‘Longer we wait, worse it gets’: Struggle of Gaza’s breast cancer patients

Hiba Musbah has already endured seven rounds of chemotherapy for the breast cancer she was diagnosed with in 2024. The 36-year-old mother of three from Deir el-Balah says her condition keeps getting worse as treatment slips further out of reach.

Musbah first noticed lumps around her right breast in January 2024. Doctors confirmed cancer, but despite the urgent need for surgery, she waited two months. Her chemotherapy was later delayed for seven months because medicines were unavailable. She has not had a CT scan in three months; a private hospital offers one for about 150 shekels — roughly $48, more than she can afford. “If I had received treatment early, things would not have reached this point,” she told Al Jazeera.

Gaza’s Ministry of Health records around 360 new breast cancer cases a year, a figure it says may understate the true toll because screening has collapsed. Mammography machines repeatedly break down, radiotherapy is unavailable, and surgery for advanced tumours has been halted for lack of specialised equipment.

Doctor Iman al-Haj Ahmad, an obstetrician diagnosed with breast cancer herself, waited a month for surgery at Nasser Hospital and is now on hormonal treatment while hoping to travel abroad for radiotherapy. Even so, she continues examining other women and referring suspected cases.

This October, health workers have launched a “Pink October” campaign — “pink blooms from among the rubble” — urging women to keep checking themselves. But Musbah has been waiting two years for permission to leave Gaza for treatment. “I have been waiting for two years,” she said. “And I still haven’t travelled.”