West Bank hospitals run short of drugs as Israel withholds Palestinian Authority funds

Beit Jala Government Hospital is the only public option for cancer and dialysis care in the southern West Bank, and the only government hospital for some 320,000 people in Bethlehem governorate.

Israel is withholding tax revenues earmarked for the Palestinian Authority, a step led by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. Health staff get half their salaries, and the hospital now covers emergency cases only.

“There's not one single complete protocol I've got.”

— Khaldoun Atwan, oncology unit head, Beit Jala

Closed checkpoints add to the strain: one dialysis patient waited four to five hours, then took a detour costing more than 100 shekels instead of about 10.

Background

Israel is not blocking medicines from entering the West Bank, according to Physicians for Human Rights Israel; the problem is that the Palestinian Authority has no money to buy them.