“Sixty percent of all cases of breast cancer in Gaza are diagnosed at a late stage, when the cancer has already spread. In Israel, this figure is only 5 to 7 percent.”
Lawrence of Cyberia relates this to a chronic dismantling of a health system that was sub-standard initially and Israeli control over every aspect of Palestinian life that restricts travell to medical centres that could provide life-saving treatment.
“There is no preferential permit system for desperately-ill patients; they rely upon the same slow-moving, under-staffed, bureaucratic permit system that every other Palestinian does. It’s the same system for everyone. The difference is that while it might be inconvenient and humiliating to wait an unconscionable amount of time for a permit to build a home, start a job, complete an education, or just visit relatives, a similar wait for urgent medical treatment moves beyond the inconvenient and becomes a matter of life and death.”
How is this acceptable?