When
You Have Breast Cancer
In Gaza
By Gideon Levy
01 October, 2004
Haaretz
One
out of every nine women gets breast cancer. There are doctors who say
that statistic has worsened lately and now stands at one out of every
eight. The disease is particularly violent in younger women and the
primary growth in the breast spreads rapidly to the liver, the lungs,
the bones and the brain. Is there anything worse than being a young
woman with cancer whose chances are slim? It turns out that there is
- being a young Palestinian woman with cancer whose chances are slim.
For 10 days now,
F., a 28-year-old resident of Gaza, has been trying to get to Sheba
Medical Center at Tel Hashomer for urgent chemotherapy in the oncology
department. The story of what has happened to her during these 10 awful
days sounds unbelievable, even to someone who has already heard horrible
stories. The reality has succeeded in superseding even what the sickest
imagination could invent.
F. has been undergoing
treatment at Sheba's oncology department for many months: she has had
surgery twice, radiation and chemotherapy. In Gaza, there is not a single
oncology department and F. is not allowed to go to Egypt for treatment;
she is one of the tens of thousands of Palestinians to whom Israel has
refused to issue identity cards because they were not in the territories
at the very beginning of the occupation. Without papers and without
treatment in Gaza, F. is totally dependent on Israel's good graces.
About two months
ago, she was hospitalized at Sheba for several weeks and she had the
chemotherapeutic drug Taxol injected into her veins, which reduced her
suffering considerably. The attitude toward her at the hospital was
admirable. F. was liked by everyone around her.
Israel prevented
members of her family from being at her side for most of the time she
was hospitalized, and she was left all by herself after the operations
and during the period of radiation treatments. A handful of Israeli
women, among them one of the activists of Physicians for Human Rights-Israel,
tried to relieve her loneliness and her suffering.
Each of her entrances
into Israel was accompanied by hassles and humiliations. One time they
demanded of her father a deposit of NIS 30,000 so that he could accompany
her.
F. was supposed
to have returned to Sheba for treatment on September 14. There was a
closure and her application was refused. They promised her a permit
for September 19. In the meantime, her condition deteriorated, her pain
increased and her breathing became labored. She contacted the physicians'
association and begged to be allowed to return to the hospital.
At Sheba they said
she should come as soon as possible. On September 14, Physicians for
Human Rights applied to the humanitarian hotline of the Liaison and
Coordination Administration with a request that she receive an entry
permit. The permit arrived only on the following day at 6 in the evening,
restricted to that same day and without an accompanying person. It was
evening and F. was no longer able to travel by herself. The following
day the validity of the permit had already expired.
At the association
they decided to wait until Sunday, for which the permit had already
been promised. On Sunday, the permit did not arrive until evening. In
turns out that it was necessary to submit a renewed application. On
Monday there was a delay on the Palestinian side, which was late in
resubmitting her medical documents. Her changes of going out on Monday
were scotched, as well.
Last Tuesday, at
3:30 in the afternoon, the telephone call came with the news that a
permit had been given for the patient and her mother. F. set out for
the roadblock with her mother. For hours she sat debilitated on the
ground and waited. Finally she was called to go through the metal detector.
The soldiers shouted to her from a distance that she had "something
in her chest" and ordered her to strip in front of them. She stood
there wearing only an undergarment, her mother burst out crying at the
sight of her sick, humiliated daughter and the soldiers scolded her
to shut up. Finally an officer came, reprimanded the soldiers and ordered
F. to get dressed immediately.
F. has had a mastectomy.
At 8 P.M. the Liaison and Coordination Administration informed Physicians
for Human Rights that there was "a security problem" with
F. The soldiers suspected her of carrying explosives in her chest. For
some reason they had not arrested her, but had sent her home. Apparently
it was the prosthetic breast that had set off the metal detector.
From that moment
a danse macabre began, the end of which is not in sight. MK Yossi Sarid
(Yahad), one of the few Knesset members who has taken an interest and
tried to help, contacted the defense minister's bureau that same evening.
At the bureau they asked for documents concerning F.'s prosthesis. The
minister's adviser phoned Dr. Danny Rosen, who knows F. well, and asked
about the kind of material on her body. At the bureau they also asked
for a guarantee in F.'s handwriting that she would come to the roadblock
without the prosthesis. This guarantee was given. Day followed day,
and yet another phone call and yet another request for a form, and F.
is still stuck in Gaza, her suffering increasing and her chances running
out.
The Israel Defense
Forces spokesman says that, "in light of a number of attempts by
terrorists to enter Israel in the guise of needing medical treatment,
the IDF must be extra cautious with regard to anyone who does not pass
the security check, even if he has the appropriate medical documents
in his possession. The claim concerning inappropriate conduct by the
soldiers at the crossing point has been investigated and found to be
without any basis. However, the consideration of the request by the
senior command levels is still underway."
No danger of a suicide
terrorist can justify such behavior. It is possible to protect ourselves
against female terrorists without losing our humanity. F.'s story is
not exceptional, even if part of it is particularly shocking; there
are hundreds of Palestinian patients in a similar condition and every
injustice always has a security excuse. There is terror, everyone is
only carrying out orders and they are going by the book. But a book
that prevents medical treatment to dying patients, hassles them and
humiliates them, is a wicked book, and a society in which only the metal
detector speaks is a sick society.
Gideon Levy writes
for Ha'aretz, where this essay originally appeared.