Palestine's forgotten women: As the world turns pink, Gaza's breast cancer patients are left to die

Everything stood still in that moment for Ghader, tightly gripping her husband’s hand as she heard her test results three months ago.

The chaotic sounds of the Gaza medical facility helping Palestinians with everything from gunshot wounds to malnutrition were drowned out by news that felt like a death sentence.

“The word alone broke me,” she said, doctors confirming the lump was breast cancer. 

The 36-year-old newlywed now speaks from a tent she shares with her husband after fleeing to southern Gaza, telling The New Arab her hopes have been shattered. “I dreamed of building a home, of having children, of living a simple, peaceful life,” she said.

Now, amid Gaza’s overrun medical facilities and dwindling cancer medication supplies, Ghader is slowly dying. 

This month marks two years since Israel launched its onslaught in the Gaza Strip, claiming the lives of 66,055 Palestinians, according to the Ministry of Health (MoH) data at the time of writing.

October also marks Breast Cancer Awareness Month, a global movement that raises awareness for early detection, screenings, and cancer research.

While other parts of the world don pink ribbons across the monthly campaign, breast cancer sufferers in Gaza have little to find hope in.

“There is no treatment. No radiotherapy. No hormonal therapy. No medicine to slow it down. Every day I feel the tumour growing inside me, and I know my time is running out,” Ghader said, adding: “At night, when I hear the bombs, I wonder: will cancer kill me first, or the war?”

Awareness and adversity

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), breast cancer is the most common form of cancer found in 157 out of 185 nations around the world.

In the Gaza Strip, breast cancer accounted for 19% of all new cancer cases recorded by the MoH in 2022. It’s also among the most treatable cancers when detected early — but that trend doesn’t apply in Gaza.

Even before October 2023, women living with breast cancer in the Gaza Strip faced immense challenges accessing care.

Severe restrictions imposed by the Israeli occupation meant radiotherapy services and robust cancer treatment didn’t exist. Breast cancer patients were often denied permission to travel for radiotherapy treatment in the West Bank or East Jerusalem.

“Israel [made] that decision, to kill the people in different ways,” Eman Shannan, a cancer survivor and breast cancer advocate from Palestine, said.

Eman survived breast cancer twice, but remembers a silence and lack of understanding at that time in Gaza.

“It was a taboo to talk about cancer,” she recalled.

Societal stigma and limited awareness resulted in many avoidable deaths. It was something Eman was determined to change with the launch of a small but powerful organisation called Aid and Hope for Cancer Patient Care in 2010. 

Around this time, the tide started to turn. Thanks to the work of people like Eman, awareness was beginning to grow, the stigma was gradually broken down, and more women were attending breast cancer screenings despite Israel’s barriers.

“We found that these women just needed to believe that being a cancer patient is not a shame,” Eman added.

Like other parts of the world, Gaza even turns pink every October. In 2012, Gaza set a Guinness World Record for the longest pink ribbon in the world during the "Gaza: Think in Pink" breast cancer campaign. 

Researchers and international organisations also played a role in progressing cancer awareness and treatment in the region.

Dr Shaymaa AlWaheidi, a Palestinian cancer researcher for King’s College London, spent several years speaking to Gaza’s breast cancer patients to understand better how to deliver improved care.

“We worked really hard before 2023 to improve how the Ministry of Health do early detection and diagnosis in Gaza,” she said.

AlWaheidi was involved in preparing the National Cancer Control Plan, which included recommendations for enhancing breast cancer early detection and diagnosis, improving access to treatment, and providing palliative support.

But such progress ground to a halt when Israel invaded. “All of our efforts to write a plan for 10 years ahead, I think it's all gone,” she admitted, “I feel it was a waste of time.”

Collapse of care

In the last two years, systematic targeting of hospitals — including the destruction of Gaza’s only cancer-specialised facility — alongside displacement and blockade means breast cancer sufferers are now confronted with the most severe conditions they have ever faced. 

It took Aisha, 38, several months to receive her breast cancer diagnosis two years ago, by which point she had “already lost precious time.”

The mother of four was able to start some treatment in the early days of the conflict, but now she has few options.

“I remember going for chemotherapy when the electricity went out,” Aisha said. “The nurses cried because they couldn’t run the machines. That day, I realised my cancer wasn’t my only battle.”

After being displaced south like thousands of others, she now sleeps on a classroom floor with her daughters — her bottles of cancer medication are empty. 

The MoH estimates around 11,000 cancer patients are stuck in Gaza amid war, often fearing the immediate risks of Israel’s indiscriminate bombardment more than long-term health.

Many Palestinian women are unaware of advancing cancers until it's too late because testing and mammogram services no longer function effectively.

Based on trends, Dr AlWaheidi suspects at least 3,000 more women in Gaza may have developed breast cancer and go undiagnosed. 

“So many women find some lumps or tumours in their breasts, and they don't say anything,” Eman added.

Now, survival in Gaza means finding food, shelter and clean water while dodging bullets and bombs — not treating cancer. As a result, Eman adds: “They passed away with … silence.” 

Last hope 

Evacuation to places like Egypt and Jordan is the last hope for most Palestinians, including those with cancer. The latest WHO data indicates that 7,672 patients have been evacuated so far; however, this official figure only includes 681 oncology cases.

Isolated and sometimes alone, many evacuees are stuck in cramped hospital rooms, unable to work, and forced to navigate often fractured foreign healthcare systems with little support or contact with home. 

Insaf, 48, is among the many Palestinian women who have been evacuated to Cairo. But the three-time breast cancer survivor’s ordeal isn’t over — she recently learned she has colon cancer.

“I carried my body full of scars, only to discover a new disease waiting for me,” she said, “I feel stripped of dignity, and so often, I carry my pain alone.” 

Supporting people like Insaf has become part of Eman’s ongoing advocacy for the largely forgotten cancer patients of Palestine.

Now in Cairo, she provides a vital lifeline, offering communication and community not just to those in the war-torn strip, but also to evacuees.

But even as one of Gaza’s most prominent cancer survivors and advocates, she feels her pleas fall on deaf ears among the international community.

Her efforts to speak at international cancer awareness events are often met with silence, rejection, and visa denials. Other attempts to support Palestinian breast cancer patients continue despite increasing challenges, restrictions and oppression.

Gaza won’t celebrate with pink ribbons this October, but this makes the campaigns in the West Bank “even more significant,” according to Miar Bsharat from the Mariam Foundation in Ramallah.

There, Miar explained that October’s awareness campaigns will continue, helping to “create safe spaces for women to learn, discuss, and act for their health — critical steps given the impossibility of outreach in Gaza.”

Hope is the last thing that many breast cancer patients cling to, including Ghader, who echoes the desperate calls of many women suffering from this disease.

“I am not asking for miracles,” she said. “I am only asking for a chance to live.” 

Tamara Davison is a British freelance journalist reporting across the Middle East on humanitarian issues, post-conflict resolution and migration