Inside a cloth tent in one of the shelter centers in the central Gaza Strip, the 16-year-old girl, Inshrah Abu Amsha, who suffers from cancer, sits, flipping through photos of her that were taken of her while she was on the treatment bed that she was deprived of as a result of the devastating aggression launched by Israel since last October 7.
The war pushed the girl from a room in which there was a cooling device that was compatible with her health condition and mitigated – albeit to a small extent – the repercussions of her illness, to a tent that stored high levels of heat and humidity and lacked the necessities of life.
The war and the almost complete closure of the Rafah crossing since the beginning of the war prevented the child, Abu Amsha, from completing her treatment abroad, as her family had sought last October 10, according to what she told Anadolu.
Today, the child and her family have no hope of leaving the Gaza Strip to complete treatment amid the deterioration of her health condition, after Israel completely closed the crossing on May 7, after it then took control of the Palestinian side of it as part of an operation it began in the city of Rafah in the far south of the Gaza Strip.
The child – whose left part of her face was swollen and completely lost her eye due to the presence of two tumors, the first above the eye and the other in the cheek – demands that work be done to remove her from the Gaza Strip to complete her treatment and save her from imminent danger.
Inshrah is not the only member of the Abu Amsha family suffering from cancer. Rather, she is one of 3 individuals, as her mother and sister suffer from the same disease, while her brother suffers from electrical surge disease in the brain.
Today, family members struggle with disease and war in order to survive, at a time when they lost their only breadwinner years ago to the same disease.
Since the beginning of the aggression, Israel has closed the Gaza Strip crossings, especially the Rafah land crossing, which witnessed a partial closure during which a very small number of holders of foreign passports, the sick, and the wounded were allowed to leave. However, Israel closed it completely after the army took control of the Palestinian side of it on May 7 last year.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health says in a statement that the health sector has lost more than 70% of its clinical capacity in the sector, while the Ministry is struggling to provide health services by establishing field hospitals, but it is unable to provide the minimum basic services.
This June, the Ministry said that 25,000 sick and wounded people in the Gaza Strip needed treatment abroad, and were unable to travel during the Israeli aggression.
The Ministry of Health indicated in a statement at the time that the number of sick and wounded people who were able to travel for treatment abroad was only about 4,895, a rate of 19.5% of the total number.
Harsh conditions
Inside the tent – which lacks the necessities of human life, especially for cancer patients – the little girl Abu Amsha sits petting a group of cats that she says she began taking care of during the war.
The girl with cancer lives in conditions she describes as harsh because of her weak immunity.
She says about this, “In our house in the town of Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip, I had a private room that had a ventilation and cooling device, because I needed special conditions due to the weakened immune system that I suffer from.”
She continued, “But today we are sitting in a tent in unsanitary conditions, and without the availability of any ingredients that would contribute to raising my immunity.”
She points out that it is not possible to leave the tent due to the overcrowding of displaced people inside the shelter center, in light of the spread of diseases and epidemics.
She pointed out that her health condition prevents her from withstanding the current heat, which leads to the deterioration of her health.
She expressed her hope to travel outside the Gaza Strip to receive treatment, accompanied by her family members, as soon as possible.
The disease runs rampant in the family
In turn, Samah (the mother of the child Abu Amsha) told Anadolu Agency, “Inshrah’s father died years ago as a result of cancer,” adding, “I and my other child, Aya, have cancer, and the child has an electrical surge in the brain.”
She explained that Inshirah’s health condition is very difficult due to the health complications she has been exposed to and increased swelling in the left part of the face.
She continues, saying, “I was collecting money to take the child out to complete her treatment abroad after she received it in Israeli and Jordanian hospitals, but to no avail, as she has undergone about 17 surgeries since she contracted the disease.”
Among these operations, Inshirah underwent a head tumor removal and a platinum implant, as well as a jaw implant, according to her mother.
She points out that she lost her home in the war, and at the same time she lost all the money she had kept for Insharah’s treatment.
The conditions of war and illness among the members of the Abu Amsha family combine with the absence of their breadwinner, who died of cancer, as they depend in their daily lives on the scarce aid that reaches them.
She explains that the lack of availability of healthy food and milk to boost the body’s immunity contributed to the deterioration of Inshirah’s health condition.
“There were days when we ate cardboard instead of bread,” she said.
Illness and displacement trips
Like other Palestinian families, the Abu Amsha family – most of whose members suffer from illness – went through about 12 displacement trips.
Abu Amsha said, “Since the outbreak of the war, we have been displaced from our home in the town of Beit Hanoun, and from here the displacement trips began until they reached about 12 times.”
She explained that the state of homelessness that afflicted families during the war separated them from their relatives, which made the opportunity to obtain support and support very difficult, she said.
She explained that she was injured by shrapnel from an Israeli bombing that targeted the Indonesian hospital (north), where the child Abu Amsha stayed to receive treatment during the war.
She added, “During our stay in Indonesia, the army targeted the upper floors of the hospital before storming it.”
She continued, “I was hit by missile fragments in my hand, causing the nerve to be cut, and I feel numbness in the hand, which prevents me from performing daily tasks.”
Last November, the Israeli army stormed the Indonesian hospital in the northern Gaza Strip for 4 days, before withdrawing from it, leaving a number of deaths and widespread destruction.