GAZA STRIP: Siraj Yassin, 10, is rolled into the overcrowded Gaza hospital ward in his wheelchair, his light green T-shirt dwarfing his skinny frame since the leukemia in his blood wrecked his immune system, sapped his strength and left him unable to walk.

Chemotherapy would help him, his doctors say. But he can’t get it here in Gaza, and he can’t get out of the enclave for treatment now that Israeli forces have shut the only exit through the Rafah crossing into Egypt.

“Two weeks ago, I stopped being able to walk. Every day my condition gets worse and I lose something,” the boy said. “My bones hurt and everything hurts. I wish to leave Gaza so I can receive the treatment and be able to play like I used to.”

Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital is one of the only hospitals still functioning in Gaza, where most of the medical system has been destroyed by Israel’s eight-month-old assault. Residents flock here for basic medical treatment, in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, the last city that Israeli forces have yet to storm.

But doctors say they are helpless to treat seriously ill patients like Siraj, and can no longer send them out of the enclave for treatment since Israel launched its offensive on Rafah last month, shutting the only pedestrian crossing.

All they can give Siraj in Gaza is drugs for the pain. “Siraj’s case is one of hundreds of cases, whether cancer or meningitis cases, or chronic and acute cases. We have a lot of children who are in need of receiving treatment abroad,” said his doctor, Ziad Abu Fares.

Reuters