ISRAELI OCCUPIED GAZA, 02 Feb. - (ANA) - Israel on Sunday allowed a limited reopening of the Rafah land crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, but its closure over the past year and a half has caused a humanitarian catastrophe for the residents of the devastated territory, with essential medical supplies being blocked during and after the war.

 

As a result of the Israeli siege, 50% of patients with kidney failure in the Gaza Strip have died, and the remainder struggling for survival amid a lack of the most basic treatment.

 

On a chair designated for kidney patients at Al-Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza City, 15-year-old Rawaa Al-Daama sits to receive a dialysis session that has become part of her exhausting daily routine.

 

As doctors prepare Rawaa for a session, her mother Sabrin says that she has suffered from a chronic kidney disease since birth, with her condition deteriorating severely since the outbreak of Israel’s war on Gaza, which meant that she could no longer reliably obtain medication and was unable to travel for treatment.

 

Sabrin told Qatar News Agency (QNA) that her daughter undergoes three to four dialysis sessions per week and lives in a constant state of exhaustion.

 

“We spend our lives going back and forth between home and the hospital, and her condition worsens day after day; she is dying slowly, and we are dying with her,” she said.

 

 “I am ready to donate my kidney to my daughter after we complete the medical tests, but the closure of the crossing prevents us from traveling to carry out the transplant. We are not asking for anything except that the road be opened to save what remains of our lives.”

 

Israel’s reopening of the Rafah crossing on Sunday was limited, with 200 patients still waiting to be  allowed to leave the devastated Gaza Strip for treatment abroad. Sources say that a more permanent reopening will take place on Monday.

 

Dr. Ghazi Al-Yazji, head of the nephrology department at Al-Shifa Medical Complex, said that the continued closure of the crossings has a “deadly” impact on patients.

 

He explained to QNA that there are patients suffering from autoimmune diseases that require diagnostic kidney biopsies, which are unavailable in Gaza, leading to the deterioration of their conditions and their progression to complete kidney failure.

 

Al-Yazji said that the dialysis department at Al-Shifa currently provides services to about 210 patients suffering from fifth-stage chronic kidney failure, under extremely difficult conditions.

 

He added: “The department faces a severe shortage of machines and medical supplies, which sometimes forces us to resort to blood transfusions to compensate for the lack of medications—an intervention that has serious complications and may hinder or prevent future transplant operations for patients awaiting travel.”

 

 

 

 

In a shocking statement, Dr. Mohammed Abu Salmiya, the director of Al-Shifa Medical Complex told QNA that about 50% of dialysis patients in the Gaza Strip who were waiting for the crossing to open or for their medications to arrive died over two years of Israeli war and siege in Gaza.

 

70% of the pharmaceutical and medical items required for their treatment are not available in Gaza.

 

Abu Salmiya explained that Al-Shifa currently has only 34 dialysis machines serving around 750 kidney-failure patients.

 

This has placed the medical centre under enormous pressure exceeding its capacity - especially after Israel destroyed other major hospitals in Gaza, such as the Indonesian Hospital in the north of the Strip.

 

Abu Salmiya warned that placing limitations on the Rafah Crossing or closing it again would worsen the catastrophe, calling for urgent intervention to facilitate the travel of cases requiring kidney transplants or specialized care.

 

Gaza’s Ministry of Health in Gaza had previously announced the deaths of more than 1,000 patients and wounded individuals due to the prevention of travel, while around 20,000 others are still waiting urgently to leave in order to obtain life-saving treatment.   - (ANA) -

 

AB/ANA/02 February 2026 - - -