The Illusions of Diagnosis in Gaza

Every October, the global healthcare apparatus launches its familiar campaigns, draping institutions in ribbons to advocate early detection. In the Gaza Strip, this ritual meets a grim structural reality: awareness is useless without the capital or equipment to act upon it. What good is a self-examination when the machinery needed to confirm a diagnosis has broken down, and the drugs required to treat it have vanished from public pharmacies?

On paper, Gaza's Ministry of Health recorded 260 new breast cancer cases in 2025, down from roughly 360 annual cases recorded before the conflict. This reduction reflects no epidemiological miracle, but rather a total breakdown in diagnostic capacity. With mammography machines out of service and laboratory supplies exhausted, untracked tumors simply grow in silence. The capacity to perform surgery for advanced tumours has effectively ground to a halt, while radiotherapy is entirely absent from the territory.

Where public health systems collapse, private alternatives emerge, but at prices that exceed the reach of an impoverished population. A computerized tomography scan in a private facility costs roughly 150 shekels—around 48 dollars—an insurmountable hurdle for displaced families already struggling to afford basic food. Even medical professionals are not immune to the systemic failure. Dr. Iman al-Haj Ahmad, a gynecologist diagnosed with breast cancer in May 2025, faced weeks of searching just to locate a functioning mammogram before undergoing surgery under precarious hospital conditions.

For those who manage to secure an official medical referral, the ultimate barrier remains physical exit. The evacuation procedure requires the World Health Organization and the local health ministry to submit patient files for Israeli security screening, a administrative process that frequently stalls for months or years without explanation. Patients who require advanced therapies remain trapped in a system that can neither treat them nor let them leave. In a warzone where overall fatalities have passed 74,400, the silent failure of basic oncology infrastructure demonstrates how bureaucratic paralysis can be just as lethal as active bombardment.

Written by Martina Kirchner martina.kirchner@alpineweekly.com