Stranded in the West Bank, Gazan cancer patients share their stories of survival amid Israel's war

Since October 7, 2023, Israel has continued its bloody war on Gaza, killing more than 44,630 people and causing destruction and famine that now threaten the lives of over 2.1 million people.

Unsurprisingly, the war has left everyone in a state of limbo, from those trying to continue their education or provide aid to those in desperate need of medical care.

In late October 2023, the World Health Organization reported that at least 400 patients were stranded in the West Bank and East Jerusalem after travel between Gaza and the West Bank was halted following Israel’s war on the coastal enclave.

Among these patients, 100 people, including women, children, and men, were suffering from cancer, a number that has no doubt increased.

In Gaza, the Turkish Friendship Hospital was the only facility that treated cancer patients, offering care to more than 10,000 people. However, in October 2023, the Israeli army attacked and destroyed the hospital, leaving cancer patients without treatment and facing serious risks due to the lack of medicine.

This crisis has been made worse by Israel’s 17-year blockade on Gaza, which has stopped cancer patients in Gaza from getting full treatment.

Life turned upside down 

To get the treatment they need, many patients have had to travel to the West Bank and Jerusalem.

At present, there are very few centres available to provide care, one of which is the Family Revival Association in Ramallah, West Bank, which has taken in and housed cancer patients stranded in the area.

With little hope for their current situations, The New Arab spoke to several of these patients, particularly female patients, to uncover what they have endured since Israel's relentless bombardment began.

Marwa Shahin, 30, who suffers from breast cancer, arrived in the West Bank two weeks before Israel’s war began. She was supposed to return to Gaza on Sunday, 8 October, but with the war breaking out on 7 October, her return became impossible, leaving her in shock.

“I tried to return to Gaza, but the Israeli army closed all the borders.

“Because of the war, my life has turned upside down… I am stranded here while my soul is with my family, who is suffering a lot every single day. The Israeli army kills everyone in Gaza, and this pushes me to live under pressure all the time,” Marwa tells The New Arab.

With tears in her eyes, she adds, “I lost 15 members of my family and my two close friends. I even could not say goodbye to them. The feeling of living in constant anticipation and fear of losing your mother, brother, sister, or someone close to you all the time is unbearable.”

To make matters worse, Marwa says that living in the West Bank, while it protects her from the large-scale war in Gaza, has left her feeling lonely, missing her family and her home, which was destroyed by an Israeli airstrike. She mourns her lost memories and the streets and sea of Gaza.

“It is too hard to be here while my family is under Israeli attacks, poverty, famine, and lacking all human requirements. 

“Here, we live in the unknown. We do not know when we will return to Gaza, and we do not know what will happen to our families there,” she explains. 

Since the start of the war in Israel, Marwa has developed severe depression, which has had a significant impact on her health. Doctors have warned that if she does not take care of her treatment and health, her cancer could worsen and become life-threatening.

“In the first hours of the war, I felt great sadness. As a result, my psychological state worsened day after day due to the scenes we saw on the news channels and social media and the massacres committed by the occupation against our people in Gaza,” she says.

She adds, “It is well known that half of cancer treatment is the psychological factor, but here we suffer from difficult psychological conditions that increase our pain and affect the course of treatment.”

Although Marwa knows her treatment is urgently needed, she waits impatiently for a ceasefire in Gaza, or at least a truce, so she can return and reunite with her family, and share their pain, grief, and sorrow.

'Every day, I die a hundred times' 

Sitting beside Marwa is Mashaer Qudih, 39, another cancer patient from Gaza who is suffering from spinal cord cancer and is now stranded in Ramallah.

Like Marwa, she longs to return to Gaza.

She told The New Arab, “Every day, I die a hundred times, far from my family and my young children, who live every day under continuous bombing and endless killing.”

“The ghost of war haunts me, and I wake up at night to terrifying nightmares. I fear losing one of my children or my husband without being able to hug them or even smell them one last time,” she added.

“We miss Gaza, the crowding of that small city and its details that we love. There is no city like Gaza. We will return to it, and life will return to it again, I am sure of that,” she says, scrolling through photos of her four children on her phone, tears in her eyes.

Looking for familiar faces 

Nisreen Al-Shorbaji, 43, is also a cancer patient from Gaza and a resident of the Nuseirat refugee camp, having arrived at St. Joseph Hospital in Jerusalem on 13 September 2023 for treatment.

After her operation, she was supposed to return to Gaza on 9 October 2023, but, like Marwa, the war left her stranded in the West Bank.

“I wish I was in Gaza. I often have panic attacks and wonder, what if one of my sons, daughters, or my husband died?!” she says.

“With every meal, I remember my children and say, ‘Here I eat the most delicious food, and my children are hungry over there,’” she adds.

Nisreen shares that what affects her the most is a call she received from her niece, a resident of Jabalia, just hours before she was killed. At the time, her niece said, "We are hungry here, there is nothing to feed my children."

Nisreen adds, “These words broke my heart at the time.”

Like Marwa and Mashaer, being away from Gaza has been a surreal experience, and tells The New Arab that since moving, she often searches the faces of people in Ramallah for something that resembles Gaza.

Cancer care amid Gaza's crisis

Marwa, Mashaer, and Nisreen are among dozens of women with cancer being housed by the Ramallah-based Family Revival Association.

Speaking to The New Arab about the influx of patients since the war, Rawya Shaarawi, the Director General of the Family Revival Association, says: “Since the beginning of the war on Gaza, the association has housed ten stranded patients from Gaza inside its buildings. We provide them with the basic needs of food and treatment until they return to their houses in Gaza.”

Rawya explains that the association covers all the patients’ expenses, including accommodation, food, drink, and clothing. It also provides psychological support, especially as their physical health has worsened due to the anxiety they feel about the situation in Gaza, which impacts their treatment.

Rawya notes that the patients are currently struggling with depression due to the dire reality in Gaza. According to the director, this negatively impacts their health and, in some cases, prevents their bodies from responding to medication and treatment.

As of 7 November 2024, Gaza’s oncology teams have been struggling to maintain even minimal services, relying solely on compassion and dedication. They are now urgently calling for a ‘cancer field hospital’ to provide the diagnostics, treatment, and care their patients desperately need.

Mohammed Omer is a Palestinian writer and journalist from the Gaza Strip focusing on humanitarian stories about in Gaza and the West Bank