Palestinian man in Cork asks Government to evacuate mother from Gaza for cancer treatment

As Rafah reopens in limited form, a Cork-based Palestinian urges Ireland to act before delays cost his mother’s life

Chef Habib Al Ostaz: 'You can't stay silent watching your mum suffering.' Picture: Chani Anderson

A Palestinian man living in Cork is calling on the Irish Government to evacuate his sick mother from Gaza for urgent cancer care after the Rafah crossing finally reopened into Egypt on Monday.

Habib Al Ostaz’s 46-year-old mother has been unable to access chemotherapy or other treatments for her cancer throughout the war, with bomb-damaged hospitals and obliterated health centres unable to provide the care she needs with extremely limited medical supplies.

“You can't stay silent watching your mum suffering,” Habib, 29, said. Habib’s immediate family has survived the war, despite multiple airstrikes.

Their home in northern Gaza was so badly damaged by missiles that they had to evacuate it as the structure was no longer stable. Some of their neighbours’ homes have been reduced to piles of rubble.

Habib said:

It's very dangerous to be in. At any time, the house may fall down.

The family moved to a tent in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza in recent months, where it currently feels safer than their home in the north, and where there are some food markets and water tanks distributing drinking water.

Central Gaza is also closer to the Rafah crossing, through which Habib’s mother would likely have to cross to access life-saving cancer care in another jurisdiction.

The Israeli-controlled crossing is the only route in or out for nearly all of Gaza's more than two million residents. It has been shut for most of the war. Reopening the border crossing on Monday was part of the US-brokered Gaza ceasefire plan.

But the numbers permitted through will be very limited at the beginning while more than 20,000 people in Gaza are estimated to require medical care abroad.

Habib’s mother has heard from the Palestinian health department that she is to be called for medical care abroad. But they have been given no date or concrete guarantees that it will happen on time to save her life.

Also other countries are taking small numbers for medical treatment while there is huge medical need in Gaza after the devastating and bloody war which has killed more than 71,000 and left more than 171,000 people injured in Gaza, according to figures from the local health authority. 

Habib Al Ostaz: 'There is just no response. They are saying that they can't do that, but they actually can.' Picture: Chani Anderson.

The war has also decimated Gaza’s infrastructure. And although the Rafah crossing opened on Monday, it is still only permitting small numbers of people to trickle through.

“The Israeli regime is limiting people who are leaving,” Habib said.

Even before this latest and bloodiest phase of the war in Palestine, Israel had restricted Gazans so severely that when his mother was first diagnosed with cancer in 2020, she had to apply to leave Gaza to access chemotherapy in Nablus in the West Bank.

It took eight applications and almost two years before the Israeli authorities permitted her to move between two parts of Palestine to access chemotherapy for cancer, Habib said.

“In the hospitals they don't have enough equipment for treating the cancers,” Habib said. “So she has to wait as she is doing now. And we begged everybody in this country, here in Ireland, the government, even in Egypt, everywhere.

“There is just no response. They are saying that they can't do that, but they actually can. I met lots of politicians, but everybody is throwing the responsibility to the other.

“So the Department of Health is saying that that's the Department of Foreign Affairs’ job and the foreign affairs is saying that this is the minister of health's job.

“And we told the government that we will cover everything, all the costs, her medical care, her accommodation, we just need you to evacuate her, to contact the Israeli authorities.

Knowing his siblings were missing out on an education has been another huge stress for Habib. Picture: Chani Anderson.

“I felt very upset about it."

But amid the trauma in Gaza there is some hope. Habib's younger brothers just returned to school, where classes are now being held in a nearby tent. His siblings had missed school since October 2023 due to the war.

Knowing his siblings were missing out on an education has been another huge stress for Habib. Education is highly valued and respected in Palestine.

But despite the tenuous ceasefire and the reopening of the Rafah crossing, violence has continued in Gaza. Israeli strikes killed at least four Palestinians on Monday, including a three-year-old boy.