Jerusalem District Court Denies Life-Saving Treatment to 5-Year-Old Palestinian Boy Due to Gaza Address
The Jerusalem District Court has rejected a legal petition seeking access to life-saving medical treatment in Israel for a five-year-old Palestinian boy suffering from cancer. According to a report by the Gisha Legal Center for Freedom of Movement, the court upholds the state’s refusal to grant the child a medical permit solely because his registered address remains in the Gaza Strip, despite the fact that he has been living in the West Bank city of Ramallah for over two years.
The child, whose condition is reported to be deteriorating, requires a specialized bone marrow transplant that is currently unavailable in Palestinian hospitals in the West Bank or Gaza. His medical team determined that the necessary procedure could only be performed at the Sheba Medical Center (Tel Hashomer) in Israel. However, Israeli authorities denied the permit application, citing the boy’s official registration as a Gaza resident.
Gisha, the Israeli human rights organization representing the family, filed an urgent petition arguing that the denial effectively blocks the child from accessing the only available care that could save his life. The organization emphasized that the family had relocated to Ramallah in 2022 specifically for medical care and that the child has no current physical ties to the war-torn Gaza Strip. Gisha’s attorneys argued that determining the child’s eligibility based on a bureaucratic registration rather than his physical residence and medical urgency constitutes a violation of both Israeli and international human rights laws.
In its response to the petition, the state acknowledged the child’s medical needs but maintained that his Gaza address subjected him to the stricter movement restrictions currently applied to residents of the coastal enclave. The state suggested that the family should instead seek to transport the child to a “third country,” such as Jordan, for treatment. This would require the child to travel via the Allenby Bridge crossing, a journey his doctors fear he may not be physically stable enough to endure, and for which funding and logistical coordination are not guaranteed.
The court’s ruling accepted the state’s position, declining to intervene in the security establishment’s discretion regarding entry permits. The decision leaves the five-year-old in a precarious medical limbo. According to Gisha, the ruling illustrates a deepening policy where bureaucratic categorization takes precedence over humanitarian necessity. “The significance of this ruling is that the court is providing backing for a policy that effectively condemns children to death, even when life-saving treatment is in reach,” the organization stated following the decision.
This case highlights the growing difficulties faced by Palestinian patients attempting to access specialized medical care in East Jerusalem and Israel. Since the escalation of conflict in October 2023, the number of medical permits granted to Palestinians with Gaza IDs has dropped precipitously, even for those who were already undergoing treatment protocols in Israeli hospitals prior to the war. Human rights groups continue to warn that the rigid enforcement of residency-based restrictions is leading to preventable loss of life among the most vulnerable patient populations, including pediatric cancer patients.
* ansarollah.com.ye
* wafa.ps
* imemc.org
* gisha.org
* ahram.org.eg
