GAZA STRIP (Dispatches) – The Palestinian Health Ministry has accused the Zionist regime of denying cancer patients the right to medical treatment abroad.
“Israel deprives 40 percent of cancer patients in Gaza of their right to medical treatment abroad,” Khaled Thabet, head of the ministry’s oncology department, told Anadolu.
“Cancer patients in Gaza face multiple challenges that make their health conditions even worse,” he said, citing the occupying regime’s restrictions that “prevent the entry of necessary medicines” to patients.
The health ministry official added that hospitals in the Palestinian territory “face a huge shortage of radiotherapy services.”
According to the Health Ministry, there were 5,320 cancer patients in the Palestinian territories by 2021, including 1,952 patients in Gaza.
Home to nearly 2.3 million people, the Gaza Strip has been reeling under a years-long Zionist blockade since 2007, badly affecting livelihood in the seaside territory.
Meanwhile, dozens of cancer patients in Lebanon staged a demonstration on Saturday in Riad al-Solh Square near the headquarters of the prime minister to highlight the unavailability of drugs in pharmacies and hospitals due to Western sanctions.
The patients’ protest on Saturday coincided with World Cancer Day.
Joe Salloum, president of the Lebanese Order of Pharmacists, condemned, along with the Barbara Nassar Association for Cancer Patient Support, “the genocide committed against the patients by depriving them of cancer medication.”
Salloum is one of the organizers of the protest taking place in Beirut.
Joyce, a protester in her 40s, said: “Medicine is unavailable. I cannot buy it myself because I cannot cover its costs, but I get it from an association that supports cancer patients in Lebanon.”
A Yemeni human rights organization has also warned that the Saudi war on Yemen well as the crippling siege in the impoverished Arab country could result in the death of thousands of children suffering from cancer.
Entisaf Organization for Women’s and Children’s Rights said in a statement on the occasion of World Cancer Day that more than 3,000 Yemeni children, who have developed cancer as a result of Saudi aggression and the tight sea, land, and air blockade on the country, are now at significant risk of death.
The rights group criticized the international organizations and other relevant bodies for neglecting Yemeni cancer patients over the past years.
Enfisaf added that the incidence of leukemia is increasing among Yemeni children, saying the cases of kids suffering from blood cancer have soared from 300 to 700 in the capital Sana’a due to the use of internationally-banned weapons supplied by the United States and the United Kingdom and used by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen.
Approximately 1,000 children are also believed to have contracted leukemia in other Yemeni regions due to the same reasons, it added.
Entisaf pointed to the dire shortage of medicines needed for the treatment of patients diagnosed with cancer because of the Saudi-led military onslaught and siege, stating that many children lose their lives as a result.
The human rights organization noted that the economic hardships caused by the ongoing military aggression and blockade have prevented minor cancer patients from seeking treatment abroad, calling for the opening of Sana’a International Airport for humanitarian purposes.