Greater than two years in the past, Gaza resident Hanin Muhammad accompanied by her 39-year-old sister Sabreen, a kidney transplant recipient, was flown to the Iraqi capital Baghdad for medical therapy. However Muhammad has since been confined to the Non-public Nursing Dwelling Hospital inside Baghdad’s Medical Metropolis advanced, hundreds of miles away from her residence in Gaza, as her journey paperwork have been confiscated by Iraqi authorities.
“My six youngsters are in Gaza, and I’m getting into my third yr with out seeing them,” 40-year-old Muhammad instructed Al Jazeera.
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Her household residence in Rafah was destroyed by Israeli forces, forcing her youngsters to be displaced into makeshift tents positioned between Rafah and Khan Younis.
“I test on them via different individuals as a result of they lack web connection. I’m begging anybody to intervene so we will get again to Egypt, register, and see our kids,” she stated. Presently, Palestinians can go out and in of Gaza solely utilizing the Rafah crossing, which opens into Egypt.
Muhammad, who travelled to Iraq as a medical companion to her sister, is a part of a forgotten cohort of 46 Palestinians evacuated to Iraq, comprising 21 sufferers and 25 household escorts.
In line with well being authorities monitoring the group, the medical breakdown of the sufferers highlights the severity of their circumstances, which embrace 5 oncology sufferers, 4 affected by blood problems, one cardiac affected person, one kidney illness affected person, and 10 sufferers wounded within the ongoing genocidal warfare that has killed almost 73,000 Palestinians and wounded greater than 172,000.
The group was flown to Baghdad in March 2024 on a navy plane in coordination with the Iraqi and Egyptian governments, with a symbolic presence from the Palestinian Embassy in Cairo.
These uncommon evacuations spotlight a wider medical disaster again residence. In line with Gaza’s Well being Ministry, more than 20,000 patients and wounded persons are at present ready to journey overseas for medical therapy.
Zaher al-Waheidi, head of the ministry’s Info Unit, reported that 1,200 youngsters in Gaza now undergo from spinal wire accidents and paralysis immediately ensuing from Israeli assaults, whereas some 4,000 youngsters require pressing therapy overseas.
Regardless of the overwhelming want, official information supplied by al-Waheidi reveals that solely 154 youngsters have been allowed to depart Gaza because the Rafah crossing, the enclave’s solely gateway to the surface world, partially reopened in February amid heavy Israeli restrictions.
The disaster is equally dire for newborns: in 2025, greater than 4,000 ladies had untimely deliveries, and not less than 4,800 infants have been born with low delivery weights – double the pre-war determine. Final yr alone, 457 infants died of their first week of life.
For the handful who made it out, just like the group in Iraq, the promised sanctuary rapidly devolved right into a cage outlined by confiscated paperwork, restricted actions, and systemic neglect.
Confiscated paperwork and suspended lives
Upon their arrival from Egypt’s Heliopolis Hospital, the promised short-term restoration home windows evaporated. Evacuees state that their major identification and journey paperwork have been instantly seized.
“Once we left Egypt for Iraq, the Iraqi authorities took our identification papers from the Egyptians, and we haven’t seen them since,” Muhammad instructed Al Jazeera.
“Once we requested for them, they instructed us they have been held by Iraqi Intelligence and the Ministry of International Affairs. We demand them again, however nobody solutions us.”
The Palestinian Embassy in Baghdad issued new passports for these missing them, however in line with Muhammad, these paperwork stay unstamped by the Iraqi authorities and are functionally ineffective. She famous that with out the official stamps, they can’t journey anyplace.
This administrative vacuum has utterly frozen the lives of the companions. Noor Ibrahim, a pseudonym for a younger lady who arrived as an escort for her cancer-stricken aunt, is stranded together with 4 of her aunt’s youngsters.
“I’ve been engaged for 4 years, and my fiancé and household are in Gaza,” Ibrahim instructed Al Jazeera. “We left on the promise that it could be a brief six-month therapy journey, however now, two years have handed.”
She expressed deep frustration as she is caught contained in the medical advanced, emphasising that she simply needs to return to Egypt, from the place she will journey to Gaza to finish her marriage and begin her life.
The stress of the confinement has additionally severely exacerbated underlying well being circumstances. Ibrahim famous that whereas her aunt obtained the required most cancers therapy, she has developed numerous different undisclosed well being issues in Iraq, and her psychological state is exhausted from leaving her husband and household behind in war-ravaged Gaza.
Retaliation and dire circumstances
For the Palestinians residing inside Baghdad’s Medical Metropolis advanced, each day life has develop into a grind of fabric deprivation and psychological misery. The evacuees are utterly lower off from any financial stipends, leaving them completely depending on the hospital for fundamental shelter and native residents for extra charity.
Samah Abdul Moati, 65, who battles leukaemia, liver most cancers, and an arm damage, is accompanied by her injured 43-year-old son and her daughter-in-law. She painted a grim image of their each day life.
“The hospital brings meals every single day, however nobody can eat it as a result of it’s unfit for consumption,” Abdul Moati instructed Al Jazeera. “We’re surviving on the grace of native well-wishers who don’t fail us. However we don’t care in regards to the therapy any extra – we simply wish to return to our kids.”
Abdul Moati’s state of affairs is compounded by unfathomable grief: two of her sons have been killed within the warfare, two others have platinum implants from accidents, her husband is preventing most cancers in a Gaza intensive care unit with nobody to look after him, and her daughters and orphaned grandchildren reside in tents for displaced individuals.
“The toughest feeling is that I’m trapped between the hospital partitions whereas my coronary heart is exterior with my household and my individuals,” Abdul Moati stated. “My husband is within the intensive care unit alone, and my youngsters and grandchildren are in tents below the chilly and concern.”
Compounding their alienation, evacuees who’ve tried to protest or publicise their predicament confronted swift administrative blowback. Once they demanded their proper to journey 5 months in the past and spoke to the media, hospital administration retaliated by locking down the ward and banning them from even visiting the hospital backyard.
Muhammad revealed that they have been solely allowed out after journalists wrote about their state of affairs, including that officers constantly throw them from one division to a different with out offering any easy solutions.
Bureaucratic runaround
The spokesperson for the Iraqi Ministry of Well being, Saif Albadr, didn’t reply repeated calls from Al Jazeera.
Whereas the top of public relations on the Well being Ministry, Ruba Falah Hassan, instructed Al Jazeera that the case is “political.”
“Frankly, this can be a political difficulty, not health-related.. I’m not authorised to speak about it,” she acknowledged.
The newly appointed Iraqi authorities spokesperson, Haidar Al-Aboudi, instructed Al Jazeera that he “will look into the matter”.
For the Palestinians stranded within the Medical Metropolis, they preserve that they lack the monetary means to purchase business airline tickets even when their papers are returned, that means they desperately want a coordinated effort by a charity or authorities physique to facilitate their journey again to Egypt.
“I’m not asking for a luxurious or an exception,” Abdul Moati pleaded in her remaining remarks.
“I’m asking for a easy human proper: that my household doesn’t stay divided between life and dying. Open a secure path, facilitate our household reunification, and let me return to my household earlier than it’s too late.”
