A 70-year-old man in Gaza needed open heart surgery. It was a race against time
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — What does it take for a 70-year-old man to get heart bypass surgery in Gaza, when he is cordoned off from the rest of the world in a territory with just two heart surgeons left?
It takes jostling through crowds of patients facing their own heath crises. It takes a dire enough medical condition, or political connections, to convince Palestinian officials to spare limited funds to pay for his surgery abroad.
And it takes pleading with Israeli border officials for security clearance just to be allowed to drive an hour or two out of Gaza to a hospital that can perform his surgery easily.
No place on Earth has been spared a health crisis, as the last few years have shown. Yet Gaza's protracted emergency is driven not only by a pandemic but by people — enemies locked in a 15-year standoff with no end in sight. The victims of Gaza's deadly military conflicts capture headlines, but a frequent contributing factor to illness and death in Gaza are the barriers to health care.
Sometimes hospital patients are rushed past the Gaza border quickly, but other times they spend months begging for permission to leave, nursing ailments at home. Most patients with serious cases eventually do get to cross into Israel, according to World Health Organization statistics. But thousands each year face unpredictable Israeli delays and denials that a 2021 WHO study has shown to be deadly.
It wasn't always like this. Seaside Gaza used to be a portal to the outside world. Some believe the word "gauze" comes from Gaza, where it was made and exported centuries ago. Gaza even had an airport briefly in the late 1990s. But 15 years ago last month, the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas seized control of Gaza following an election victory, and neighboring Israel and Egypt locked down Gaza's borders, choking off trade and travel.
Israel says the blockade is still necessary to contain Hamas, which has waged attacks on Israel and is considered a terrorist group by the U.S. and European Union. Palestinians call the Gaza
