US lawmakers press Israel to let cancer patients out of Gaza for treatment
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- Sixty-two members of Congress — 51 House members and 11 Senators — signed a letter Thursday to Secretary of State Marco Rubio demanding Israel lift restrictions on Palestinian cancer patients seeking treatment in West Bank and East Jerusalem hospitals.
- Senator Bernie Sanders was among the signers, joined by Senator Chris Van Hollen and Representatives Madeleine Dean and Greg Casar, with the human rights group DAWN helping craft the letter.
- The letter calls for a medical corridor from Gaza to other parts of the Palestinian territory and seeks Israeli guarantees that patients and caretakers can return to Gaza after treatment.
- The WHO estimates 94% of Gaza's hospitals were destroyed or damaged during the war, and Israeli forces destroyed the territory's only specialized cancer facility — the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital — in March 2025.
- The UN reports at least 1,200 people have died in Gaza while waiting for evacuation approvals, including a six-year-old leukemia patient named Ghazal.
- Augusta Victoria Hospital and the Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in Jerusalem have offered to cover all treatment costs for evacuated patients, with the letter calling evacuations the sole remaining obstacle.
Why it matters: Sixty-two lawmakers are pressing the Trump administration on a crisis where Gaza's sole specialized cancer hospital was destroyed in March 2025 and at least 1,200 patients have died awaiting evacuation. The letter's framing — that Israeli approval is the only remaining barrier to free, available treatment — puts direct pressure on US leverage to reshape medical access policy.
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