Only a few dozen children from Gaza have been treated at a cancer center in Jordan

The Jordan and Jordan Cancer Centers, where Jews and Palestinians live, thrive and thrive: A case study on the traumatized King Hussein Hospital

AMMAN, Jordan — The King Hussein Cancer Center is huge and gleaming, with steel beams and floor-to-ceiling windows. The air-conditioned lobby has cafes and snack machines. It’s a different place from the one in Gaza, where dozens of new patients have come.

“We couldn’t find food and wherever we went there were airstrikes,” says Safa Salha, who spent months going from damaged hospital to damaged hospital, seeking treatment for her 16-year-old son Youssef.

Youssef, a tall, quiet teenager who lets his mother do most of the talking, was in 10th grade before the war between Israel and Hamas started in October 2023 and shut down all the schools.

Last year, he was operated on in Gaza for a brain tumor pressing down on his optic nerve. The hospital couldn’t do scans before the surgery, according to his mother. Surgeons removed as much of the tumor as they could and sent him home two days later because they needed the bed, his mother says.

“The hardest thing was the decision to do the surgery,” says Salha, a teacher and school activities organizer. “You don’t know if the doctors were going to be able to finish the surgery, you don’t know if there was medicine available, or if we were going to die while he was there.”

The Gaza Conflict: State-Field and State-Dependent United Nations Response to Israel’s Airstrikes, Medical Evacuations, and Hospitals

All of Gaza’s hospitals have been either damaged or destroyed in Israeli airstrikes. Israel says it has targeted Hamas sites rather than civilian infrastructure.

UNICEF says more than 50,000 children in Gaza have been killed or injured during the war, which began after the militant group Hamas launched a cross-border attack into Israel. Gaza’s Health Ministry says more than 55,000 people, many of them women and children, have died. The initial attack killed more than 1,200 Israelis and foreigners, according to Israel.

Israel this spring intensified its attacks and aid agencies said in March that more than 12,000 people require urgent medical evacuation out of Gaza, including at least 4,500 children.

In February, President Trump suggested a plan to take over Gaza, displacing Palestinians to Jordan and Egypt while turning the enclave into a U.S.-controlled zone featuring beach-front property. Many Palestinians were forced out of their homes after Israel’s creation.

The relocation plan is seen as a threat to Jordan by the government, and a death knell for hopes of a Palestinian state.

The King told the President that Jordan is prepared to take in 2,000 child cancer patients and other extremely sick children.

“There have been difficulties imposed by the Israeli authorities that are stopping the way of making this happen smoothly,” said Mohammad al-Momani, Jordan’s government communication minister.

The Israeli military did not respond to NPR queries about obstructing exit visas. The United Nations’ World Health Organization, which works with Israeli authorities and oversees logistics for medical evacuations, deferred comment to Israel.

Health officials say delays in evacuations have meant diminished chances of survival for some of the sickest children, who elsewhere would receive immediate treatment.

“These patients require intensive care unit support, they require respiratory support and they require a lot of nutritional support as well,” she says. It makes it difficult to treat the tumor.

The King Hussein cancer center is one of the top hospitals in the region. Hospitals that also treat cancer can be added to Rihani’s 44 pediatric cancer beds and 24 bone marrow transplants beds. Some of the arrivals are not required for in-patient treatment.

Rihani says no cancer patients treated in Jordan since the start of the Gaza war have been sent back to Gaza. Jordan has been criticized for sending people back when the conflict is still going on.

“We are bringing them by batches,” says Momani, the communications minister. “We will take these children to treat them but then after they finish their treatment they should be going back to their homeland. We don’t want to be in any way helping the displacement of Palestinians.”

There was not a single loaf of bread or food. Astal says that Ahmed has been impressed by all the sandwich of sliced chicken that can be found here.

The Astals had gathered with other patients and their caretakers near a bus at the Gaza European Hospital to go to the border when Israel bombed the complex. The civil defense authorities say at least 28 people were killed in the strikes.

Source: A cancer center in Jordan treats kids from Gaza, but only a few dozen have arrived

masked depression — a childhood memory of Astal, a cancer center aided by her son Jude in his first round of cancer treatment

Many of the children at the cancer center are suffering from “masked depression”, according to a clinical psychologist at the center.

A 13 year old girl sits with her mother and younger brother in front of a blue hospital bracelet waiting for the start of her first round of cancer treatment

She was diagnosed with leukemia two months ago. There was no treatment available when she suffered seizure in Gaza. She describes huddling together with all of the family, hugging each other during the airstrikes. Her son, Jude, knows what Arabic means for “plane.”

“I knew it was going to land close to us, but I didn’t have the strength to leave,” says Astal. She says the impact threw the boys in the air and rained down so much debris she couldn’t see for 10 minutes.

A lucky few manage to secure some packets of lentils, a jar of Nutella or a bag of flour. Many return without anything, and must attempt the same thing the next day.

Rafah centers in Gaza risk harrowing journey to find food, says a Gazan man in a desperate search for food

Palestinian’s in Gaza run agantlets every day to try and get food. Israeli troops open barrages of gunfire toward crowds crossing military zones to get to the aid, they say, and knife-wielding thieves wait to ambush those who succeed. Palestinians are forced into a competition to feed their families and lawlessness is growing.

Al-Hobi said he was trampled in the scramble for boxes. He managed to grab a bag of rice, a packet of macaroni. He snagged flour — but much of it was ruined in the chaos.

Heba Jouda said she saw a group of men beat up a boy of 12 or 13 years old and take his food as she left one of the Rafah centers. She said that an older man was attacked by thieves and cried because his children had no food. They ran away with the sack after cutting his arm.

He and others crawled forward, then left the main road. A shot rang out nearby and they ducked, he said. The young man was on the ground with a bullet in his back. The others assumed he was dead, but Saqer felt his chest — it was still warm, and he found a pulse. They carried him to a point where a car could pick him up.

You have to move fast, Saqer said. Some who came too late rob those who are leaving. He swiftly tore open a box and loaded the contents into a sack — juice, chickpeas, lentils, cheese, beans, flour and cooking oil.

Food boxes are stacked on top of each other in an area surrounded by fence and berms. Thousands rush in to grab what they can.

Source: Day after day, Palestinians in Gaza risk harrowing journey in desperate search for food

Palestinians in Gaza risk harrowing journey in desperate search for food. Source: “Squid game” scenario for Gazan aid centers

He said he and others inched their way forward under tank fire. He saw people who had been shot. He said that one man died after he fell to the ground.

Everyone broke into a crazed run, he said. He saw several people wounded on the ground. One man, bleeding from his abdomen, reached out his hand, pleading for help. No one stopped.

It reminds me of the TV show “Squid Game” in which contestants risk their lives to win a prize. He said that raising your head could be a sign of death.

Mohammed Saqer, a father of three who risked the trip multiple times, said that when he went last week, tanks were firing over the heads of the crowds as drone announcements told everyone to move back.

Thousands of people must walk miles to reach the GHF centers, three of which are in the far south outside the city of Rafah. The Palestinians stated that the danger begins when the crowds enter the Israeli military zone.

The U.N.-led aid network in Gaza will be replaced by GHF due to the diversion of aid from it by Hamas. The U.N. denies the claim.

GHF says there hasn’t been a shooting in or near its hubs. A person who is speaking on condition of anonymity said incidents happen before sites open if aid-seekers try to take a short cut or if they move. They said GHF is trying to improve safety, in part by changing opening times to daylight hours.

Source: Day after day, Palestinians in Gaza risk harrowing journey in desperate search for food

“It’s death, but it’s humiliation,” said Atili, a Palestinian contractor with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation

Asked how its soldiers control movement, the military told The Associated Press its “operational conduct … is accompanied by systematic learning processes.” It said it was looking into safety measures like fences and road signs.

Palestinian witnesses say the troops fire to prevent crowds from moving past a certain point before the centers open or because people leave the road designated by the military. They describe heavy barrages from tanks, snipers, drones and even guns mounted on cranes.

“It is already apocalyptic, so I don’t think it can get any worse.” But somehow it does get worse,” said Olga Cherevko, spokesperson for the U.N. humanitarian affairs office.

This isn’t aid. It’s humiliation. It’s death,” said Jamil Atili, his face shining with sweat as he made his way back last week from a food center run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an Israeli-backed private contractor. He said he had been pepper-sprayed in the face by a contractor guard while scrambling for food and had a knife cut across his cheek. He didn’t have anything for his 13 family members.