Israel denies cancer treatment for Palestinian child over Gaza address

An Israeli court has denied pleas to allow the urgent treatment of a five-year old Palestinian cancer patient in Israel. 

On Sunday, the Jerusalem District Court rejected the petition aiming to allow access to life-saving treatment for the child, named on social media as Mohammad Ahmad Abu Asad, on grounds that his address is listed to be in Gaza. 

This comes in spite of the child having lived with his family in Ramallah, occupied West Bank, for several years now. 

The petition, filed on the boy's behalf by Israel's Gisha Legal Center for Freedom of Movement, had requested for Asad to be allowed transfer from the city to Tel Hashomer Hospital near Tel Aviv.

The five-year-old can no longer walk and suffers from a severely weakened immune system. He also takes medication for seizures and to control his blood pressure.

Although Asad's condition has been described as "constantly deteriorating", Judge Ram Winograd claimed that the petition to get him medical treatment in Israel is an attack on the state. 

Israeli authorities have long denied urgent medical evacuations for Palestinians from Gaza and the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, with a spike in such refusals following the genocidal war on the besieged enclave.

'The meaning of the ruling is to provide support for an illegal policy that, in effect, sentences sick children to death'

- Gisha rights group

Following the 7 October Hamas-led attacks in 2023, Israel upheld a sweeping ban on the entry of people living in Gaza, including cancer patients. 

"The petitioners claimed that nearly 4,000 children in the Gaza Strip also need urgent medical treatment," the court's statement read. 

"It is difficult to point to a real, relevant difference between the petitioner and the other children, apart from the fact that he is currently in Ramallah in a way that should facilitate his departure for Jordan."

The judge also claimed that petitioners did not check whether the five year-old could receive treatment in Jordan, despite an Israeli expert warning of the negative impact of sending Asad for treatment abroad. 

"His doctors claimed that he could not go to another country, but they did not say that equal justice applies to a ground ambulance ride for a few hours to a hospital in Amman," Winograd said. 

The Israeli rights group Gisha responded to Winograd's decision, saying that it "illustrates once again the devastating consequences of a sweeping policy that denies Palestinians access to life-saving medical treatment, solely because their address is registered in Gaza, even when they are not residing there at all, and no security claim is made against them".

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It added that this is a "blatant and ongoing violation of the obligations imposed on Israel as an occupying power under international law".

"The meaning of the ruling is to provide support for an illegal policy that, in effect, sentences sick children to death."

Speaking to Haaretz in December, his mother stressed that "his life is in danger," adding that his father died of the same illness two years ago. 

The Palestinian child is in need of a bone marrow transplant. 

She noted that over three years ago, her late husband filed a request to change their official address from Gaza to Ramallah in the West Bank.

In two years, Israel has killed more than 72,037 people, and wounded more than 171,666. Around 10,000 others are missing.

According to Gaza’s Government Media Office, more than 9,300 wounded and sick Palestinians have died since October 2023 due to the collapse of medical care and Israel’s ban on medical evacuations.