‘A death sentence for my son’: Israel plans to deport sick Palestinians back to Gaza, patients and doctors say
By Abeer Salman and Zeena Saifi, CNN
Jerusalem (CNN) — Yamen Al-Najjar recalls his past life – the days when he went to school and laughed regularly. Today, the 16-year-old lives with his mother in a cramped 6-square-meter room, just large enough to hold a hospital bed he seldom leaves.
“Life is hard. I am sick and in pain all the time… I feel alone, and I miss home,” he told CNN.
Yamen, who has a bleeding disorder, was medically evacuated from Gaza City with his mother to a Palestinian hospital in occupied East Jerusalem just two days before the October 7 attack in 2023.
His condition is rare, according to his mother, Haifa Al-Najjar, and his doctors, who have struggled to manage his symptoms and been unable to get him the treatment he needs, even in East Jerusalem.
Al-Najjar has been working to get her son medically evacuated to a third country for the last two years. She managed to get World Health Organization (WHO) approval for a medical transfer but has been looking for 14 months for a host country to accept her son for treatment.
On Tuesday morning, she got news that she said made her heart stop. Doctors at Makassed Hospital told her that Israeli authorities have decided to send all Gazan patients back home next week, even those who are currently undergoing treatment.
“All my hard work will vanish before my eyes. I can’t comprehend how a sick child is going to be sent back to a disaster-stricken area… This is a death sentence for my son,” she told CNN.
Yamen and his mother are among at least 89 Gazan patients and their companions due for deportation, according to medical teams at Makassed Hospital and Augusta Victoria Hospital in East Jerusalem. They told CNN that while some patients have agreed to return to Gaza, the majority are being sent against their will as there is no treatment for them in the battered enclave. The WHO said last month that 94% of hospitals there have been damaged or destroyed.
The youngest of those being deported are babies born to women who were brought to Jerusalem for treatment, while the oldest is 85 years old, hospital authorities said. Most have been in the city since before the war.
Salwa Massad, a research manager at WHO, told CNN that the organization has been asked by the Israeli military’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) to facilitate the transfer of the patients early next week.
CNN has reached out COGAT about the potential deportation of sick Palestinians to Gaza but has yet to receive a response.
Yamen’s father, brother and two sisters are in Gaza, displaced in a tent camp in Al-Mawasi in the south after their home in Gaza City was bombed. He hasn’t seen them in two years.
His mother said Yamen’s condition is so poor, he wouldn’t be able to survive in a tent even for a few hours without medical treatment.
“His blood pressure fluctuates, his temperature is always low, he bleeds all the time, and he suffers from body aches… I categorically refuse to return to Gaza,” she said, tearful.
Israeli non-profit Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI) called the attempt to return patients to Gaza “unacceptable from moral, medical, and legal standpoints,”, pointing to Gaza’s “nonfunctional” healthcare system.
“Israel is obligated under international humanitarian law to ensure that patients in need of medical care continue to receive it in the hospitals where they are currently admitted, or in any other hospital in Israel or abroad,” Aseel Aburass, director of the Occupied Territories Department at PHRI told CNN.
Aburass stressed the importance of this obligation, saying it was Israel itself that destroyed Gaza’s health care system and so “cannot now shirk its responsibility for the lives and health of these patients.”
Ahmad Tibi, a Palestinian-Israeli member of Israel’s parliament echoed that sentiment, telling CNN that Yamen’s welfare is Israel’s responsibility.
“Sending them back under the current conditions will be a death blow; instead of dying from an airstrike, he will die from being deprived of medical treatment,” he said.
‘I will die there in two days’
Nafez Al Qahwaji, from Khan Younis in Gaza, told CNN that he has kidney failure and needs dialysis three times a week.
“The hospital informed us yesterday that we will all be deported back to Gaza, I was shocked to hear this after knowing the inhuman conditions that patients live in in Gaza,” he said at Makassed Hospital. “Why do they want to throw me to hell, I will die there in two days.”
Nael Ezzeddine, from Jabalya, has not objected to returning. He has a heart condition and has been at Makassed Hospital for 25 months. He said his home in Gaza was struck by the Israeli military and that he lost everything, but his loved ones are waiting for him.
“I miss my family. I have 10 children and my wife – they are all displaced in a tent in Deir el-Balah. I want to go and be with them. I know how they suffer, but what will I do here?” he said. “They want to force us to leave, and they are threatening to send us back all the time… I’m tired of this. I just want to go to my family, even if I end up dying.”
This is not the first time that sick patients from Gaza have faced this threat.
In March 2024, Israeli authorities were preparing to send back 22 Palestinians from East Jerusalem to Gaza, including newborns and cancer patients. Israel’s Supreme Court then temporarily halted those plans following a petition by PHRI and a CNN report on the hospital patients.
Most of Yamen’s paintings are colorful illustrations of nature, landscapes and Palestinian culture. He said his passion for art comes from his desire to “bring color back to a world that has turned gray.”
“I miss my house, my siblings’ voices, my school, colors and the sea. I miss my toys that I gathered throughout my childhood, and every moment when Gaza was safe,” he said.
“I have suffered a lot and I just want to rest… I hope every child in Gaza lives like any child in the world… I don’t want any child to get sick or be afraid like me.”
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2025 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
