They sit quietly, hands trembling — not from the cold, but from months without food or medicine. Around them, the world moves on, unaware or unwilling to notice.
Across Gaza, bodies worn thin by hunger and illness carry stories no one stops to hear — stories of pain, of waiting, of disappearing, piece by piece. These aren’t just medical conditions; they’re daily battles fought in silence, where every missing pill, every skipped meal, slowly erodes what’s left of life.
Umm Ihab sits on a plastic chair that sinks slightly into the sand beneath her. Her hands shake from the long months of hunger and illness. Her frame is thin, her breath shallow, and her voice barely rises above a whisper.
Worn down by war and illness
At 78, Umm Ihab from al-Zawayda, central Gaza, is not just old — she is fatigued by war, illness, and a life of constant waiting.
She suffers from diabetes, high blood pressure, a slipped disc, and chronic back pain. The pain shapes every part of her day. With no food to eat, she can’t take her insulin injections.
“It would kill me,” she says. “There’s nothing in my stomach.”
Without food, her blood sugar levels drop or spike dangerously. She grows dizzy, weak, and sometimes confused. Every hour she waits for something to eat brings her one hour closer to collapse.
“My body is collapsing, and so is everything around me. I’m tired in ways I can’t describe. It’s not just hunger — it’s the fear, the waiting, the silence. I feel like I’m disappearing”
High blood pressure tightens her chest and pounds in her skull. The smallest stress, a loud noise, a memory, a missed aid truck, makes her heart race. She feels trapped in her own body, held hostage by a pressure she cannot control.
And then there’s the disc in her back, slipped long ago and made worse with no medicine.
“The pain is like fire,” she says. “It shoots down my spine into my legs.” She no longer walks. Her legs don’t respond the way they used to. Her world has shrunk to the space around her chair.
“There’s nothing,” she tells The New Arab. “No food. No strength. I can’t move, I can’t sleep, I can’t think. I sit here from morning to night, just surviving. My body is collapsing, and so is everything around me. I’m tired in ways I can’t describe. It’s not just hunger — it’s the fear, the waiting, the silence. I feel like I’m disappearing.”
Ahmad is a 21-year-old university student. He sits quietly in the Nuseirat refugee camp, where he has been displaced to, before he starts to speak, but when he does, the pain in his voice flows without pause.
“I’ve had a brain tumour since 2015,” he says, “It’s almost certainly cancer. I’ve been through treatment, surgeries, and follow-up. But the damage didn’t end with removing the tumour. It left behind a list of chronic conditions that keep getting worse,” he shares with The New Arab.
Among these conditions, the most severe is the thyroid disease that Ahmad developed as a consequence of his previous treatments.
“Every thyroid patient I know is suffering now,” he explains. “Eltroxin, the hormone replacement we need, hasn’t been available in UNRWA clinics for months. I’ve looked everywhere, Al-Aqsa Hospital, local pharmacies, even the medical centres of Doctors Without Borders and the Red Crescent in Deir al-Balah. Nothing. No one has it.”
The management of chronic disease in Gaza has collapsed completely. Many types of diabetes and hypertension medications are missing, and there is no such thing as one-size-fits-all.
“I used to take Omeprazole almost constantly because of how strong the other medications are,” Ahmad explains. “Without it, my stomach can’t handle them. But now Omeprazole has disappeared too. ”
Some patients turn to Nexium, a stronger alternative, but Ahmad says that’s not always ideal. “Nexium is heavier, usually used for bone or nerve patients. I took it for years, but it’s not easy on the body. Omeprazole is more suitable for most people — but we don’t have the luxury of choice anymore.”
Hormonal medications have also disappeared, he shares. “Those are hard to get even in normal times,” Ahmad says. “They’re expensive, and usually people buy them privately. Now they’re simply unobtainable.”
He has learned about medications because he has had to. “I’ve been in and out of hospitals for years. The tumour affected the centre of my brain, and now every part of my body is struggling. Even though the tumour was removed, the complications have stayed, and they multiply with every passing year.”
Israel’s genocide cuts off urgent care
Jumana, a 20-year-old university student, shared the story of her grandmother’s struggle with diabetes.
“My grandmother has been diabetic since she was 40,” Jumana says. “She’s 66 now. She used to be very careful — insulin shots on time, kept in the fridge, followed everything her doctors told her.”
Everything changed when Israel’s genocide in Gaza began.
“When the bombing started, we lost electricity. No power meant no refrigeration, and that meant no more insulin injections. She switched to pills, but they weren’t sufficient. Her sugar levels increased. She got weaker. She couldn’t follow her doctor’s advice — not because she didn’t want to, but because the war made it impossible.”
When her grandmother noticed a small wound on her foot, she didn’t think much of it at first. Two days later, it had turned blue. She rushed to the nearest medical point, where doctors told her it was advanced gangrene. They had to amputate her toe immediately.
“After the amputation, things got worse,” Jumana explains. “The hospitals were overwhelmed with so many injuries and deaths that no one had time to monitor her wound properly, so the infection spread with the gangrene climbing up her leg.”
Despite every effort, the doctors couldn’t stop the gangrene. “They tried multiple treatments, but the decay kept advancing. Eventually, they had no choice. They amputated her leg, just below the knee.”
Now Jumana’s grandmother is confined to a bed. “She can’t walk. She needs help with everything. We did find a medication that worked for her, but even that is now out of stock. We’re watching her suffer again — this time, not from disease, but from the absence of a system that cares.”
Lack of medication
Forty-three-year-old Hadeel lives with serotonin deficiency syndrome, a rare neurological-psychological disorder that affects mood, energy, and mental stability.
“The lack of medication dominates my thoughts. It’s a terrifying idea,” she says quietly. “My medicine is no longer available in hospitals or pharmacies. I’ve been holding on to a small supply I managed to bring from Egypt during the first year of the war. But now, it’s nearly gone.”
In a desperate attempt to extend her remaining medication, Hadeel tried an alternative treatment. It backfired. “I suffered strange symptoms: I couldn’t breathe, my body swelled, my heart pounded nonstop, and I felt dizzy and blind,” she recalls. “It was clear the new medicine wasn’t suitable for me.”
During one of the temporary truces, she visited Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, where doctors tried switching her to a different medication..
“It worked,” she says, “but they could only secure enough for two months.”
Since then, she’s been living with constant uncertainty. “If I don’t have my medicine, I become physically and mentally unstable. This condition affects everything — my sleep, my energy, my relationships. I’m always threatened with imbalance.”
Siblings Ahmad and Hanan both suffer from hypothyroidism, a chronic condition that slows their metabolism, drains their energy, and affects their mental state. But the physical symptoms are only part of the struggle.
“The disease makes us irritable and emotionally volatile,” Hanan explains.
“There are days we sleep too much, and still feel tired. It’s not laziness — it’s chemical. Our bodies aren’t producing what they need.”
The bigger problem now is the war. The medicine they need, Eltroxin, is unavailable across Gaza. “Without proper treatment, our condition worsens fast,” Ahmad says.
“We feel anxious, exhausted, and scared of what’s next. The lack of food, electricity, and clean water only makes it worse.”
For patients like them, it’s not just about surviving airstrikes. It’s about surviving inside their own bodies.
As Ahmad says, “Our thyroids don’t work, neither does the system.”
Taqwa Ahmed Al-Wawi is a 19-year-old writer and poet from Gaza. She is currently a second-year English Literature student at the Islamic University of Gaza. As an emerging literary voice, she is dedicated to amplifying Gaza’s stories through her writing
Follow her on Instagram: @taqwa2006ahmed
