According to the World Health Organization, breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths among women worldwide, causing 1 in 6 deaths among females, and every year breast cancer represents about 25% of all types of cancer diagnosed in women.
Resource-limited environments, which often lack the possibility of early detection and comprehensive treatment, cause 70% of deaths from breast cancer.
These data prompted Al Jazeera Net to visit Al-Mutlaa Hospital in Jerusalem, which before the outbreak of the war on Gaza in October 2023 received Gazan women suffering from breast cancer in order to provide them with the necessary treatment, and all patients’ access to this Palestinian medical facility was cut off two years ago.
Fadi Al-Atrash, Executive Director of Al-Mutlaa Hospital and Head of the Radiation Oncology Department at the hospital, told Al Jazeera Net that the hospital receives 7,000 patients annually, 4 to 5 thousand of whom are cancer patients, and Gazans constitute 35% of the total number of patients.
Regarding the percentage of breast cancer patients, Al-Atrash pointed out that of the 1,000 to 1,500 Gazan women who arrive annually for cancer treatment, 60% of them have breast cancer.
Forced denial of treatment
Hospital records indicate that 71 patients were being prepared by medical teams for their arrival from Gaza on the first days of the war to undergo radiotherapy sessions to complete their treatment. Half of these were women, but the war broke out and it was impossible for all of them to arrive.
Al-Atrash continued, “Our records also indicate that 738 Gazan cancer patients – half of them women – should have arrived in Al-Matla’ in the first three months of the war to receive treatment. In 2024, we were supposed to receive between 1,500 and 2,000 cancer patients in Gaza, and all of them did not arrive or receive their treatment, and certainly no one was able to reach them.”
According to Al-Atrash, statistics from the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza indicate that there are 10,000 cancer patients in the Strip, and 2,000 new patients are diagnosed annually, 35% of whom are women with breast cancer.
Thus, during the two years of war, there are 4,000 new cancer cases added to the old cases, and 60% of these usually need to reach Jerusalem for treatment due to the lack of all treatments for cancer patients in the Gaza Strip.
Complex pain
In his answer to the question: What does it mean for a person with cancer to stop treatment? He answered briefly, “This means suffering, pain, and death from the disease, because cancer is one of the diseases that requires early diagnosis and treatment, and the earlier treatment begins, the better results we see. Maintaining continuity of treatment is also important to achieve good results and alleviate the patient’s suffering.”
Al-Atrash pointed out that the living conditions, war, killing, displacement, hunger, and the lack of an appropriate health environment and good nutrition are all conditions that cancer patients are forced to face, and they exceed the suffering of any patient in the worst place in the world.
Regarding what it also means for a woman to be diagnosed with breast cancer and not receive treatment, he said that this is a compound pain. There is nothing worse than for a patient to know that treatment for her disease is available but she has no chance of obtaining it, and therefore she must face the spread of the disease and the pain and psychological and physical suffering that accompanies it.
Al-Atrash pointed out that before the last war, the hospital was receiving strange and complex cases of cancer, whether in the young age groups in which the tumors appear or the places in the body where they appear.
He added, “This says that there is something, but scientifically there is no scientific research or analytical study of the nature of the environment and living conditions in Gaza so that we can be certain and link everything that happens there to the types of tumors that we see and treat.”
There is no early detection, no treatment, and no medications
On October 1 of this month, as this month is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and the importance of early detection, the Ministry of Health in Gaza published that for the second year in a row, women are deprived of early screening protocols and programs for the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of breast cancer, and that it is not possible to be certain about the effectiveness of the preventive protocols that have been implemented as a result of the destruction of primary care centers and diagnostic examination and imaging departments.
The Ministry added that women who were diagnosed with the disease before and during the war do not have the minimum requirements for specialized treatment and medical follow-up, and that cancer medicines are among the services most affected by the crisis of shortage of medicines and medical consumables, especially breast cancer.
The Ministry indicated through its pages on social media platforms that a number of women with breast cancer are in urgent need of radiotherapy, which is not available in the Gaza Strip, and they are prohibited from traveling abroad to receive it. Also, the closure of crossings, the prevention of medications, the destruction of specialized treatment centers, and the deterioration of the economic and living situation exacerbate the seriousness of the health condition of many of them.
Data from the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah indicated that breast cancer cases in Gaza represent about 30% of cancer cases among women, with a rate of 29 cases per 100,000 women.
The Ministry stated that the recent Israeli war led to the absence of specialized centers for diagnosing and treating breast cancer, after the destruction of the Turkish Friendship Hospital at the end of 2023, where diagnostic and treatment services stopped, and were temporarily moved to the Gaza European Hospital, which in turn went out of service.