![\"Khaldoun](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/KHaldoun-Atwan-1792226553.jpg\")
Khaldoun Atwan must make an arduous journey to reach his workplace [Al Jazeera]\u2018Emergency cases only\u2019<\/p>\nBeit Jala, occupied West Bank \u2013 Khaldoun Atwan starts each day in the oncology ward at Beit Jala Government Hospital, not knowing what barriers will come his way.<\/p>\n
The Nabi Yunis checkpoint in Halhul seems to be \u201calways closed\u201d, so the head of the daytime oncology unit at the hospital leaves his car and finishes the commute from Hebron by taxi.<\/p>\n
Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list<\/p>\n
\u201cMore than once, by God, I found the mirror broken. I found the wiper broken,\u201d he said about his journey through an area where settlers are now active.<\/p>\n
Traversing a dizzying array of gates and checkpoints opening or closing at will, he does not know whether he will reach the hospital, whether his patients will, or whether the drugs they need will be on the shelf when they do.<\/p>\n
Beit Jala is the only government hospital in Bethlehem governorate, home to some 320,000 people. Inside his tiny, spartan office, Atwan is struggling to keep up with his cancer patients who have regressed because they missed crucial appointments or essential drugs needed for their chemotherapy treatment.<\/p>\n
Not even during the second Intifada, he recalls, was drug supply an issue. Now, it\u2019s inescapable.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything\u2019s short \u2026 whatever\u2019s available we give,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a disaster.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Palestinian Authority (PA)\u2019s finances have collapsed over the last three years due to a reduction in international aid and disruptions in Israel\u2019s transfers of tax receipts. Israel\u2019s actions in the occupied West Bank since October 2023, including widespread road closures, checkpoints and a series of settler pogroms against Palestinian communities, have also impacted the economy.<\/p>\n
As a result, the occupied West Bank\u2019s healthcare system is rapidly deteriorating, with staff receiving just half their salaries, while the PA can\u2019t pay for essential medications.<\/p>\n
Khaldoun Atwan must make an arduous journey to reach his workplace [Al Jazeera]\u2018Emergency cases only\u2019<\/p>\n
Alongside others nervously pacing in the courtyard, an older cancer patient from a village in Bethlehem governorate stood at the entrance of the hospital, weighing with his son what to do. \u201cEvery month they do their best, the doctors and the cleaning staff, but they aren\u2019t provided with anything,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Ministry clinics are now operating part-time, with doctors seeing well more than 100 patients a day when they are. Now, even a doctor\u2019s visit is rushed and unaffordable: \u201cIf we want to go to the doctor for a checkup, we need 200 shekels [$65],\u201d said an older cancer patient.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not a story of there being no staff,\u201d said Iyad Dari, the attending physician at the dialysis unit at Beit Jala. Getting paid only half their salaries, \u201cthe government employee is working just two or three days a week, because he hasn\u2019t got enough to come in for his full hours,\u201d he added. As a result, the hospital ends up covering emergency cases only.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt first, [patients] were [angry]. But now everyone understands: Everyone\u2019s suffering,\u201d Dari said.<\/p>\n
The medical supplies crisis in Beit Jala and across the West Bank is the result of Israel\u2019s withholding of tax revenues earmarked for the PA, an action spearheaded by Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis crisis is very predictable, and we saw it coming 100 percent,\u201d said Milena Ansari of Physicians for Human Rights Israel. Even before the genocidal war on Gaza began in October 2023, Israel was periodically withholding tax revenues, endangering the Ministry of Health\u2019s coffers, Milena said.<\/p>\n
According to Yosef Ojra, an internal medicine specialist at Beit Jala, the withheld revenues have depleted the Health Ministry\u2019s funds to pay medical suppliers, who are now withholding their services. The ongoing borrowing of supplies between the public and private arms of healthcare has greatly strained private clinics, pharmacies and hospitals.<\/p>\n
Hisham Amle, an oncologist at the hospital, said shortages are \u201can old problem, not a new one\u201d, but that about 90 percent of important items \u2013 for chemotherapy, above all \u2013 used to be there. Now, even immunotherapies and biologics are missing, and cancer treatment runs on an unbroken chain. \u201cIf the patient misses a session or two, he\u2019s lost all the treatment before it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I first took over the department, the drugs were available,\u201d said Atwan, the lead oncology nurse. He then began to list all the crucial drugs he was now missing for his patients. \u201cThere\u2019s not one single complete protocol I\u2019ve got.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Dr](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Dr-Hisham-Amle-1792226533.jpg\")
Dr Hisham Amle, an oncologist at the hospital in Beit Jala [Al Jazeera]<\/p>\n
Khuloud Dweib, the hospital\u2019s director of pharmacy, said the ministry recently managed to obtain eight previously missing oncology drugs and four biologics. This should be enough for between a month and a half and two months. But many other drugs are still out of stock, she said.<\/p>\n
Unlike in Gaza, Israel is not blocking medicines from entering the West Bank, Ansari noted. The problem is \u201cstrictly\u201d that the PA has no money to buy them. But \u201cIsrael has the primary legal obligation as an occupying power,\u201d she notes, to ensure adequate medical care and access to occupied populations.<\/p>\n
Denied movement, denied care<\/p>\n
For all of the southern West Bank, Beit Jala\u2019s hospital is the only public option available for cancer and dialysis treatment, with patients coming from Bethlehem and Hebron governorates, parts of occupied East Jerusalem and sometimes Jericho.<\/p>\n
But as Israeli checkpoints and gates multiply, reaching the hospital has become a nightmare. Dari described a dialysis patient from Nahalin, with an appointment at seven or eight in the morning, whose village was sealed. \u201cHe sat about four, five hours at the checkpoint,\u201d Dari said. Then he took the long way round, through Jaba, Surif, Halhul and Hebron, and reached the unit at four in the afternoon. A normal journey costs about 10 shekels. \u201cA detour like this costs more than 100 shekels,\u201d Dari said, and some patients need dialysis four times a week.<\/p>\n
The ministry\u2019s central supply warehouse, meanwhile, is in Nablus, Dweib said \u2013 and an hour-and-a-half drive can now take six to 10 hours when closures hit.<\/p>\n
Often, Atwan\u2019s patients require treatments split between his unit and the Augusta Victoria Hospital in occupied East Jerusalem. Before the war, cancer patients from the West Bank routinely received medical permits to enter Jerusalem. Some treatments are in Beit Jala, while others are only available in East Jerusalem. But there are no guarantees any more that patients can reach Jerusalem. \u201cI\u2019ve got a cancer patient \u2026 He waited on a referral, and there\u2019s no treatment, and after all the running around it comes back he\u2019s security-rejected, too,\u201d Atwan said. \u201cI mean, he doesn\u2019t get a permit to go to [Augusta Victoria]? Where\u2019s he supposed to go?\u201d<\/p>\n
Atwan recalled patients who became neutropenic due to missed treatment sessions, and one was lucky not to end up with sepsis. \u201cThese are disasters.\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019s not sure exactly how many cancer patients he\u2019s lost due to missed and incomplete treatments; many of the poorer patients, he said, simply go home and die there.<\/p>\n
![\"Dr](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Dr-Iyad-Dari-at-the-nephrology-wing-1792226527.jpg\")
Dr Iyad Dari at the nephrology wing in the hospital [Al Jazeera]\u2018I\u2019ve started cutting back, not taking much\u2019<\/p>\n
As crowds swell at front desks and people wait at the hospital\u2019s entrance, a nervous exhaustion percolates through the hospital\u2019s aged halls. \u201cPeople are really tense. Everyone\u2019s scared,\u201d Dari said.<\/p>\n
Atwan, who receives half his salary, struggles to cover his commute from Hebron and help support his daughters at university.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s not talk about our state of mind \u2013 we\u2019ll start crying, for God\u2019s sake,\u201d said Atwan. \u201cOur morale is at rock bottom \u2026 We smile in spite of ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
Amid mass unemployment with labour permits systematically revoked, more sick Palestinians are pushed towards public hospitals just as those hospitals have less to give. Hospitals \u201cwill prioritise someone who will actually pay them\u201d, Ansari added.<\/p>\n
Ahmed, a Palestinian from Bethlehem with a medical degree, would check every couple of days with the pharmacist to see if they had Humira, an injection every two weeks that his sister with Crohn\u2019s disease needs. For three months, the pharmacists were out of stock. Buying directly from the pharmaceutical company would cost about 2,000 shekels ($650) for one or two injections. \u201cWe couldn\u2019t afford that,\u201d he said. \u201cSo we just struggled until it became available again.\u201d<\/p>\n
The elderly cancer patient from a village facing settler pogroms has cut back on his own medication. \u201cIt\u2019s not supplied regularly,\u201d he said. A course of it costs 20,000 shekels ($6,500). \u201cI\u2019ve started cutting back, not taking much,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Amid supply and staffing shortages, surgery backlogs have piled up. Sayed Ayyad, 22, from al-Eizariya, fell during an accident, fracturing his ankle badly last month. With serious operations taking priority, he waited three weeks for a slot.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey told me there\u2019s 60 people waiting for an operation,\u201d he said. \u201cOne day we couldn\u2019t do the surgery because there were no medicines, no painkillers, no anaesthetic, nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Sayed](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Sayed-Ayyad-1792226559.jpg\")
Sayed Ayyad, a patient at the hospital, receives treatment [Al Jazeera]Fates left to chance<\/p>\n
Khuloud Dweib, who heads the pharmacy department at Beit Jala, has to manage the worsening crisis as patients struggle with their health and finances. \u201cThere\u2019s no security. We don\u2019t have political, or health, or even financial security,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s left thinking of cases like a young man with multiple sclerosis studying medicine in Egypt. The Health Ministry used to provide his medicine through private purchase until the company stopped supplying without payment. His mother came to see her. \u201cI want to sell my house so I can get the injection for my son,\u201d the mother told her. \u201cBecause he\u2019s in Egypt, away from home, studying, and \u2026 he\u2019s stopped seeing, stopped walking.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, what can I tell you,\u201d Dweib said, fighting back the tears. \u201cGod help people.\u201d<\/p>\n
The medical staff fear that with their supplies being hollowed out, they could face a similar fate to their colleagues in Gaza who have been kidnapped or killed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know that at any moment we could be targeted as medical staff, just because we\u2019re medical personnel providing services to people,\u201d Dweib said. \u201cWe\u2019re a father and a mother in this society.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nobody in the ageing hospital wards sees an end in sight. \u201cThe longer we stay, the worse the situation gets,\u201d said Dari.<\/p>\n
At three o\u2019clock each afternoon, Atwan has to leave in the hope that he can reach Bab az-Zawiya in Hebron, where he waits for a shared taxi.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe there\u2019ll be a checkpoint for me, maybe there won\u2019t be,\u201d he said. It\u2019s not so different from the conundrums his patients face. \u201cWhen a patient gets sick, it\u2019s his luck if the medicine\u2019s there,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got no future. I swear: We\u2019ve got no future.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Beit Jala, occupied West Bank \u2013 Khaldoun Atwan starts each day in the oncology ward at Beit Jala…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":931676,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[64,63,1379,137,500,6897,12241,44,38845,6899,59336],"class_list":["post-931675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-features","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-israel","tag-middle-east","tag-news","tag-occupied-west-bank","tag-palestine","tag-palestinian-authority"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=931675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931675\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/931676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=931675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=931675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=931675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}