As I write these lines, I am receiving treatment at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City for kidney disease. Actually, I don’t know whether what I am receiving can actually be termed “treatment” or if it is only an attempt to postpone the inevitable.

Due to acute shortages of medicine and equipment in Gaza, doctors here make decisions based more on what is accessible than what is medically necessary. I am one such case. The necessary medicine and some of the tests I need are not available in Gaza right now.

My doctor informed me today, after new tests, that my condition has worsened and I urgently need to be evacuated from Gaza. He will do a referral for me so I can be put on the list of the 22,000 Palestinians who are languishing in pain while waiting to leave so they can get urgently needed medical care abroad.

My body, like this hospital I am in, is functioning at the bare minimum.

Life was difficult before the war, but at least there existed a reliable healthcare system, albeit a shaky one. Whenever medicine and tests were unavailable in Gaza, I was able to go to the West Bank and get treatment there. In 2023, I went to a hospital in al-Khalil (Hebron), where the Palestinian Ministry of Health covered my treatment. I........

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