Palestinian man living in Cork calls on Government to help ill mother

A Palestinian man living in Cork is calling on the Irish Government to evacuate his sick mother from Gaza for urgent cancer care after the Rafah crossing finally reopened into Egypt on Monday.

Habib Al Ostaz’s 46-year-old mother has been unable to access chemotherapy or other treatments for her cancer throughout the war, with bomb-damaged hospitals and obliterated health centres unable to provide the care she needs with extremely limited medical supplies.

“You can’t stay silent watching your mum suffering,” said Habib, 29.

Despite multiple times when they were almost killed during airstrikes, Habib’s immediate family has survived the war.

Their home in northern Gaza was so badly damaged by missiles that they had to evacuate it as the structure was no longer stable. Some of their neighbours’ homes have been reduced to piles of rubble.

“It’s very dangerous to be in. At any time, the house may fall down,” Habib said.

The family moved to a tent in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza in recent months, where it currently feels safer than their home in the north, and where there are some food markets and water tanks distributing drinking water.

Central Gaza is also closer to the Rafah crossing, through which Habib’s mother would likely have to cross to access life-saving cancer care in another jurisdiction.

The Israeli-controlled crossing is the only route in or out for nearly all of Gaza’s more than 2m residents.

It has been shut for most of the war.

Ceasefire plan

Reopening the border crossing on Monday was part of the US-brokered Gaza ceasefire plan.

However, the numbers permitted through will be very limited at the beginning. More than 20,000 people in Gaza are estimated to require medical care abroad.

Habib’s mother struggles to walk, and his father collects their water supply in bottles by day while searching for food. Some food is now for sale at hugely inflated prices at a local market near their camp. Free, cooked meals are also distributed through an aid organisation.

Although food is expensive, there is at least some food available now, unlike during the active war, Habib said.

The tent currently feels safer than their home in the north. However, it is too hot by day and too cold at night.

Habib’s mother has heard from the Palestinian health department that she is to be called for medical care abroad.

However, she has been given no date or concrete guarantees that it will happen on time to save her life.

Other countries are taking small numbers for medical treatment while there is huge medical need in Gaza after the devastating and bloody war which has killed more than 71,000 and left more than 171,000 people injured in Gaza, according to figures from the local health authority.

The war has also decimated Gaza’s infrastructure.

Limiting

Although the Rafah crossing opened on Monday, it is still only permitting small numbers of people to trickle through.

“The Israeli regime is limiting people who are leaving,” Habib said.

Even before this latest and bloodiest phase of the war in Palestine, Israel had restricted Gazans so severely that, when his mother was first diagnosed with cancer in 2020, she had to apply to leave Gaza to access chemotherapy in Nablus in the West Bank.

It took eight applications and almost two years before the Israeli authorities permitted her to move between two parts of Palestine to access chemotherapy for cancer, Habib said.

“In the hospitals, they don’t have enough equipment for treating the cancers,” Habib said.

“So she has to wait as she is doing now.

“And we begged everybody in this country, here in Ireland, the Government, even in Egypt, everywhere.

“There is just no response.

“They are saying that they can’t do that, but they actually can.

“I met lots of politicians, but everybody is throwing the responsibility to the other.

“The Department of Health is saying that that is the Department of Foreign Affairs’ job, and the [Department of] Foreign Affairs is saying that this is the minister of health’s job.

“And we told the Government that we will cover everything, all the costs, her medical care, her accommodation, we just need you to evacuate her, to contact the Israeli authorities.

“I felt very upset about it.”