Since October 2020 the Palestinian family of Al-Kurd had been calling on the Israeli authorities to issue a permit allowing their cancer-stricken son Mahmoud Al-Kurd to receive treatment at Al Matlaa Hospital in Occupied Jerusalem.
“Mahmoud got a referral from Al Matlaa hospital to receive Radiation therapy” Al-Kurd family told the PIC adding he was denied permit to the occupied West Bank for the fourth time in a row without receiving information about the reason of rejecting the request.
When Al-Kurd was finally allowed to get to the hospital after human rights organizations intervened and pressured Israel to issue the permit his health condition severely deteriorated. He was proclaimed dead on Friday (16/12/2022) evening after a few hours of arriving at the hospital bringing the number of Palestinians who passed away due to travel bans in 2022 to eight including three children.
45-year-old Al-Kurd who was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor in the lung in October 2020 said in a brief statement that he lost 63 kilograms of his weight and received chemotherapy sessions in Egypt for three months yet he couldn’t afford it.
In a video published by his family he looked too skinny and affirmed that fighting cancer in Gaza is a double challenge due to the siege imposed on the enclave.
Scores of Gazans died after being denied permits to receive treatment in the occupied West Bank Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) reported adding that the 62-year-old Palestinian citizen Akram As-Sultan recently passed away after he was denied permit to get treatment at Al Matlaa hospital.
Since the beginning of 2022 5472 Gaza residents suffering from dangerous illnesses had been banned from traveling to get treatment abroad as the health sector in Gaza does not provide proper treatment to such illnesses due to the siege imposed on the enclave for more than 16 years according to PCHR
As the number of patients diagnosed with cancerous tumors in Gaza increased to 16000 the PCHR called on the Palestinian Authority to work towards improving the health sector in the Gaza Strip by restoring the infrastructure and health facilities.
For his part Director-General of Al-Shifa Medical Complex Dr. Muhammad Abu Salmiya stressed that 50% of medicine used in chemotherapy for patients diagnosed with cancerous tumors is not available in Gaza Strip. He added that 40% of essential medicines are not available which threatens the health sector’s collapse in the besieged enclave.
