel Aviv Tribune Net.
One week later, he underwent a tumor removal operation at the European Hospital in Khan Yunis, and before he fully recovered and his recovery period was complete, Muhammad says that the doctors decided to discharge his father from the hospital due to Israeli warnings to evacuate the area in which the hospital was located.
Only two days after Al-Muslimi left the hospital after his administration was forced to evacuate him on July 1, the tumor sample that was scheduled to be examined to determine whether it was benign or malignant was lost.
Muhammad says that his father felt noticeably better after the operation, but this condition did not last long. After he went out to the tent, he became paralyzed from the outside, and a CT scan revealed that the tumor had infected his brain again. It is believed that the loss of the tumor sample and its failure to undergo a thorough examination in a timely manner is the reason for the deterioration of his father’s health condition and his arrival in this state.
For about a week, this patient remained in a complete coma inside a modest tent that did not have any necessities of care and attention. The doctors decided to admit him to the hospital due to severe shortness of breath. According to Muhammad – who has not left his father in the hospital for 5 days – he is not receiving any treatment and is living on respirators. Industrial.
Before he was transferred to the hospital, Muhammad said that his father’s health condition deteriorated rapidly, and he lost his speech and the ability to swallow food. Treatment for such a condition is not available due to the repercussions of the war and the closure of the crossings, and his family’s hopes depend on him obtaining a medical referral for treatment abroad.
The closure of the Rafah land crossing with Egypt and the Israeli complications imposed on the travel of limited numbers of patients through an Israeli crossing in coordination with international bodies prevent thousands of wounded and sick people from obtaining their right to travel for treatment.
Imminent collapse
Amid the Ministry of Health’s warnings of the imminent collapse of the Nasser Complex if the electrical generators stop working, Muhammad feels increasing concern for his father, whose life depends on ventilators. He says that the patient in Gaza does not only suffer from the disease, but also from many challenges related to the lack of treatment, clean water to drink, and appropriate food. .
Al-Muslimi’s family lives on his pension from the Palestinian Authority, which is not enough to provide his family’s basic needs, and his requirements as a patient, in light of the huge increase in prices.
While the world celebrates October as Breast Cancer Awareness Month by organizing events using the color pink as a slogan to encourage women to undergo periodic and early examination, the disease ravages the body of Sanaa Abu Al-Eish, who found herself confronted with cancer and the suffering of displacement and homelessness.
Sanaa (58 years old) has been the widow of a martyr for 21 years and supports – with monthly financial assistance (about $200) – a large family. She lost one of her sons as a martyr during the war, and takes care of his widow and their five children. She was forced to displace them from the city of Rafah on the eve of the Israeli ground attack, and she resides in A semi-destroyed hall in the municipal stadium in Khan Yunis.
She describes her health and living situation as miserable, and tells Tel Aviv Tribune Net that her suffering with cancer worsened as a result of her displacement 7 times, during which she developed severe chest allergies as a result of inhaling dust and remnants of occupation ammunition.
Sanaa discovered that she had the disease in 2019, and was regularly admitted to the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital. She said, “All the time we suffer from a scarcity of medicines and treatments, so what about you in light of the war and siege?”
She did not receive any treatment during the year of the war, and a CT scan showed that she had kidney stones. Her daughter, Zainab, fears for her mother’s life with the appearance of a new tumor in the chest for which there are no facilities to examine it, and she hopes that she will be able to travel for treatment.
Her financial situation does not allow her to eat fruits and healthy foods that are not constantly available in the markets, and their prices are exorbitant, and she says, “We are the poor, God is ours.” Zainab explains that eating canned food affected her mother in a very negative way.
A catastrophic reality
The suffering of cancer patients increased as the only Al-Sadaqa Hospital specializing in cancer and oncology went out of service, as a result of it being directly targeted by the occupation last November. The hospital’s general director, Dr. Sobhi Skaik, told Tel Aviv Tribune Net that the patients lost this hospital and were devastated by the war and were dispersed in tents and shelter centers, under deteriorating and unsuitable conditions.
Based on the results of tests from previous years, Skaik estimates that during “a year of genocidal war, there are from 2,000 to 2,500 new cases of cancer, in addition to more than 10,000 others who visited the hospital before the outbreak of war.”
These newly infected women, men and children were not diagnosed and did not receive treatment at all. According to Sakik, only a few of them – no more than 1,500 patients – were able to leave the Gaza Strip during the year of aggression, while more than 11,000 cancer patients are trapped there and in dire need of treatment abroad.
In addition to the general incidence of various types of cancer, approximately 360 new patients are diagnosed with breast cancer annually, with an average of one case per day, according to the same spokesman.
Skaik describes the pharmaceutical situation in Gaza as catastrophic for cancer patients due to the only hospital being out of service. He says that there are only two places in the south of the Strip that provide “whatever cancer medications are available to our female and male patients in the outpatient clinics at the Nasser Complex in Khan Yunis and the Al-Razi Clinic in the central region.”
These two areas shelter about two million Palestinian residents and those displaced there, and Skaik says that large numbers of patients are constantly being visited by them, and some patients resort to hospitalization for a small percentage due to the lack of places and capabilities. As for the northern Gaza Strip, there are no medical teams, and there is no treatment for cancer at all except a little in a private hospital that provides some chemotherapy, and it is not a comprehensive treatment protocol.
As the war continues, the suffering of cancer patients increases – according to Skaik – due to the lack of safe drinking water, the occupation’s use of starvation against Gazans, and the lack of healthy food.
