An NGO gives adult cancer patients in Lebanon a vital lifeline

Thousands of skilled Lebanese workers, notably medical professionals, have left the country and the health sector is on the brink of collapse. (AFP)
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Updated 06 November 2021
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An NGO gives adult cancer patients in Lebanon a vital lifeline

  • Cancer patients face “astronomical” costs and difficulty securing medication amid the country’s grinding financial crisis
  • Established in 2018, the Cancer Support Fund provides support to adult patients who cannot afford treatment

DUBAI: Living conditions in Lebanon have deteriorated steadily since mid-2019 when the country began experiencing severe economic and financial problems, which have since been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 Beirut port blast.

The meltdown has led to shortages of essential commodities, including fuel, and resulted in an unprecedented power crisis. Consequently, thousands of skilled Lebanese workers, notably medical professionals, have left the country and the health sector is on the brink of collapse.

Under the circumstances, Lebanon’s cancer patients are facing an uphill struggle to access even the most basic medicines and treatments, frequently having to take whatever medication is readily available regardless of the side effects.




Cancer Support Fund was launched to specifically support Lebanon’s underprivileged adult cancer patients. (AFP)

Enter the Cancer Support Fund. Established in 2018 at the American University of Beirut Medical Center, it has given many a Lebanese in dire straits a timely and vital lifeline.

Hala Dahdah Abou Jaber, CSF’s founder and president, told Arab News the NGO was launched to specifically support Lebanon’s underprivileged adult cancer patients.

Despite the many cancer-related NGOs operating in the country, Abou Jaber says the adult demographic is often underserved, as the majority of charities are targeted at children.

“There was a necessity and an urge to help adult cancer patients, and when we say an adult, it could be a young boy who is 18 or 19, a mother who is 25 or 30, a father who is 50 years old, or simply an 80-year-old woman who also deserves a chance to live,” she said.

The extreme hardship endured by Dina Itani is a case in point. The South Lebanon resident chokes back tears as she recounts how the overlapping crises buffeting her country have disrupted her cancer treatment

On top of fighting the disease, she and her family must also contend with chronic shortages of vital medication.

A sudden onset of eyesight deterioration about two years ago made Itani realize that something was wrong with her health. When an ophthalmologist could not find anything wrong with her eyes, he requested a brain scan, which detected a tumor.

She underwent surgery to remove the tumor, but a biopsy showed the lump was cancerous. Itani was told she would have to undergo further treatment to prevent the cancer from spreading. “I have melanoma cancer,” Itani told Arab News.

“It’s a type of skin cancer but in my case, it’s appearing in my internal organs. I underwent brain surgery in Beirut. For a year now I have been redoing diagnostic imaging every three months.”

Despite treatment, Itani’s cancer soon spread to the bone in her right arm, forcing her to undergo another surgery to install a metal plate. She was also put on a course of immunotherapy with a drug called Opdivo. “They gave me the injection every 15 days,” she said.

However, the medical subsidies allotted through Lebanon’s social security system were not enough to cover the cost of Opdivo.

According to Drugs.com, an independent medicine information website, the price of the intravenous solution ranges from $1,189 per 4ml to $7,087 per 24ml infusion in the US. Based on Lebanon’s current minimum wage, it would be almost impossible for the average household to cover such a cost.

“The CSF helps us a lot because we can’t bear the cost of this medication,” Itani said. “It’s very expensive, even for those who are financially comfortable.”

The CSF supports its patients by covering the financial costs of treatments, screenings and occasionally even transport.

“The funds received go directly to the AUB account and there is accountability. Everything we receive goes to help a needy patient,” Abou Jaber said.




Lebanon’s cancer patients are facing an uphill struggle to access even the most basic medicines and treatments. (AFP)

The money to cover the needs of patients primarily comes from private donors, international NGOs, pharmaceutical companies, sponsors and contributors, and fundraising events.

“The number of patients supported since the establishment of the fund is 600, with more than 2,000 hospital encounters,” Dr. Ali Taher, the CSF’s co-founder, told Arab News.

The fund has been able to support an average of 70 patient admissions daily at the infusion center for chemotherapy, but Taher added: “We have had some medication shortages both in intravenous and oral forms, and this has affected patient cycles and the number of admissions required.”

According to Taher, delays in treatment can mean the difference between curing a patient of their cancer or their condition becoming terminal.

“Pausing the screening tests as well as the related treatments can definitely jeopardize the outcome,” he said. “You can start seeing advanced tumors with poor outcomes instead of early detected tumors with curable outcomes.

“You may also experience disease progression that can become fatal to a certain extent. The severity of the impact of lack of treatment depends on the case and condition and disease evolution of each patient.”

INNUMBERS

11,589 Lebanon’s new cancer cases in 2020.

6,438 Lebanon’s cancer deaths in 2020.

(Source: WHO, GloboCan)

The CSF has supported 220 patients this year alone, but Taher expects the number to increase owing to the severity of the financial crisis.

While the world’s attention has been focused on the COVID-19 pandemic, cancer has not stopped taking its toll. According to the Global Cancer Observatory, there were 11,589 new cancer cases in Lebanon in 2020.

Pharmacies and hospitals in the country have been running short of even the most basic medications for several months. In August, protesters gathered outside the headquarters of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia in Beirut to demand global assistance.

Fuel shortages have contributed to the plight of the health sector. In August, the AUB Medical Center released a statement warning that its patients were in imminent danger due to the lack of a dependable energy supply to run its ventilators.


READ MORE 

Lebanon’s health system on life support as economic woes worsen



The steady depletion of foreign-currency reserves has made it difficult for traders to source essential commodities for a country that imports nearly 80 percent of its goods.

“The CSF today is facing two main challenges: Securing the astronomical cost of treatment and securing the impossible-to-find medications on the Lebanese market,” Abou Jaber said.

“We call on the international community to extend a helping hand to us and to our patients and to find viable solutions.”




The CSF supports its patients by covering the financial costs of treatments, screenings and occasionally even transport. (AFP)

In the meantime, cancer patients such as Itani are having to make do with whatever medication they can get their hands on.

Despite the life-saving support provided by the CSF, shortages of Opdivo forced Itani’s doctor to prescribe an alternative drug that was more readily available.

“I am experiencing strong side-effects from those pills,” Itani said of the new medicine. “It’s as if the skin on my hands and face is burnt. I felt much better when I was taking the other medication.”

To prevent her condition from growing any worse, Itani has little choice but to continue taking the medicine and to hope that she can outlast Lebanon’s seemingly incurable ills.


Israel says retrieved official Syrian archive on executed spy Eli Cohen

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Israel says retrieved official Syrian archive on executed spy Eli Cohen

  • Eli Cohen was discovered by Syrian intelligence and publically hanged in Damascus on May 18, 1965
  • Among the items recovered are a handwritten will penned by Cohen hours before his execution, audio recordings and files from his interrogations

JERUSALEM: Israel announced on Sunday that it had retrieved the official Syrian archive on famed spy Eli Cohen — a cache of 2,500 documents, photographs and personal effects linked to the Mossad agent executed in Damascus in 1965.
“In a complex covert operation by the Mossad, in cooperation with a strategic partner service, the official Syrian archive on Eli Cohen was brought to Israel,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement, referring to the country’s external intelligence agency.
“The trove contains thousands of items that had been kept under tight security by Syrian intelligence for decades,” the statement added.
Cohen, who developed close ties with high-level political and military figures in Syria as part of a four-year espionage operation, was eventually discovered by Syrian intelligence.
He was publically hanged in Damascus on May 18, 1965.
Cohen’s story was dramatized in the Netflix minizeries “The Spy,” starring the British actor Sacha Baron Cohen.
The prime minister added that retrieving the archive reflected Israel’s “unwavering commitment to bringing back all our missing, prisoners, and hostages.”
The statement was an apparent reference both to the 58 captives, dead and alive, being held by Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza, as well as the announcement last week that Israel had retrieved from Syria the body of a soldier missing for 43 years, also in a covert Mossad operation.
Sunday’s statement said that the recovery of the items came after “decades of Mossad intelligence, operational, and technological effort to find every scrap of information about Eli Cohen in the quest to shed light on his fate and discover the location of his burial.”
Over the years, multiple operations have been carried out to that end, the statement said, including “inside enemy states.”
Mossad director David Barnea said in the statement that recovering the archive was a “significant achievement,” and “another step toward locating our man in Damascus’ burial place.”
Among the items recovered are a handwritten will penned by Cohen hours before his execution, audio recordings and files from his interrogations and those of his sources, letters he wrote to family members in Israel and photographs from his clandestine mission in Syria.
Additionally, the cache included belongings taken from his home after his arrest, including forged passports and photographs of him with senior Syrian military and government officials, as well as notebooks and diaries listing Mossad tasks.
Also discovered was a file labelled “Nadia Cohen,” detailing Syrian intelligence monitoring of Cohen’s wife’s campaign to free her husband.
In a special meeting on Sunday, Netanyahu and Barnea shared the trove of items with Nadia Cohen, the statement said.


Israel army says 2 projectiles launched from Gaza after air raid sirens sound

Updated 44 min 44 sec ago
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Israel army says 2 projectiles launched from Gaza after air raid sirens sound

  • One projectile was intercepted and the other fell in an open area

JERUSALEM: The Israeli army said two projectiles were launched from the Gaza Strip on Sunday, shortly after it announced it had commenced “extensive ground operations” across the besieged Palestinian territory.
“Following the sirens that sounded in Kissufim, two projectiles were identified crossing into Israel from the central Gaza Strip,” the army said, adding one was intercepted and the other fell in an open area.


Israeli forces have demolished 600 Palestinian houses in Jenin since January offensive

Updated 18 May 2025
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Israeli forces have demolished 600 Palestinian houses in Jenin since January offensive

  • Shops, houses and infrastructure in Al-Sharqi and Al-Hadaf neighbourhoods sustain heaviest damage
  • Forces arrest a prisoner who was released during Israel-Hamas truce in November 2023

LONDON: Israeli forces have demolished nearly 600 Palestinian houses in the Jenin refugee camp, according to the town municipality, where Israel has been carrying out military operations for the past 118 days.

On Sunday, forces intensified dredging and destruction operations in the Jenin refugee camp, causing significant damage to its water and electricity infrastructure and main roads, while continuing to block access to the area.

The Jenin Municipality has documented the total destruction of 600 houses in the camp, while others were either partially damaged or have been abandoned by residents since Israel launched a major offensive in January.

The neighborhoods of Al-Sharqi and Al-Hadaf sustained the heaviest damage — to shops, houses and infrastructure — the Wafa news agency reported.

Also on Sunday, Israeli forces arrested Yasmeen Shaaban at her home in Al-Jalameh village, north of Jenin. Shaaban, who spent 21 months in prison, was released in November 2023 during the first temporary truce and captive-exchange arrangement between Israel and Hamas.

The municipality reported that 22,000 people are displaced in Jenin as Israeli forces increase enforcement in the town and its refugee camp. The military operation has caused heavy losses to businesses in Jenin, leading to many shop closures and a decrease in shopper footfall from nearby villages, with an estimated loss of $300 million.

Since Israel launched its offensive on January 21 in Jenin, at least 40 people have been killed, while hundreds have been arrested and injured.


Italian MPs protest at Egypt’s Gaza border against war

Italian and European parliament members hold placards during a protest in front of the Egyptian side of Rafah border crossing.
Updated 18 May 2025
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Italian MPs protest at Egypt’s Gaza border against war

  • The group — including 11 members of the Italian parliament, three MEPs and representatives of NGOs — held signs reading “Stop genocide now”

RAFAH: Italian parliamentarians protested on Sunday in front of Egypt’s Rafah border crossing with Gaza, calling for aid access and an end to the war in the devastated Palestinian territory.
“Europe is not doing enough, nothing to stop the massacre,” Cecilia Strada, an Italian member of the European parliament, told AFP.
The group — including 11 members of the Italian parliament, three MEPs and representatives of NGOs — held signs reading “Stop genocide now,” “End illegal occupation” and “Stop arming Israel.”
“There should be a complete embargo on weapons to and from Israel and a stop to trade with illegal settlements,” Strada said.
The protesters laid toys on the ground in solidarity with Gaza’s children, who the UN warns face “a growing risk of starvation, illness and death” more than two months into a total Israeli aid blockade.
At least 15,000 children have been killed in Gaza since the Israel-Hamas war began in October 2023, according to the United Nations.
Israel has faced mounting pressure to lift its aid blockade, as UN agencies warn of critical shortages of food, clean water, fuel and medicines.
It resumed its offensive on March 18, ending a two-month truce in its war against Hamas triggered by the Palestinian militant group’s October 2023 attack on Israel.
On Saturday Israel announced an expanded military campaign, killing dozens of people in new strikes.
“We hear the bombs right now,” Walter Massa, president of Italian non-profit organization Associazione Ricreativa Culturale Italiana, told AFP near the crossing.
“The Israeli army continues to do what it believes is right in the face of an international community that does not intervene, and in Gaza, beyond the Rafah crossing border, people continue to die,” he said.
UN chief Antonio Guterres said Saturday said he was “alarmed” at the escalation and called for “a permanent ceasefire, now.”
Italy’s government on Saturday reiterated its calls to Israel to stop attacking Gaza, with Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani saying: “Enough with the attacks.”
“We no longer want to see the Palestinian people suffer,” Tajani said.
Gaza’s health ministry said Sunday 3,193 people have been killed since Israel resumed its strikes on March 18, taking the war’s overall toll to 53,339.


Lebanon says soldier among two wounded in Israeli strike

Updated 18 May 2025
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Lebanon says soldier among two wounded in Israeli strike

BEIRUT: Lebanon said two people including a soldier were wounded in an Israeli strike Sunday in the country’s south, where the army has been deploying after a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.
“A soldier was moderately wounded due to the Israeli enemy targeting of a vehicle... at the Beit Yahun checkpoint” in Bint Jbeil district, an army statement said.
Beit Yahun is around eight kilometers (around five miles) from the border.
The health ministry said two people including a soldier were wounded in the strike, which it said was launched by an “Israeli enemy drone” and targeted a vehicle.
The Israeli army did not immediately comment on the reported strike.
Israel has continued to launch raids on its neighbor despite a November truce which sought to halt more than a year of hostilities with Hezbollah militants including two months of all-out war.
Lebanon has reported four deadly strikes this week in the south, with Israel saying it targeted Hezbollah operatives.
Under the ceasefire, the Iran-backed Hezbollah was to pull back its fighters north of Lebanon’s Litani River and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure to its south.
Israel was to withdraw all its forces from Lebanon, but it has kept troops in five areas that it deems “strategic.”
The Lebanese army has been deploying in the south as Israeli forces have withdrawn and has been dismantling Hezbollah infrastructure.
The truce was based on a United Nations Security Council resolution that says Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers should be the only forces in south Lebanon, and calls for the disarmament of all non-state groups.
Last month, President Joseph Aoun said the army was deployed in more than 85 percent of the south, and that the sole obstacle to full control across the frontier area was “Israel’s occupation of five border positions.”
Also in April, Lebanon’s military said a munitions blast in the south killed three personnel, days after an explosion killed another soldier as the force was dismantling mines in a tunnel.