Far from the bombed-out hospitals of Gaza, thousands of Palestinians now live in a state of forced exile, caught between the agony of displacement and the fading hope of return. Their stories are not temporary interruptions to life, but suspended realities shaped by war, siege, and indifference.

Lamis Saleh, 63, has been living in a Cairo suburb for over a year, after accompanying her sister for cancer treatment. What began as a medical visit has turned into a cruel limbo. “We left Gaza in search of medicine,” she said, “but we found ourselves stuck in a place where we have no say in returning, and no ability to keep going.” With savings exhausted and Gaza in ruins, families like Lamis’s are left to endure isolation, uncertainty, and quiet despair.

The ordeal of Riyad Hamdan, 47, follows a similar path. His son’s rare liver disease forced them to leave Gaza for Egypt, but aid only covered part of the costs. “I feel like I spend more time at exchange shops than at my son’s bedside,” he confessed. Like many others, he is lost in a landscape of corridors, checkpoints, and clinics, haunted by the impossibility of home.

These stories are echoed in every corner of exile. From Cairo to Amman to Istanbul, Palestinians who fled for medical reasons now face new battles: expired permits, closed borders, and the indifference of systems that see them as numbers, not lives. Meanwhile, inside Gaza, patients trapped by siege die each day waiting for care that will never come.

According to the World Health Organization, more than 12,000 patients in Gaza urgently require treatment abroad, including over 4,500 children. But travel permits are rare, especially for young men, and thousands remain stranded. Since the war began, only 7,200 have been allowed out; meanwhile, 5 to 10 patients die each day from treatable conditions.

Inside Gaza, six of seven dialysis centres have ceased functioning, more than 400 kidney patients have died, and chemotherapy is no longer available. Hospitals are in ruins, and the healthcare system has all but collapsed. For Palestinians both inside and outside Gaza, life has been reduced to waiting, for permission, for medicine, for justice. And for too many, that wait ends in silence.