‘Hundreds’ of cancer patients in Gaza denied treatment amid Israeli bombings

Hundreds of cancer patients have gone for days without any treatment as Israel amps up its attacks against Palestinian militants in Gaza.

The Israeli military and the Islamic Jihad have traded blows this week.

Among those in Gaza is Dr Nick Maynard, a consultant surgeon for Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust, who hoped to carry out three days of vital surgeries.

They were set to carry out keyhole surgeries from Monday to Wednesday but the conflict brought it to a halt after just one day.

Mr Maynard, 61, who is working with Medical Aid for Palestine, says he has seen ‘rockets’ pelt Gaza for days, putting vulnerable patients’ lives at risk.

Twenty-nine Palestinians have been killed and more than 90 injured in Israeli air raids pummeling the Gaza strip, Gaza health officials said Thursday.

This included six children, three women and two elderly people. At least 76 people have been injured, including dozens of children.

Exacerbating this, Israel shut two entryways into the strip – Beit Hanoon and Karem Abu Salem – on Tuesday, which human rights groups say has prevented 292 patients from leaving the strip for urgent medical care and supplies.

‘Most of them are cancer patients. 15 of the patients were required to leave in order to receive life-saving treatment and now their lives are at a standstill and
in real danger as a result,’ the groups wrote in a letter to Israeli officials pleading for the entryways to be reopened.

The measure, which even prevents travel for humanitarian needs, has trapped doctors like Maynard and 100 other humanitarian workers.

‘I’ve been coming out to Gaza for 12 or 13 years,’ he says.

‘I’ve come out with another surgeon from London for three days of nonstop cancer surgeries but on Tuesday morning, in the early hours, there were the first bombings.

‘We’re now confined to a hotel and none of our surgeries have been able to go ahead.

‘A small percentage of patients have been allowed out but we estimate there are a few hundred patients not getting the treatment they need.’

Patients have next to no ways to receive radiotherapy treatments in the region, while chemotherapy is few and far between, Maynard says, as patients need to travel to the West Bank or Jerusalem for it.

‘Every day we hope it’s going to be the day (the borders reopen),’ he adds.

‘We were all pretty hopeful that on Wednesday or Thursday, it was going to be the day something would happen.

‘We understand there’s no chance that anything will happen today because it’s the Sabbath.

‘We’ve had an update today that talks have restarted so we’re hoping that it’s going to be tomorrow when things start happening.’

On Wednesday, some 500 rockets and motor shells were launched by Islamic Jihad against Israel, the nation’s military said. Israel struck back by carrying out targeted airstrikes.

An Israeli missile strike killed an Islamic Jihad commander on Thursday, the Israeli military said.

Hours later, a man became the first casualty of the violence in Israel after a rocket was fired from Gaza into a residential building in Rehovot.

Long-range rockets then fell onto Israel, injuring five people when a blast damaged an apartment complex.

EU officials have called for an immediate ceasefire ‘which will end Israeli military operations in Gaza and current rocket firing against Israel’, said foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Thursday.

Though Hamas, an Islamic militant group that controls Gaza, said such an agreement will only come once Israel stops carrying out ‘atrocities’ in Gaza, Khaled Qadomi, a member of Hamas, told Al Jazeera.

‘The one who started this aggression has to carry the consequences of their crimes,’ he said. ‘It’s not a question of what Palestinians are to do.’

But for Maynard, all he wants to do is help those in need.

‘The ones who should have been going over the border are the ones who need the treatment,’ he said.

‘There’s no radiotherapy here and very limited chemotherapy for patients. Depending on how long this goes on for, it changes the prognoses for those who are ill.

‘There’s huge concern about them and the longer this goes on the more dangerous it is for them.’

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