The Jerusalem District Court rejected a petition to allow a Gazan child living in the West Bank to enter Israel to receive medical treatment on Sunday, according to a statement from Gisha Legal Center for Freedom of Movement released on Monday.
Gisha, who has been representing the 5-year-old since November 2025, filed the petition on his behalf. According to their statement, the child moved from Gaza to the West Bank in 2022 to receive medical care not available in the Strip. Once it became clear that the treatment was not working, his doctors recommended a series of treatments unavailable in the West Bank, including cancer immunotherapy and a bone marrow transplant, and can be obtained in Israel.
The court decision noted that the child’s doctors in Ramallah had been in contact with Tel Hashomer Hospital, whose practitioners expressed willingness to treat the child.
“Despite the immediate danger to his life,” Gisha wrote, “the court chose not to intervene in the state’s decision [not to let him into Israel]. Thus, it effectively established a precedent which prohibits patients from Gaza from entering Israel since the beginning of the war, a practice that did not exist until 2023.”
The state, according to Gisha, argued in the latest round of legal proceedings that the Defense Minister himself refused the child’s entry on the grounds that Gaza residents are barred from entering the State of Israel “for any purpose whatsoever.”
The state also argued that the child’s family did not demonstrate sufficient effort to find the child medical treatment in a third country.
Multiple doctors are cited in the court documents as saying that transferring the child abroad would not be beneficial for two reasons. First, they are not sure that hospitals in nearby countries, pecifically in Amman, Jordan, will have the resources necessary to provide adequate treatment, the same issue the family is currently facing in the West Bank. Second, the child’s health is poor, so he may not survive the trip. Â
Finding a different country to provide medical treatment
The court decision also noted that the parents claimed they were unable to find a third country, as the World Health Organization only aids Gaza residents currently residing in Gaza in need of urgent medical attention, not those living in the West Bank.
Ultimately, the court decided that attempting to cross the border into Jordan need not constitute a significant barrier to the family, as hundreds of other patients from Gaza have received medical treatment there, and “it appears that… priority is given to children with cancer.”
The court concluded that there was insufficient evidence to support the claim that the child is unable to receive treatment in a nearby country, and that the doctors’ assessments of the medical facilities available in Amman amounted to conjecture. The decision also noted that “the assumption that the trip to Amman would seriously harm the child’s condition has not been sufficiently proven.”
All Gazans are potential threats
Finally, the court reaffirmed its decision to uphold the October 7 policy of barring all Gazans from entering the country on the basis that those who committed the horrific atrocities in the Gaza border communities were also Gaza residents who had once been considered “uninvolved” civilians able to cross Israel’s borders regularly.
“This case illustrates once again the devastating consequences of a sweeping policy that denies Palestinians access to life-saving medical care solely on the basis of their registered address in Gaza, even when they are not residing there at all, and no security claim is made against them,” Gisha wrote in their response to the court’s decision.
“This ruling means backing an illegal policy that effectively sentences sick children to death, even when life-saving treatment is within reach.”