Some of the medications that Najat AbuAlShaikh needs to take. Photo: Shahed AbuAlShaikh

For years, I imagined that our biggest family problems would be something like my brother coming home late and my father getting angry at him. It was a simple life until a few brief words from a doctor turned everything upside down: My mother had cancer.

Before the war began in October 2023, we were a normal family living in Gaza City, with three grown children beginning to enter the workplace and three young ones. For our mother especially, life had become a bit easier, and we were all anticipating a bright future.

Everything changed with the onset of war, and our former lives now seem like a dream that suddenly ended. We were forced to flee our home and live in a tent in South Gaza. We endured months of hunger, lost all sense of comfort and safety, and fear became a constant companion, like an unwelcome guest in our tent.

For a year and a half, we endured extreme heat and bitter cold, along with a complete lack of privacy and poor hygiene. In September 2025, my mother began suffering from severe breast pain, along with discharge and a noticeable lump in the area. This alarmed her, but she blamed it on the war, exhaustion, lack of hygiene, and fear. She chose to ignore the pain and continued taking simple painkillers.

After the ceasefire was announced in October 2025, we quickly returned to our home in northern Gaza to begin urgent medical examinations for my mother. Upon arrival, my mother and I went to Al-Sahaba Clinic in Gaza for imaging. During the five days it took to receive the results, we discussed the possibility that she might have a fatty cyst or something minor. At no point did we imagine it could be something serious.

All our relatives were gathered, waiting for the results, when my father arrived with the report that changed our lives and cast darkness over my mother’s world: She had a malignant tumor in the left breast, stage two, with spread to the axillary lymph nodes. That diagnosis made me feel as though I had lost my beautiful mother, the one who had always loved life.

She could not comprehend the news; she screamed and cried, and we all cried with her, trying to comfort her. But it was cancer; what comfort could there be? And her case wasn’t rare. An article published by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in October 2025 reported that among 12,500 cancer patients in the Gaza Strip, 52 percent are women, and 18.6 percent of those patients have breast cancer (this comes out to about 1,209 women with breast cancer). And now my mother is one of them.

My father tried to stay strong, but his tears revealed his defeat. He kept repeating, “Everything will be OK, Najat. You will be fine.” My little sister didn’t understand, but she cried from the intensity of what was happening. And my brothers clung to my mother, hugging her tightly and patting her back, trying to hold themselves together.

After accepting the shock, my mother began taking real steps toward treatment. Many tests were required, and due to the limited availability of government medical centers, obtaining them would have taken months. To speed up the treatment process, we decided to carry out all the tests in private centers at our own expense. They included an ultrasound image, a CT scan, a biopsy from the mass to determine its size, and a hormonal analysis test. Some of these tests were available in central Gaza only.

My mother started researching the disease and reading about people’s experiences online because she believed that a beautiful life was still waiting for her and that she needed to recover, for herself as well as for her children. 

After a long week of going back and forth to complete the required tests, my mother began two weeks of agonized waiting for her name to be approved to start chemotherapy sessions at Al-Hilo Hospital in Gaza City. (Financial coverage for the chemotherapy sessions comes from the health department in Ramallah, so patients in Gaza register for treatment and wait for approval to begin treatment.)

When her time came on January 26, doctors conducted numerous tests on her blood, kidney function, immune function and iron levels, right before starting, to ensure that her body could handle the treatment. My mother said, “When I entered the oncology department, I felt a tightness in my chest and an urge to run away, as if I were entering a prison despite being innocent of any crime.”

The doctor began each session by inserting a cannula into a vein, through which the body received the chilled chemotherapy solution. Each infusion took about two to two-and-a-half hours to complete, during which my mother would talk to the other women in the ward and listen to their stories and experiences. One patient with stage two cancer told her, “After my first chemotherapy session, all my hair fell out — my eyebrows too — and I truly looked like a cancer patient. A part of me still cannot believe it.”

After the first session, my mother changed drastically — similar to the other patient she’d met. We barely recognized her. She became frail, distant, and quiet all the time. Her hair fell out completely, bruises appeared on her body due to reactions to the treatment, and most important, her bones no longer felt strong. She was restricted from many foods such as flour, sugar, rice and oils and began relying mainly on fruits and vegetables. She never felt full, mainly because we could only afford to buy limited quantities.

Najat AbuAlShaikh’s chemotherapy cannula at Al-Hilo Hospital. Photo: Najat Abualshaikh

She had three immunotherapy injections after each session, leaving her unable to move or perform even the simplest tasks due to physical exhaustion. She began to hate mirrors and refused to sit without covering her head. She told me, “Shahed, all my life I’ve been afraid of needles, and I always avoided going to the doctor. And now I need so many injections. They are going to cut out a part of me, Shahed.”

I am the eldest daughter in our home, and my mother has always been the hero of my life, the one I leaned on for everything. Now, every day I try to become her strength. I try to carry what she once carried so effortlessly. My heart is breaking with every passing moment. I have stepped into responsibilities I wasn’t ready for: taking care of the house and my siblings while trying to hold myself together enough to be there for her. I fight to make sure my mother never feels alone, even when I am falling apart inside.

In the 21-day interval between each session, she battles fatigue and illness, and just as she begins to regain a bit of strength, the next session arrives, leaving no room for relief.

My mother completed four chemotherapy sessions on April 2, and now she must undergo further tests to determine how the cancer has responded to chemotherapy, followed by a decision regarding a full mastectomy and a medical referral to continue radiotherapy outside the Gaza Strip.

Radiotherapy is not available in Gaza and is a critical step that must not be delayed. Yet we know from a report published by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in May 2025 that only about 9 percent (1,100 out of 12,500) of cancer patients have been able to leave the Gaza Strip for treatment. This worries her a lot.

My father’s burdens grew heavier, and his hair turned gray. My mother was never just a wife or mother; she was the very essence of our lives.

My younger siblings cannot get the weight of what is happening, nor do they understand what “cancer” truly means. They look at her with innocent confusion, always asking, “Mom, why don’t you have hair?” My older siblings have chosen to turn the house into nothing more than a place to sleep, just to avoid revealing their pain and breaking down in front of her.

My mother has a medical referral for treatment abroad, but she waits in dark uncertainty; No one can tell us when the Rafah border crossing into Egypt will open. The delay worries and saddens her.

My mother is not alone; many other women urgently need their referrals to be processed before cancer spreads to stages that can no longer be treated. All of them are still waiting for the treatment that could save their lives. And their worried families wait with them.

This article is co-published with Washington Report on Middle East Affairs in a slightly revised format.