Today, 7 April, marks World Health Day. Health, both physical and mental, is a fundamental human right. The enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health means that every individual should have access to the health services they need, when and where they need them, without suffering financial hardship. However, for the more than two million Palestinians in Gaza living under Israel's apartheid, the reality is quite different.

Gaza’s healthcare system—perpetually on the brink of collapse due to Israel’s comprehensive closure policies and repeated military attacks—forces cancer and critically-ill patients out of the Strip to seek specialized surgeries, diagnostic imaging, cardiology, or other medical treatments otherwise unavailable in Gaza. In order to access quality and sometimes life-saving health services unavailable in Gaza, Palestinian patients are forced to rely on Israel’s capricious and discriminatory permit regime, an oppressive tool deliberately used to restrict patients’ freedom of movement.

Al Mezan closely monitors the situation of stranded Palestinian patients as part of its efforts aimed at facilitating their access to healthcare outside of the Gaza Strip. Our data indicate that in 2022, 33 percent of patients’ requests for exit permits and 62 percent of patient companions’ requests were either denied, delayed, or left unanswered by the Israeli authorities, leading to serious health complications and forcing 25 percent of patients to leave Gaza without their companions.

At the same time, the Israeli authorities continue to obstruct the entry into the Gaza Strip of medical devices and equipment, as well as spare parts needed to repair obsolete or damaged medical devices. This leads to major shortcomings in programs and initiatives aimed at localizing Gaza’s health services as well as the deterioration of basic health determinants such as food, housing, and safe drinking water. The shortage of medicines and medical supplies, particularly those for oncological diseases, persists. In March 2023, the General Administration of Pharmacy at the Palestinian Ministry of Health reported that 246 drugs (47 percent of the essential medicine list) were at zero stock, including 26 out of 63 essential drugs for cancer and blood diseases.

The realization of the right to health for Palestinians in Gaza requires an end to Israel’s violations and discriminatory measures and policies that are part of its apartheid regime against the Palestinian people as a whole, as well as an end to the restrictions on the freedom of movement of patients and their companions and on the entry of medical supplies and equipment. The first steps are to urge Israel to immediately and unconditionally lift the illegal closure and blockade of Gaza, to end its discriminatory policy of denial and delay of patients’ requests, and allow and facilitate the passage of all medical devices, equipment, and supplies to the Strip.

On World Health Day 2023, Al Mezan also calls on the relevant Palestinian authorities to intensify their efforts to localize health services, develop Gaza’s health sector, rehabilitate health infrastructure, particularly in oncology departments, increase operational expenditures, provide adequate medicines and medical necessities for patients, especially cancer patients, and increase the level of coordination between health the administrations in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Lastly, Al Mezan urges international organizations to continue supporting Gaza’s health sector in order to properly enable it to deliver adequate health services to people and to provide humanitarian support to ensure Palestinians enjoy their right to health.