23 December 2022
In 2022, Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) has again been responding to crisis and emergency across the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) and Lebanon, while also continuing to support the long-term development of healthcare services and advocating the rights to health and dignity for the Palestinian communities we serve.
As a result of this work, our programmes, and the expertise, perspectives and analysis of our teams and partners have featured in a range of media outlets throughout the year. As the year draws to a close, we are sharing a selection of highlights from this coverage:
“Accessing care feels like a lottery,” Mahmoud Shalabi, MAP’s Senior Programme Manager in Gaza, told the Guardian (1 April) in relation to the impact of Israel’s discriminatory permit regime on patients. “My cousin, who was suffering from cancer, tried to seek specialist care in East Jerusalem, but died while waiting for a permit. She left behind five young children. These stories will keep appearing while Israel’s blockade and restrictions are in place.”
Another such story came from Ghada Hammad, who lives with her five children in Khan Younis, in Gaza. In an interview with the Guardian (7 November), coordinated by MAP, Ghada shared how she applied for a permit nine times for radiotherapy outside Gaza and never got a reply.
“It’s difficult to think about the future. Most of the time I focus on being strong for my children. The only thing I want to hear is a doctor telling me I have the all clear, so I can live my life again,” she said.
Israel’s three-day offensive on Gaza in August 2022 killed at least 44 Palestinians, including 15 children and four women. As well as leading MAP’s emergency response to the escalation, Fikr Shalltoot, MAP’s Gaza Director, continued to speak out and call for accountability for Israel’s attacks.
Fikr told the i (15 August): “The most recent attacks were another terrible experience for people in Gaza which have woke up all the painful memories from the previous escalations which people in Gaza have lived since 2008.”
“Palestinians feel shattered for the people who have lost their lives, especially the children. They are angry because these attacks keep happening and no one in the international community intervenes to hold Israel accountable for their actions. They feel exhausted and tired. Their dream is to live peacefully and plan futures for their children, but they feel they are not allowed.”
Israel’s permit system not only denies Palestinians from Gaza access to urgent care, but sometimes separates mothers from their babies. Speaking on this issue to Middle East Eye (19 November), Aseel Baidoun, MAP’s Advocacy and Campaigns Manager in the West Bank, said this policy is part of the “systematic discrimination and fragmentation” against Palestinians and “one of the brutal examples of how Israeli policies dehumanise Palestinians and deprive them of their basic human rights.”
The policies of systematic discrimination and fragmentation of the Palestinian people by Israel have resulted in stark health inequalities between Palestinians and Israelis. One of these inequalities is evident in access to cancer care, and the outcomes for patients, as highlighted by Aisha Mansour, MAP’s West Bank Director, in the Lancet (10 March): “The 5-year survival rates of patients with breast cancer and colon cancer are 65.1% and 50.2%, respectively, while the rates in Israel are much higher at 88% and 71.7%.”
Without an end to these discriminatory policies, Palestinians will continue to face major barriers to their rights to health and dignity.
In Gaza, cancer patients have a “crippling lack of access to urgently needed treatment, making their chance of survival considerably lower than Israeli patients.” During MAP’s virtual media delegation to Gaza, Dr Ahmed Al-Naji of Nasser Hospital told the New Arab (30 November): “Radiotherapy machines and radioactive materials are prevented from the Israeli side to enter Gaza… we have a lot of limitations in the radiological department such as the machines used to identify and diagnose the cancer… we [also] have a shortage in the medical supply.”
“We are in the 21st century and I don’t know why our people should be suffering from this,” he added.
MAP’s staff on the ground in the occupied Palestinian territory and Lebanon are always prepared to speak to journalists and offer their perspectives and expertise. We also run virtual media delegations to the oPt where journalists can speak directly to Palestinian health workers and communities. If you are a journalist interested in joining these delegations or speaking to our staff, get in touch with MAP’s Advocacy and Campaigns team.
