Gaza’s chronically ill, invisible victims of war: ‘I’m even willing to give my son up for adoption if it will save his life’

Rema Badwan learned she had breast cancer eight months after the Israeli offensive in Gaza began. The diagnosis came late, and the disease had already spread to her lymph nodes and slightly affected her liver. “They didn’t tell me much more, not the stage of the disease nor my chances of survival. Only that I had to start chemotherapy immediately,” says the 39-year-old, weakened and tearful in a tent in the Al-Mawasi area, in the southern Gaza Strip.

Badwan had noticed a lump in her breast three years earlier, but her husband thought she was exaggerating and didn’t want her to see a doctor. Finally, in June 2024, when she accompanied one of her daughters to the hospital, she decided to speak to a medical professional. “And now everything is infinitely more complicated. I’ve been able to receive some chemotherapy sessions, but not exactly what I need, due to displacement, the bombings, and the fact that there aren’t always medications available,” explains this Palestinian woman, who has had to change shelters four times since October 2023. “They inject you with whatever they have, and that’s if I’m lucky. And I also don’t have the antibiotics, vitamins, or other supplements I should be taking,” she adds.

In April 2024, the Hamas-controlled Gaza Ministry of Health estimated that some 350,000 people in the Strip suffering from chronic illnesses such as diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular, kidney, and respiratory ailments were being deprived of essential medical checkups and treatment due to the war.

“Hundreds” have died, according to NGOs and local medical sources, but the number is impossible to calculate due to the extreme humanitarian crisis in Gaza, with most hospitals destroyed or operating at half capacity and with restricted access to the territory for international medical and humanitarian personnel. The names of these people are not included in official death statistics and they end up becoming invisible victims of this war.

From October 2023 to mid-July 2025, 7,460 patients were evacuated from Gaza, 5,160 of whom were children, according to data from the World Health Organization

Surrounded by insects, rats and infections

“I haven’t had a single chemotherapy session in three months. We had to move again, and the nearest hospital was closed. I also can’t get a scan because there aren’t any machines available, and I don’t really know how I’m doing,” says Badwan.

In May, chemotherapy was completely suspended in the Strip after the European Hospital in Gaza was forced to cease operations following Israeli attacks. Chemotherapy services are currently provided at Nasser Hospital, but they are insufficient to treat the entire patient population. According to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), there were approximately 12,500 cancer patients in Gaza before the outbreak of this war.

Radiotherapy has also been unavailable in Gaza for years, as Israel, which has blockaded the Strip by land, air, and sea since 2007, believed that the machine that delivers this treatment could have a dual use and be used militarily by groups such as the Islamist movement Hamas, which rules the territory de facto.

I survive surrounded by insects and rats and am exposed to all kinds of infections. I don’t eat vegetables, fruit, or meat. We don’t have the money to afford the scarce vegetables sold in the markets. At best, I eat canned meat, which is totally inadvisable for patients like me

Rema Badwan, cancer patient

Badwan explains that on other occasions, she was also unable to receive treatment because she was very weak, due to the poor hygiene conditions in her tent, in an area where tens of thousands of people are crowded together. “I survive surrounded by insects and rats and am exposed to all kinds of infections. I don’t eat vegetables, fruit, or meat. We don’t have the money to afford the scarce vegetables sold in the markets. At best, I eat canned meat, which is totally inadvisable for patients like me. My immune system has been severely compromised,” she explains.

Mercè Rocaspana, emergency medical coordinator for Doctors Without Borders (MSF), explains that from the beginning of the war, the NGO wanted to focus on supporting primary health services. “Because we sensed that most of the resources would be concentrated on the direct victims of the conflict, and the rest would take a dangerous backseat,” she says. Currently, MSF has five primary care centers in the Strip. MSF Spain alone, which manages two of these centers, has recorded 3,000 monthly consultations for diabetics, 2,500 related to hypertension, and approximately 1,000 for patients with chronic respiratory problems.

But the humanitarian aid blockade and the lack of supplies forces painful decisions, such as “treating only patients who have already been diagnosed so that at least they can continue receiving treatment,” says Rocaspana.

“I just want him to live”

Murad Jarghun is 11 years old, but his tiny frame, slumped in an old wheelchair, and his helpless gaze suggest a much younger child. He has had health problems since he was a baby. At first, it was thought to be simple proteinuria — excess protein in the urine — but later it was discovered he had a rare, genetic kidney disease. Despite the Israeli blockade in place on Gaza since 2007, he obtained permits to be examined at hospitals outside the Strip, in Jerusalem, Tunisia, and Libya, where doctors concluded he would require daily treatment and lifelong care.

The little boy’s calcium deficiency has caused severe osteoporosis, and he has already suffered several fractures. In October 2023, days before the war began, he broke his right leg. The bombing continued, his operation was delayed, and when it finally took place, it didn’t go well, and the prosthesis he had been fitted with had to be removed. The little boy is also not taking phosphorus pills, essential for the strength of his bones, which his family can no longer find in Gaza. His condition worsens every day, further aggravated by his poor diet.

“Murad can’t walk, he can’t go to the bathroom alone anymore, he can’t change positions when he sleeps. He needs help with everything,” says Hala, his mother. “I feel sick and very weak. I need food, I need a better life,” the little boy whispers.

I ask the world to take pity on sick people like him and that we can get him out of here

Hala, mother of an 11-year-old suffering from a rare genetic kidney disease

His family has had to move six times and has been living in a tent in the southern Gaza Strip for two months. “The last one was the hardest escape. There are 40 of us struggling for a precarious bathroom, and Murad often can’t wait, so I put a diaper on him, but they’re hard to find or too expensive,” his mother laments.

Another problem is the insects, which are everywhere, and the heat, to which the boy is very sensitive. “I used to dream of Murad studying at university because he’s very intelligent. Now I just want him to succeed. I’m even willing to give my son up for adoption if it will save his life, if another family can give him food and love,” his mother sobs. “I ask the world to take pity on sick people like him and that we can get him out of here,” she adds.

From October 2023 to mid-July 2025, 7,460 patients were evacuated from Gaza, 5,160 of whom were children, according to data from the World Health Organization (WHO). Among them were war wounded, but also more than 600 cancer patients and over 400 with congenital and cardiovascular diseases. Currently, 14,000 patients in critical condition are expected to be evacuated, according to Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the WHO, who urged the international community to receive sick people from Gaza. Recently, for example, 13 sick children and one adult were taken in by the Spanish government.

In recent days, Israel has once again allowed trucks carrying medical supplies into the Gaza Strip after weeks of blockade. MSF has received, for example, 12 tons of medicines and supplies. “They’re vital, but nothing compared to the 200 tons we have waiting on the other side of the border,” Rocaspana clarifies.

At the end of June, the WHO was also able to deliver its first shipment into Gaza since March: nine trucks containing essential medical supplies that are, in the words of Luca Pigozzi, coordinator of the WHO’s emergency medical team in Gaza, “a drop in the ocean of needs.”

Palestinian and foreign NGOs describe this situation as collective punishment of the civilian population of Gaza and believe that these Israeli policies trample on the pillars of international humanitarian law, which protects the rights of the wounded and sick in times of war.

“Cancer patients continue to suffer, we are exhausted, and the world does nothing. I don’t even have a present; I don’t dare to imagine my future. Maybe cancer won’t kill me, but hunger or an Israeli bombing will,” concludes Rema Badwan, from her shabby tent in southern Gaza.

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