Cancer Patients from Gaza Being Treated at Jerusalem Hospitals Appeal Israel’s Deportation Order

With heavy steps, Abdul Rahman Jouda, 78, walks through the corridors of AlSawana hotel that provides accommodation for Palestinian patients from Gaza and their companions while they receive treatment for cancer at Augusta Victoria Hospital in East Jerusalem.

In August 2023, Abdul Rahman was diagnosed with skin cancer in the nasal area. After he underwent two surgeries at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip, his doctors decided to refer him on September 18 to Augusta Victoria Hospital for radiation therapy, which is unavailable in the Gaza Strip.1

He was extremely fortunate to receive a rare entry permit from the Israeli military authorities to leave Gaza and travel to Jerusalem for this care.

On October 7, Hamas launched Operation al-Aqsa Flood and Israel declared war on the Gaza Strip, radically changing the situation on the ground.

Over two months, Abdul Rahman received 35 sessions of radiation therapy and continues to be treated for his cancer in Jerusalem. The Israeli Civil Administration, however, now plans to deport 49 Palestinian patients and their companions back to the Gaza Strip, claiming that they are in the recovery stage and thus do not need to receive additional treatment. Eleven of these patients, including Abdul Rahman, are still being monitored at the hospital and staying in nearby hotels.

The patients were notified on March 21 that they should be ready to leave at 3:00 a.m. the next morning, to arrive at Erez checkpoint to Gaza by 6:30 a.m.2

But a legal appeal to the Supreme Court achieved a temporary delay in the order.

Jerusalem Story sat down with Abdul Rahman, who hails from the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, where over 1.3 million Palestinians are now residing and sheltering from the war. He worries that if he is forced to return to Gaza, the overcrowding and polluted environment due to Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza would directly impact his health.

“I’m facing a dilemma: to stay in Jerusalem and endure the remaining pains of my treatment journey, away from my children and community, or to return to Rafah and face the danger of death because of the war or the deterioration of my health in the absence of medical facilities in the Gaza Strip,” Abdul Rahman said.3

Abdul Rahman feels that he will burden his children if he returns to Gaza due to his need for specific medications and a healthy diet, which have both been unavailable for the past six months since the war began.

“I know that in civilized societies, patients in war zones are relocated to safe areas. The opposite is happening to us. They want to send us from a safe area to a war zone, where I won’t find a single painkiller to soothe my pains,” Abdul Rahman added.

Close to him sits Reem Abu Ubaida, 48, whose treatment journey is also ongoing at Augusta Victoria Hospital.

Reem is a mother from the city of Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip. She sheds sorrowful tears for her 11 children who are presently scattered in two areas, with half of them living in tents in the barren area of al-Mawasi along the souther coast and the other half in the adjacent city of Rafah in the southern tip of the Gaza Strip near the Egyptian border. Both areas are currently mobbed with Palestinians from other areas of the Strip who sought some kind of safe area from the war, although even these areas have been bombed by Israel and Rafah may be invaded soon.

“Our house in Khan Yunis was bombed, and three of my daughters were injured by shrapnel, which resulted in burns and fractures. My body is here in Jerusalem, but my heart and soul are in Gaza,”4 Reem said.

“However, the decision to deport pains me even more, because I won’t be able to live in a tent due to my weakened immune system and my need for healthy conditions, which are nonexistent in Gaza,” she added.

Reem was diagnosed with breast and lymph node cancer last year. She underwent 16 sessions of chemotherapy before doctors removed the tumors. She was then transferred on September 24, 2023, to Augusta Victoria Hospital for radiation therapy.

Reem completed her radiation therapy and began receiving hormonal treatment. She shares that her greatest wish is for the war to end so she can reunite with her family, but she fears that her health will deteriorate due to the lack of treatment in Gaza if she returns.

“I have no home to return to, and the roads and infrastructure are destroyed. We would have to walk long distances in Gaza, which we cannot endure as patients. I appeal to international organizations and human rights institutions to help us stay in Jerusalem until we fully recover or until the war ends,” Reem relayed.

Since receiving the news that Israel plans to deport them under the pretext that their medical conditions no longer require them to stay in Jerusalem for treatment, Reem, Abdul Rahman, and dozens of other sick Palestinians from Gaza along with their companions are living a dark nightmare.

Executive director of Augusta Victoria Hospital Dr. Fadi al-Atrash shared with Jerusalem Story that Israel’s deportation decision includes patients getting treated at his hospital as well as others getting treated at Makassed Hospital and St. John Eye Hospital in East Jerusalem, and seven patients in Israel’s Tel Hashomer Hospital in Tel Aviv.5

Israeli authorities requested hospitals to inform patients of the decision, which was originally scheduled to be carried out on March 21, 2024. The Israeli Supreme Court, however, suspended the decision after a petition was filed by the organization of Physicians for Human Rights—Israel (PHRI).

According to CNN, spokesperson Ran Yaron of PHRI stated that “returning residents to Gaza during military conflict and humanitarian crisis violates international law and poses deliberate danger to innocent lives, especially when it comes to patients who may face the death penalty due to unhealthy conditions, hunger, and lack of potential medical care.”6

Dr. Yousef Hamamreh, director of the Cancer Care Center at Augusta Victoria Hospital, told Jerusalem Story that the coordinator at the Civil Administration in the Israeli settlement area of Beit El requested a list with the names of Palestinian patients from Gaza who were getting treated at the hospital and the reasons for their presence. The coordinator requested that those who do not require treatment be returned to Gaza.

“All patients are cancer patients, and those who are not undergoing treatment also require thorough medical follow-up, because this follow-up is lacking in Gaza amidst the war. After being pressured, we were forced to include the names of a few patients who are less likely to be harmed if they were to be sent away, despite the dangers posed by this step,” Hamamreh said.7

According to Hamamreh, the hospital is currently treating 51 Palestinian cancer patients from Gaza, including adults and children. The types of cancer they suffer from vary, including blood, skin, colon, breast, lung, and prostate. Given the lack of cancer treatments in Gaza, and indeed the overwhelming destruction of the hospitals there during the war, his team has been compelled to provide some of these patients with hormonal therapy medications six months in advance out of concern that they might suddenly be deported back to Gaza.

Hamamreh explained that the health risks resulting from the deportation of patients will be extremely high due to the malnutrition and starvation nearing famine conditions currently experienced by nearly all Palestinians in Gaza8 and the lack of suitable accommodation for cancer patients. This situation will increase the mortality rate among them because of medical complications and the spread of disease—that is, if they don’t lose their lives due to the ongoing war.

Since Israel launched its war on Gaza in October 7, 2023, Augusta Victoria Hospital has been diligently working to try and bring back its former patients to complete their treatment; however, thus far, they have been unsuccessful. Hamamreh revealed that the number of patients who were unable to return to the hospital for necessary follow-up treatment exceeds 700.

According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, there are currently 10,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip who are diagnosed with some form of cancer. In the past six months, it was expected to diagnose 1,000 new cancer patients, but the ministry could not do so due to the war and its aftermath.9

Patients from the Gaza governorate comprise 40 percent of the total number of patients at Augusta Victoria Hospital, while 60 percent are from other Palestinian governorates. According to Hamamreh, this indicates that the hospital is the primary destination for these patients and thus, those from Gaza are unable to travel and receive treatment.

“Hundreds of cancer patients have been stranded in Gaza due to the war, which means that their recovery rate has dropped from 50 percent to less than 10 percent due to a long period without receiving proper treatment. As a result, those who were in the second stage of the disease have now inevitably reached the fourth stage,” Hamamreh said.

Further, Hamamreh pointed out that the types of cancer for which patients from Gaza are treated at the hospital “are not mentioned in textbooks in terms of severity and the young age at which patients are diagnosed.” He attributed this to several reasons, including Israel’s prolonged siege on the Gaza Strip with all its many adverse ramifications, psychological strain, negative environmental factors, and the sea pollution that they ingest, which is a result of Israel’s successive wars on the Strip and the massive amounts of weapons and chemicals fired by Israel directly on the population over many years.

When asked about his feelings as a doctor regarding everything his patients are experiencing, especially being unable to reach the hospital for treatment, Hamamreh remained silent for a few moments and then said: “I search for a more expressive word than helplessness to describe myself . . . I feel that I am contributing to the death of these patients, because I am unable to bring them to the hospital for treatment. Many contact me and plead for help, but my hands are tied, and I do not have the authority to bring them here.”

“The worst part is having patients who are about to be deported to a war-stricken area . . . This contradicts all humanitarian international laws,” he added.