For months, 70-year-old Bassam Musleh searched pharmacies and clinics across the occupied West Bank for the heart and blood pressure medication that keeps him alive.
Public facilities had no supplies, private pharmacies were too expensive, and the retired man, who lives with a pacemaker, feared his condition would worsen. Relief finally came this week when a mobile clinic in the village of Iktaba handed him the medicine he had been unable to find for six months.
Musleh's struggle reflects a broader healthcare crisis unfolding across the West Bank, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are facing worsening shortages of medicines, medical staff and essential services.
A report released Thursday by Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI) warned that Israeli policies have pushed the territory's healthcare system to the brink of collapse, leaving vulnerable patients increasingly dependent on humanitarian organizations.
The report says the crisis has deepened since the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza began nearly three years ago. Israel has withheld billions of dollars in tax and customs revenues it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority (PA), depriving the Palestinian government of a major source of funding used to pay healthcare workers, purchase medicines and operate hospitals, clinics and pharmacies.
