Husam MaaroufIn Gaza, healing is neither assured nor allowed. There are no straight paths from illness to recovery—only detours, roadblocks, the hum of machines gone quiet.
Children wrap their swollen limbs in silence. Fathers lie motionless beneath thin plastic sheets, their rooms thick with unspoken dread. Wounds deepen. Infections spread. And still, the world scrolls—elsewhere.
The war has not only toppled concrete. It has razed the belief that one might be cared for.
This story isn’t about geopolitics or lines drawn in the sand. It’s about a 65-year-old man with a tube in his throat. A blind diabetic waiting in the dark. A mother who died—not from an airstrike, but because a dialysis machine failed.
There have been 114,000 wounded Palestinians since October 2023. Of those in need of treatment abroad, just 5,163 have managed to leave Gaza. Egypt received 2,458. Qatar took in 970. A few found passage to the UAE, Oman, Türkiye, and Europe. The rest remain waiting.
The numbers stagger—but they do not speak. The voices, however, do.
“I am losing my sight. And nobody seems to care.”
Mohammed Abu Rajila, 38, sits in near-darkness in Khuza’a, a town in Khan Younis. His voice is thin, as though afraid to utter his pain aloud.
“I’ve had diabetes since March 2023. It’s already damaged the retina in my right eye. Then the war began, and now, my left eye is suffering from first-degree retinal detachment,” he tells TRT World.
He had a referral in hand, a place waiting for him at occupied East Jerusalem’s Saint John Hospital. The World Health Organization had confirmed it before the war. “On October 23, 2024, I had everything ready. I even got confirmation from the World Health Organization. I was told I’d travel within a week. Then—nothing.”
He lingers in the pause, allowing the silence to carry what words can’t. “I went back and forth between the European Hospital and the WHO office. Each time, they said, ‘soon.’ But Rafah was closed. Everything was closed. My sight—my life—was on pause.”
Mohammed no longer sees clearly. Now, he sees only shadows.
“I’m not asking for a favour. This is my basic right as a human being—to be treated. To not go blind in silence.”
His plea is plain: “I ask the WHO and all those who can help: please, just let me travel. I don’t want to lose my eyes to bureaucracy. I don’t want to live in the dark.
“My father is withering before me like a drying branch”
Ahmed Radwan struggles to steady his voice as he describes his father, Shafiq, 65, resident of Khuza’a, injured gravely during the war.
“He was hit in the neck and abdomen. His internal organs were damaged. He can’t move. He can barely breathe.”
They fought hard to get him a medical referral which was approved. But his name never appeared on any travel list. “He was approved, but he wasn’t allowed to leave. Why?” Ahmed asks, his words almost shouting through his grief. “We’re watching him die. Every day. Slowly.”
Ahmed’s call he makes is not political, but human. “We call on the Palestinian Ministry of Health, the WHO, and any authority that still holds a conscience—help my father leave. Save his life before it’s too late.,” he tells TRT World.
Then, more bitterly: “The occupation treats our injured like burdens. They’re doing this on purpose. They’re killing us by denying us the chance to heal. Isn’t that a crime?”
“My mother didn’t die from the bombing—she died because her dialysis stopped.”
Mohammed Al-Jarousha recounts the final haunting hours of his mother, Rabiha, 66, who had kidney failure and was undergoing dialysis before the war began.
At the siege of Al-Shifa Hospital, everything stopped. “She passed away. Not from a direct strike—but from the collapse of the health system,” he tells TRT World. “I watched her die. I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t even give her water. I couldn’t reach anyone.”
His face is still, and he looks numb as if grief has passed beyond expression.
“My mother died because of the cruelty of the occupation and the failure of the international community to enforce its own laws. We are not equal in this world. The powerful can act without humanity, and no one stops them. That’s a shame for us all.”
His request is modest, devastating in its clarity: “I ask the world to treat us as humans. If not in life, then at least in death.”
Legal voice in the void
Mohammed Al-Masri is a Palestinian legal and human rights advocate who has been documenting and cataloguing the aftermath with a precision that borders on mourning.
“The Israeli occupation systematically prevents the sick and injured from leaving Gaza,” he tells TRT World. “It has destroyed Gaza’s health infrastructure over the last 555 days—bombing hospitals, killing doctors, targeting ambulances.”
He lists them: Al-Shifa. Al-Awda. Kamal Adwan. Al Ahli Arab Hospital. Gone or crippled.
“The occupation refuses to allow transfers to the West Bank or even to Israeli hospitals. They bear full legal responsibility for this humanitarian catastrophe—but they act like it’s someone else’s problem.”
His anger is real, but exhaustion underlines it. “They wait until an Arab or European country offers to help—like the UAE and Qatar did with emergency flights. Then they say, ‘See? Others are taking care of it.’ It’s a farce.”
On 2 March, Israel shut Gaza’s border crossings and halted aid, citing Hamas’s alleged rejection of a US-backed ceasefire extension. The closure has further crippled humanitarian efforts and access to critical medical supplies. The continued attacks combined with medical shortages will lead to preventable mass deaths, according to the BBC.
Al-Masri’s final point rings out like a verdict: “The world must step up. It must confront this arrogance, this inhumanity. This isn’t just about Gaza—it’s about the future of international law. If we let this pass, we are agreeing that the powerful can kill and then walk away.”
These are not isolated tragedies. They are not news alerts or numbers. They are a chorus of those who remain, bound by a shared ache—not just of suffering, but of being unseen.
Behind every locked gate, every unanswered referral, every collapsed ceiling, is a life still breathing, still hoping. Not because healing is beyond reach—but because it is withheld.
Their message is not a scream. It is quieter, harder to hear: the breath of a man going blind, the rasp of a father’s lungs, the last words between a son and a dying mother.
And a people, still waiting.
