Israel’s Rafah Border Closure Kills 7-Year-Old Anwar Al-Ashi Waiting For Treatment

Two days after the Rafah border partially reopened last month for Palestinian patients in Gaza, seven-year-old Anwar al-Ashi died while waiting for permission to leave for treatment, as his father Nayef al-Ashi said the border’s 21-month closure and Israel’s two-year total siege worsened the boy’s metabolic acidosis.

“Toggle Play Gaza cancer patient waits for a chance at life A school director and novelist in Gaza needs urgent life-saving cancer surgery that she cannot access inside the Strip”

Al Jazeera

Nayef al-Ashi told Middle East Eye, “This time, it was caused by malnutrition, contaminated and unsafe drinking water,” and doctors said malnutrition disrupted Anwar’s pH balance and led to kidney failure.

Al Jazeera

The article says Anwar was one of 1,360 patients who died while waiting to travel for medical treatment after Israeli forces closed the Rafah border crossing in May 2024, while more than 18,500 others, including 4,000 children, remain in urgent need of medical evacuation.

Although the border reopening aimed to allow up to 50 patients per day to leave for treatment, only around 260 were permitted to travel between 2 and 18 February, and the border was closed again on Saturday after the US and Israel launched the war on Iran.

Middle East Eye reported that despite a ceasefire agreement in October, Israel continued to severely restrict the entry of medicines and medical supplies, with by late December 321 essential medicines completely out of stock and 710 medical consumables unavailable.

The Guardian described Gaza’s cancer patients as trapped by war and blockade, saying Ismail Abu Naji was diagnosed with a rare blood cancer before the conflict but could not leave because the blockade Israel imposed on Gaza after Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack meant he “could not leave the territory.”

Ismail’s mother, Aya Mohammed Abu Hani, told the Guardian, “Before the war, hospitals were able to offer antibiotics and painkillers. But now, they can’t even provide a single painkiller.”

Masrawy

The Guardian also cited Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI) saying evacuation routes to third countries have become “near impossible” to operate, especially since the closure of the Rafah crossing in May 2024.

In Khan Younis, Dr Saleh Sheikh al-Eid said, “Basic diagnostic tools, such as biopsy needles, are unavailable,” and the article said essential chemotherapy drugs were close to running out as patients waited.

The Guardian reported that in March 2025 Israel destroyed Gaza’s only specialised cancer treatment hospital, the territory’s sole provider of oncology care, leaving doctors pushed into makeshift clinics with almost no resources.

In a statement to the Shihab news agency, Dr. Mohammed Ibrahim Abu Nada, the Medical Director of the Gaza Oncology Center, warned that disrupting humanitarian movement through the Rafah crossing threatens services and the lives of patients and the wounded.

“‘As if the border never reopened’: Gaza patients die waiting under Israeli siege Two days after the Rafah border partially reopened last month for Palestinian patients in Gaza, seven-year-old Anwar al-Ashi died while waiting for permission to leave for treatment”

Middle East Eye

Abu Nada said, “This reality casts dangerous shadows over the continued operation of hospitals, water and sewage plants, and other vital services that rely entirely on the flow of supplies,” and he urged ensuring a steady flow of humanitarian, medical, and fuel supplies.

The Gaza Health Ministry, as cited in the same report, confirmed that the lives of more than 4,000 cancer patients are now at risk due to drug shortages and described the condition of cancer patients as “catastrophic deterioration.”

Meanwhile, SANA reported that Palestinian health authorities said 6 to 10 patients die daily while awaiting travel abroad for treatment, and that the Gaza Ministry of Health said around 1,400 patients have died out of approximately 20,000 in urgent need of evacuation.

SANA added that during Eid al-Fitr hospitals received the bodies of 9 Palestinians, including one who succumbed to previous injuries, in addition to 30 wounded, while several victims remained under rubble or in streets as rescue teams faced difficulties accessing affected areas.