GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — A sick child in the Gaza Strip died on Sunday after Palestinian infighting and a blockade on the territory prevented his parents from seeking medical treatment abroad for their 10-year-old cancer-stricken son.
Ribhi Jindiyeh is just one child, but his story highlights the price some ordinary Gazans have paid for the conflict between Palestinian rivals, the militant Muslim Hamas and the more secular Fatah.
As bickering has continued, a medical committee halted work, trapping hundreds of Palestinian patients unable to seek lifesaving treatment for cancer and other diseases beyond Gaza’s borders.
The World Health Organization has said eight such patients died by the end of April.
The ninth victim was 10-year-old Ribhi Jindiyeh, a lymphoma patient who spent his last days in a Gaza City hospital, skinny, jaundiced and too weak to move. He underwent chemotherapy last year in an Israeli hospital, and when he returned home in January, he seemed better.
When he relapsed in March, Hassan Jindiyeh applied for his son to be treated at the Augusta Victoria Palestinian hospital in east Jerusalem, but a date for treatment was slow in coming.
A hospital staffer said the request was only seen in mid-May. By that time, a hospital specialist decided the boy should be sent to a more specialized Israeli hospital.
By then, it was too late.
by the associated press
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