'Without any hope': Thousands of cancer patients in Gaza with no treatment
The only hospital dedicated to cancer care in the territory shut down in November because of destruction by missile strikes, and lack of fuel and electricity, ITV News Correspondent Lucy Watson reports
Warning: Viewers may find parts of this report distressing
There are more than 10,000 patients inside Gaza suffering with cancer - 750 of those are children, yet there is little treatment for them right now, just pain relief.
The only hospital dedicated to cancer care in the territory shut down in November because of destruction by missile strikes, and lack of fuel and electricity.
Yet since early May, only a trickle of desperately sick people have been allowed to leave the Strip after the Israeli military took control of Rafah, and the border with Egypt closed.
Inside Gaza, we met Sahar, whose existence was as desperate as it was pitiful.
She was living in a tent - that felt like a sauna - in a camp in Rafah with her sister. Her body was limp with lymphatic cancer. Swollen with pain. She was barely able to move.
Her suffering was compounded by the constant sound of drones overhead, the threat of strikes.
So many times she just closed her eyes as we were filming. What was there to keep her eyes open for?
I then received a message after our visit saying Sahar had died, unable to get the care she needed.
That is the very real possibility for so many cancer patients in Gaza with little medicine, and no way out.
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The haematologist at Sahar’s nearest hospital, Dr Hala Zreid, told us there is no specialised place for oncology patients.
"No chemotherapy. No diagnostic facilities. And the patients progress and deteriorate day after day without any hope."
Before May the very ill were being let out, some to Egypt, some to the UAE and some even further afield, but their evacuations were measured.
Since October, one hospital in Cairo - the Nasser Institute - was receiving 40 patients every week from Gaza, and not just cancer patients. Now, there are no new patients arriving directly from the Strip at all.
On the ward in one room is a family of seven. A mother, her five children and her mother-in-law.
Tiny and lying on top of what seemed like a huge hospital bed was Zain. He has only been alive two weeks.
His mother is Sanaa and she has breast cancer. She managed to get to Egypt three days before the border crossing was closed.
The tumour in her breast was diagnosed last September in Gaza. She was given two rounds of chemotherapy in Gaza before the war started but then her treatment stopped.
“I am afraid of the treatment. I am afraid the cancer will progress through my whole body. I am afraid for my children," Sanaa said.
It has taken nine months to get her out of Gaza and here to Cairo. In that time, the cancer has moved to other parts of her body.
"I asked the doctors here to check my leg. They said there is a tumour in the bone. It's new, they just discovered it," she said.
As well as newborn Zain, she has Mahmoud, Ziad, Helen and Ahmad. All of them are living together in the hospital. Their father is trapped in Gaza.
At the mention of him, tears appeared. I asked Sanaa his name.
“Mohammed,” she told me, and wiped her eyes. She last heard from him three weeks ago. His last words to her were: “Get yourself better and look after the kids for me.”
Looking on and taking care of the children the whole time, was Aisha, Sanaa’s mother-in-law.
She too broke down at the mention of Mohammed’s name. He is her son.
"May God grant [Sanaa] her health and healing for the sake of her children. Sanaa grew up as an orphan. We don't want her children to become the same," Aisha said.
Across the corridor from Sanaa is another woman called Sanaa, Sanaa Abu Hasira. She is 65 and also has a tumour.
It can't be removed yet, because she picked up a serious infection whilst living in a displacement camp in Rafah after her home was destroyed.
From the moment we first met her, she was tearful. I asked her what was making her so sad.
“Being alone. Being alone here without my children and my husband. I am afraid something will happen to me and I won't see them,” she said.
I noticed her Quran tucked into the bed covers. Prayers are what comfort Sanaa instead, she explained.
The medical director of Nasser Institute, Dr Dalia Adel then took me to meet Saed and his wife Zeinab.
Saed has colon cancer. He was referred for medical evacuation in November, but wasn't allowed out of the Strip until April. His cancer has now moved to his femur.
"All the delays made my condition worse, because I wasn't able to take any medication for five to six to months. We had to flee our homes and go to Rafah. We lived for a month and half in a tent, in the cold - 15 of us - with one blanket," Saied said.
His wife Zeinab is constantly caring for him, stroking his head and chest, feeding him chocolates. They are in Egypt alone, without the rest of their family.
"I am a mother, my sons are not with me, and I am with my sick husband. My sons are in a horrific situation in the middle of a war. Day and night I am constantly thinking and worrying about them. In both places, we have worry and fear and so much sadness," Zeinab said.
Zeinab is having to be strong for everybody in her family.
Once outside his room the doctors told me the delay to Saed's treatment means he has about a 20-30% chance of survival. It also means the cancer has spread, so for the doctors and nurses here it is more about managing his pain rather than finding a cure for him.
Dr Dalia told me: “There are no options for many of them. Professionally, they are our patients. They need everything we can do. Personally, they are like our family. The Palestinian people are like Egyptian people."
The oncologist who ran Gaza’s only cancer facility - Dr Sobhi Skeik - happened to be in Cairo when we were. He’d accompanied several of his patients to Geneva before Rafah shut.
He told me that 6,000 sick people in Gaza are on a referral list for treatment abroad, waiting to be allowed out.
"It is a big human insult just to leave cancer patients suffering day and night. The fate of those patients is either to live with the cancer, having pain all the time or premature death of those patients, so it is a total indignity,” Dr Sobhi said.
As a man born and bred in Gaza, his tone was angry. For four months, he has witnessed Israel’s control in Rafah, and the country's inability to agree with Palestinian and Egyptian officials on terms to reopen the border.
The former immigration minister for Egypt is Ambassador Nabila Makram. She agreed to be interviewed by us about Egypt’s role.
"The duty or the responsibility on Egypt, we did not neglect it," she said.
"Sick people have not been coming out. Very minimal supplies are getting in. Where does responsibility lie for that?", I asked her.
"I cannot just rely responsibility on any part. Egypt was there, and Egypt was helping and even negotiating and bringing the other parties to talk. We did as much as we can," Ms Makram said.
The border remains closed and for every patient that has left Gaza, there are more left behind, and every day delays matter.
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