Gaza Patients Stranded in Iraq After Documents Seized

More than two years ago, Hanin Muhammad, a Gaza resident, and her sister Sabreen, a kidney transplant recipient, were brought to Baghdad, Iraq, for medical care. Since then, Muhammad has been detained at the Private Nursing Home Hospital in the Medical City complex in Baghdad, thousands of kilometers from Gaza, after Iraqi authorities seized their identification documents.

“My six children are in Gaza, and I’m about to enter my third year without seeing them,” Muhammad, 40, told Al Jazeera. Her family’s home in Rafah was destroyed by Israeli forces, forcing the children to live in tents between Rafah and Khan Younis. “I have to ask others to check on them because I have no internet. I beg someone to intervene so we can return to Egypt, register, and see my children,” she said. Currently, Palestinians can only enter and exit Gaza via the Rafah crossing, which opens into Egypt.

Muhammad, who accompanied her sister as a medical caregiver, is one of 46 Palestinians evacuated to Iraq, including 21 patients and 25 family members. According to health authorities monitoring the group, medical conditions include five cancer patients, four people with blood disorders, one heart disease patient, one kidney patient, and ten people wounded in the war that has killed nearly 73,000 Palestinians and injured over 172,000.

The group was brought to Baghdad in March 2024 on a military aircraft, coordinated between the Iraqi and Egyptian governments, with symbolic presence from the Palestinian Embassy in Cairo. These rare evacuations reflect the broader medical crisis in Gaza. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, over 20,000 patients and wounded people are awaiting transfer abroad for treatment. Zaher al-Waheidi, head of the ministry’s information unit, said 1,200 children in Gaza have spinal cord injuries and paralysis from Israeli attacks, while about 4,000 children need urgent treatment abroad. Despite the demand, official data shows only 154 children have been allowed to leave Gaza since the Rafah crossing partially reopened in February, with heavy restrictions imposed by Israel.

The situation is also dire for newborns: in 2025, more than 4,000 women gave birth prematurely, and at least 4,800 infants were born with low birth weight — double the pre-war figure. Last year alone, 457 newborns died in their first week of life.

For those fortunate enough to leave, like the group in Iraq, the promised haven quickly turned into a cage with confiscated documents, restricted movement, and systematic abandonment.

Upon arrival from Heliopolis Hospital in Egypt, the promise of a short recovery period evaporated. Evacuees said their primary identification documents were immediately confiscated. “When we left Egypt for Iraq, Iraqi authorities took the documents from the Egyptians, and we haven’t seen them since,” Muhammad said. “When we ask, they say the documents are held by Iraqi intelligence and the Foreign Ministry. We demand them back, but no one answers.” The Palestinian Embassy in Baghdad issued new passports to those missing them, but according to Muhammad, the documents lack Iraqi government stamps, rendering them useless. She said without official stamps, they cannot go anywhere.

This administrative vacuum has frozen the lives of caregivers. Noor Ibrahim (a pseudonym), a young woman who came to care for her aunt with cancer, is trapped with her aunt’s four children. “I’ve been engaged for four years, and my fiancé and family are in Gaza,” Ibrahim said. “We left with the promise that it was a temporary six-month treatment trip, but two years have passed.” She expressed deep frustration at being locked inside the medical complex, wanting only to return to Egypt to marry and start her life. The pressure of captivity has also worsened underlying health conditions. Ibrahim said that while her aunt receives needed cancer treatment, she has developed other health complications and is mentally exhausted from being separated from her husband and children in war-torn Gaza.

For the Palestinians living in Medical City, daily life is marked by material deprivation and psychological suffering. They receive no financial support, relying on the hospital for shelter and local residents for food. Samah Abdul Moati, 65, who suffers from leukemia, liver cancer, and a hand injury, came with her wounded 43-year-old son and daughter-in-law, painting a grim picture: “The hospital brings food every day, but no one can eat it because it’s not guaranteed. We live off the charity of locals. But we no longer care about treatment — we just want to go home to our children.” Abdul Moati’s situation is even more tragic: two of her sons were killed in the war, two others have metal implants from injuries, her husband is fighting cancer in an intensive care unit in Gaza with no one to care for him, and her daughters and grandchildren live as displaced in tents. “The hardest feeling is being stuck between hospital walls while my heart is with my family and people,” she said. “My husband is alone in the ICU, my children and grandchildren are in tents in the cold and fear.”

When they demanded the right to move five months ago and spoke to the media, hospital management locked their rooms and banned them from the hospital garden. Muhammad revealed they were only allowed outside after journalists covered their situation, and officials continuously shunted them between departments without straight answers.

Iraqi Health Ministry spokesman Saif Albadr did not return Al Jazeera’s calls. Ruba Falah Hassan, head of public relations at the Health Ministry, said the case is “political, not medical. I have no authority to speak about it.” Newly appointed Iraqi government spokesman Haidar Al-Aboudi said he “will look into the matter.”

For the trapped Palestinians at Medical City, even if their documents are returned, they lack the money to buy commercial airline tickets and need coordination with a charity or government agency to help them return to Egypt. “I ask for no luxury or exception,” Abdul Moati said. “I ask for a simple human right: that my family not be torn apart between life and death. Open a safe path, facilitate family reunification, and let me return to my family before it’s too late.”