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Palestinians in Gaza suffering from chronic illness are unable to get necessary medical care due to Israel’s ongoing bombardment of the occupied territory. While the war has been a focal point of global news coverage since October 7, few reports have addressed the lack of medicine and treatment for chronically ill patients, whom a February 2024 report by the Guardian characterized as “the hidden casualties of war.” The conflict is jeopardizing “the health of thousands of people with chronic illnesses such as kidney disease, diabetes and asthma,” Weronika Strzy?y?ska and Kaamil Ahmed reported for the Guardian.
Noting that only fourteen of thirty-six hospitals in Gaza were able to provide any medical services, the Guardian’s report quoted Guillemette Thomas of Doctors Without Borders, who explained that the remaining hospitals were “overwhelmed with injured people” and “not able to deal with chronic illness at all.”
“We don’t know how many people are dying because they can’t access healthcare,” Thomas stated.
One of the few organizations to provide detailed reporting on the issue has been the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). In December 2023, Firas Ramlawi, an AFSC staffer providing humanitarian aid in Gaza, reported the story of Fatima Shahin, a Palestinian woman in her sixties who suffers from kidney failure. Before the war, Shahin underwent dialysis treatment three days a week at Al-Shifa Hospital. When Israeli forces began bombing her residential area, she initially took refuge in a nearby UNRWA school but eventually chose to leave the school after learning that Israeli forces were also targeting shelters. She was evacuated to Al-Shifa Hospital, “hoping to feel safe and, at the same time, undergoing dialysis to stay alive,” Ramlawi reported.
Shahin was trapped in Al-Shifa for fourteen days while Israeli forces bombed the hospital. She survived and was eventually able to evacuate with her family to Abu Yousef Al-Najjar Hospital in Rafah. After two days, Ramlawi reported, “The hospital apologized to all kidney patients and asked them to leave because they were trying to cover only injury cases.”
As Strzy?y?ska and Ahmed reported for the Guardian, aid trucks have brought medicine, including insulin, to Gaza; however, distribution is a problem. Thomas, the Palestine coordinator for Doctors Without Borders, explained, “We have some insulin coming in aid trucks, but patients can’t get to the places where it is stocked because of the airstrikes. People are bombed on their way to the hospital.” Interim UN humanitarian coordinator Jamie McGoldrick said in a briefing that insulin pens for diabetic children “seem to be prohibited by the Israelis,” an accusation that Israel has denied. People with diabetes in Gaza have also struggled to monitor their blood sugar levels and obtain meals that correspond with their medical needs. One woman with asthma told the Guardian that, without her medication or even cough syrup, she has resorted to taking morphine to relieve her chest pain.
The lack of medicine is aggravated by a lack of adequate food and clean water. The UN estimated that 70 percent of Palestinians have been forced to drink contaminated water, 50 percent are experiencing food insecurity, and 25 percent of the population is starving. Livestock in Gaza are also starving due to a lack of food, compounding food insecurity.
This issue is not new, according to Abdelkader Hammad, a surgeon at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital. In an interview with the Guardian, he explained that around half of kidney dialysis patients in Gaza died during the 2008 Gaza war: “That was why we decided to move on to kidney transplants. We thought that a person with a transplant was more likely to survive a war than someone on dialysis.”
Corporate news coverage of medical needs in Gaza has focused on Palestinians suffering from injuries due to Israeli bombings and artillery fire. Although such coverage is essential, it fails to address how overcrowding of besieged hospitals has affected patients suffering from kidney disease, cancer, or other chronic diseases.
Firas Ramlawi, “Fatima’s Story, an Update from Gaza,” American Friends Service Committee, December 20, 2023.
Weronika Strzy?y?ska and Kaamil Ahmed, “Patients with Chronic Illnesses in Gaza Failing to Get Treatment, Doctors Warn,” The Guardian, February 17, 2024.
Student Researcher: Kay Woon Lau (City College of San Francisco)
Faculty Evaluator: Jen Levinson (City College of San Francisco)
More/Source: https://www.projectcensored.org/palestinian-chronic-illnesses-medical-care/