CAIRO/GAZA: Cancer patients in Gaza are facing a worsening treatment crisis, with doctors reporting that cancer-related deaths are occurring at two to three times the pre-war rate as the territory's specialised cancer-care capacity has been severely damaged and thousands of patients remain unable to travel abroad for treatment.
Doctors say the situation has become particularly critical following the destruction of the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital, Gaza's only specialised cancer hospital, leaving patients with limited access to chemotherapy and other advanced cancer services.
An estimated 17,000 Gazans with cancer now have no local option for chemotherapy or other advanced treatment, according to doctors cited by Reuters.
The result is a growing gap between patients requiring urgent cancer care and the limited pathways available to deliver it.
Cancer patients face a race against time
For patients with advanced disease, delays in treatment can mean the difference between controlling the cancer and watching it progress.
Khuloud Abu Sahmoud, 33, a mother of two with advanced ovarian cancer, said she has been waiting to leave Gaza for treatment in Egypt or elsewhere since the ceasefire was reached last October.
During that period, she said, her cancer spread to her lungs and bones.
Her account highlights the urgency facing patients who remain dependent on treatment outside Gaza after the destruction and disruption of local cancer services.
Doctors report deaths at up to three times the pre-war rate
Mohamed Abu Selmia, head of Gaza's largest hospital, Al Shifa, said doctors have been recording three to five cancer-related deaths each day, which he attributed to patients not receiving the chemotherapy needed to save their lives.
Palestinian surgeon Sobhi Skaik, who previously headed the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital, said the pre-war death rate had been around one to two cancer patients per day, with some pre-war statistics putting the figure at approximately 1.7 deaths daily.
The doctors attributed the increase primarily to the lack of local treatment and restrictions affecting patients' ability to leave Gaza for care.
The reported figures are provided by Gaza doctors and officials and have not been independently verified by Reuters.
Thousands are waiting to leave Gaza for treatment
With specialised cancer treatment severely limited inside Gaza, medical evacuation has become a crucial route for patients requiring advanced care.
Palestinian health officials said 20,000 patients, including 5,000 cancer patients, are registered for treatment abroad but have not yet been permitted to leave.
Israel disputes the characterization that it is restricting medical evacuations.
The Israeli military agency COGAT, which controls access to Gaza, said it coordinates medical evacuations with the World Health Organization. It said patients seeking to leave must have a valid request from a receiving country and pass required security screening.
COGAT said approximately 5,800 Gazans requiring medical treatment had exited to Egypt since Israel agreed in February to a limited reopening of the Rafah crossing.
Palestinian health officials said around 11,000 people, including patients, had crossed through Rafah since it reopened, fewer than half the number they said had been expected under the ceasefire arrangement.
The competing accounts underscore the uncertainty facing patients waiting for permission and coordination to access treatment outside Gaza.
Destruction of Gaza's cancer hospital leaves a major gap
The treatment crisis has been compounded by the destruction of the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital, which had provided specialised cancer services before the war.
Israel demolished the facility in 2025 after saying its forces had found a tunnel used by Hamas militants beneath the hospital.
The hospital was subsequently destroyed in an Israeli-controlled demolition in March 2025. Hamas has denied using hospitals for military purposes.
The loss of the facility removed a critical part of Gaza's cancer-treatment infrastructure at a time when much of the territory's wider healthcare system was already under severe strain.
Doctors say most hospitals in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, while facilities that remain operational face major shortages of essential medical supplies, including those needed for cancer diagnosis and treatment.
Cancer care has been disrupted across Gaza
Before the war, Gaza's healthcare system had developed specialised medical services with international support and the efforts of local physicians.
The conflict has severely disrupted that capacity.
Skaik said Gaza had approximately 11,000 registered cancer patients before the war, while cancer registrations largely stopped after the conflict began.
He estimated that another 6,000 people may have developed cancer since the war began, although this is an estimate rather than a confirmed registry figure.
The interruption of cancer registration and diagnostic services also makes it harder to determine the scale of new and existing cancer cases.
Doctors raise additional concerns over exposure
Skaik also raised concerns that exposure to toxic materials from explosives used during the conflict could contribute to cancer risks.
That claim has not been established as a causal finding in the information available for this report and remains an assertion by the physician.
The more immediate concern for doctors is the loss of access to established cancer treatment, including chemotherapy, diagnostics and specialist care.
Medical evacuation has become central to cancer survival
Cancer treatment often requires regular chemotherapy cycles, surgery, radiation, specialist assessment and continued monitoring. Interruptions can leave patients without timely treatment and allow disease to progress.
In Gaza, doctors say those challenges are intensified by damaged hospitals, shortages of medicines and equipment, displacement and the difficulty of accessing treatment abroad.
Skaik said some people with potentially treatable cancers were living in tents or damaged buildings without adequate medical assistance and, in some cases, without knowing the full extent of their illness.
For patients who cannot access treatment locally, leaving Gaza has therefore become an essential part of their medical care rather than simply an alternative treatment option.
Two competing accounts over access to treatment
Israel says medical evacuations are not being restricted by the state and depend on requests from receiving countries, alongside required security screening.
Palestinian health officials, however, say thousands of patients remain registered for treatment abroad but have not been allowed to leave.
The dispute over the evacuation process comes against a much broader collapse in Gaza's healthcare infrastructure, leaving cancer patients dependent on a system in which access to specialised treatment can be affected by both medical capacity and border procedures.
For patients like Abu Sahmoud, the consequences are measured in advancing disease.
With Gaza's only specialised cancer hospital gone, local treatment capacity severely constrained and thousands of patients waiting for medical evacuation, doctors say delays in accessing cancer care are increasingly becoming a matter of life and death.
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