The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) expresses its deep concern over the shutdown of the last remaining cancer treatment center in the Gaza Strip, particularly after the European Gaza Hospital has gone out of service following a series of airstrikes that targeted the hospital and its proximity on 13 May 2025. With this heinous crime, Israel has extinguished the last glimmer of hope for Gaza’s cancer patients to access treatment within the Gaza Strip, sentencing them to a slow death. PCHR considers the continued international community’s silence towards these compounded crimes and failure to take decisive action to hold the perpetrators accountable a humanitarian and moral vacuum and even amount to complicity in these crimes. PCHR emphasizes that cancer patients in the Gaza Strip are in dire need of urgent and immediate intervention as they are at imminent risk of death at the world’s full view.
According to a statement issued by the Palestinian Ministry of Health (MOH) on Thursday, 29 May 2025, intravenous chemotherapy services and medical follow-up for cancer patients have completely ceased in the Gaza Strip, particularly after the targeting of the Gaza European Hospital and the evacuation of its patients. This has further exacerbated the already catastrophic conditions faced by cancer patients, particularly as medical teams were unable to evacuate the available medicines, pharmaceutical supplies, and medical devices necessary for cancer patients from the hospital, and that cannot be found or replaced in any other hospital within the Gaza Strip.1
PCHR emphasizes that forcing the remaining cancer treatment centers in the Gaza Strip out of service is part of a systematic policy pursued by Israel since the onset of its ongoing crime of genocide on 07 October 2023. Before the targeting of the Gaza European Hospital, the IOF destroyed the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital; the only governmental facility specialized in treating adult tumors, and the Cancer Treatment Department at al-Rantisi Pediatric Hospital, after turning them into military barracks for long periods. Following the destruction and closure of these facilities, the temporary Friendship Field Hospital was established with support from international health organizations as the last resort for thousands of patients. However, it has also gone out of service following recent Israeli attacks, leaving patients alone to face a slow death without medicines, equipment, or even hope for treatment inside the Gaza Strip.
This comes amid restricted and complex travel mechanisms imposed by the IOF on cancer patients, as only 1,100 out of 12,500 cancer patients in the Gaza Strip have been allowed to travel for treatment; 623 of whom were permitted to leave after the IOF seized control of Rafah Crossing in May 2024. 2 These figures lay bare the complex and calculated bureaucratic procedures enforced by the Israeli authorities, becoming a systematic policy in their hands and alarming slow death sentence for patients forced to wait while their lives hang in the balance. PCHR’s statistics indicate that 615 cancer patients died between October 2023 and April 2025, while approximately 2,700 others in advanced stages of the disease await treatment with no hope or treatment options within the Gaza Strip under an ongoing closure of Gaza’s crossings, and the disruption of emergency medical evacuation mechanisms. With the deliberate destruction of hospitals and the shutdown of all cancer treatment centers, Israel has managed to deprive more than 90% of cancer patients of their right to treatment within the Gaza Strip after systematically denying them access to treatment abroad, in a compounded violation that jeopardizes their right to life and embodies elements of a systematic crime of genocide.
These crimes constitute a blatant violation of the principles of international humanitarian law, particularly the Fourth Geneva Convention, which obliges the protection of the wounded and sick and prohibits the use of deprivation of healthcare as a method of warfare. Additionally, the collective punishment policy imposed on the population of the Gaza Strip, which has led to the collapse of the healthcare system and denied patients access to treatment, constitutes a grave breach of Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Furthermore, the IOF’s acts, including the deliberate infliction of physical and psychological harm, destruction of facilities and denial of medicine and travel for treatment, clearly fall under the third act described in Article II of the Genocide Convention: ‘Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.’ Denying access to treatment, whether inside the Gaza Strip or abroad, can only be seen as part of a broader policy of collective punishment and ethnic cleansing perpetrated by the IOF against the Gaza Strip’s population.
In light of the above, PCHR holds Israel fully responsible for the deaths of hundreds of cancer patients and for deliberately obliterating any opportunities of treatment for thousands more by destroying their treatment centers and depriving them of travel. Such acts fall under the crime of genocide ongoing in the Gaza Strip. PCHR calls on the international community, particularly the States Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention, to take immediate and urgent action to halt these crimes, facilitate the reopening of humanitarian corridors, and guarantee the freedom of movement for patients seeking treatment outside the Gaza Strip. PCHR also urges international health organizations, foremost of whom the World Health Organization (WHO), to intervene urgently and provide direct and effective support to rehabilitate the healthcare system in the Gaza Strip, including the provision of necessary medicines and treatment supplies for cancer patients, the reopening of specialized medical centers, and ensuring the availability of qualified medical teams capable of handling complex cases, as part of the ethical and humanitarian commitment to guarantee the right to health for populations under occupation.
