stuck

More than two years ago, Gaza resident Hanin Muhammad accompanied by her 39-year-old sister Sabreen, a kidney transplant recipient, was flown to the Iraqi capital Baghdad for medical treatment. But Muhammad has since been confined to the Private Nursing Home Hospital inside Baghdad’s Medical City complex, thousands of miles away from her home in Gaza, as her travel documents have been confiscated by Iraqi authorities.

“My six children are in Gaza, and I am entering my third year without seeing them,” 40-year-old Muhammad told Al Jazeera.

Her family home in Rafah was destroyed by Israeli forces, forcing her children to be displaced into makeshift tents located between Rafah and Khan Younis.

“I check on them through other people because they lack internet connection. I am begging anyone to intervene so we can get back to Egypt, register, and see our children,” she said. Currently, Palestinians can go in and out of Gaza only using the Rafah crossing, which opens into Egypt.

Muhammad, who travelled to Iraq as a medical companion to her sister, is part of a forgotten cohort of 46 Palestinians evacuated to Iraq, comprising 21 patients and 25 family escorts.

According to health authorities tracking the group, the clinical breakdown of the patients highlights the severity of their conditions, which include five oncology patients, four suffering from blood disorders, one cardiac patient, one kidney disease patient, and 10 patients wounded in the ongoing genocidal war that has killed nearly 73,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 172,000.

The group was flown to Baghdad in March 2024 on a military aircraft in coordination with the Iraqi and Egyptian governments, with a symbolic presence from the Palestinian Embassy in Cairo.

These rare evacuations highlight a much broader medical crisis back home. According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, more than 20,000 patients and wounded people are currently waiting to travel abroad for medical treatment.

Zaher al-Waheidi, head of the ministry’s Information Unit, reported that 1,200 children in Gaza now suffer from spinal cord injuries and paralysis directly resulting from Israeli attacks, while some 4,000 children require urgent treatment abroad.

Despite the overwhelming need, official data provided by al-Waheidi shows that only 154 children have been allowed to leave Gaza since the Rafah crossing, the enclave’s only gateway to the outside world, partially reopened in February amid heavy Israeli restrictions.

The crisis is equally dire for newborns: in 2025, more than 4,000 women had premature deliveries, and at least 4,800 babies were born with low birth weights – double the pre-war figure. Last year alone, 457 infants died in their first week of life.

For the handful who made it out, like the group in Iraq, the promised sanctuary quickly devolved into a cage defined by confiscated documents, restricted movements, and systemic neglect.

Confiscated documents and suspended lives

Upon their arrival from Egypt’s Heliopolis Hospital, the promised short-term recovery windows evaporated. Evacuees state that their primary identification and travel documents were immediately seized.

“When we left Egypt for Iraq, the Iraqi authorities took our identification papers from the Egyptians, and we haven’t seen them since,” Muhammad told Al Jazeera.

“When we asked for them, they told us they were held by Iraqi Intelligence and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We demand them back, but no one answers us.”

The Palestinian Embassy in Baghdad issued new passports for those lacking them, but according to Muhammad, these documents remain unstamped by the Iraqi government and are functionally useless. She noted that without the official stamps, they cannot travel anywhere.

This administrative vacuum has completely frozen the lives of the companions. Noor Ibrahim, a pseudonym for a young woman who arrived as an escort for her cancer-stricken aunt, is stranded along with four of her aunt’s children.

“I have been engaged for four years, and my fiancé and family are in Gaza,” Ibrahim told Al Jazeera. “We left on the promise that it would be a temporary six-month treatment trip, but now, two years have passed.”

She expressed deep frustration as she is stuck inside the medical complex, emphasising that she just wants to return to Egypt, from where she can travel to Gaza to complete her marriage and start her life.

The stress of the confinement has also severely exacerbated underlying health conditions. Ibrahim noted that while her aunt received the necessary cancer treatment, she has developed various other undisclosed health complications in Iraq, and her psychological state is exhausted from leaving her husband and family behind in war-ravaged Gaza.

Retaliation and dire conditions

For the Palestinians living inside Baghdad’s Medical City complex, daily life has become a grind of material deprivation and psychological distress. The evacuees are completely cut off from any monetary stipends, leaving them entirely dependent on the hospital for basic shelter and local citizens for additional charity.

Samah Abdul Moati, 65, who battles leukaemia, liver cancer, and an arm injury, is accompanied by her injured 43-year-old son and her daughter-in-law. She painted a grim picture of their daily life.

“The hospital brings food every day, but no one can eat it because it is unfit for consumption,” Abdul Moati told Al Jazeera. “We are surviving on the grace of local well-wishers who don’t fail us. But we don’t care about the treatment any more – we just want to return to our children.”

Abdul Moati’s situation is compounded by unfathomable grief: two of her sons were killed in the war, two others have platinum implants from injuries, her husband is fighting cancer in a Gaza intensive care unit with no one to care for him, and her daughters and orphaned grandchildren are living in tents for displaced people.

“The hardest feeling is that I am trapped between the hospital walls while my heart is outside with my family and my people,” Abdul Moati said. “My husband is in the intensive care unit alone, and my children and grandchildren are in tents under the cold and fear.”

Compounding their alienation, evacuees who have tried to protest or publicise their predicament faced swift administrative blowback. When they demanded their right to travel five months ago and spoke to the media, hospital management retaliated by locking down the ward and banning them from even visiting the hospital garden.

Muhammad revealed that they were only allowed out after journalists wrote about their situation, adding that officials continuously throw them from one department to another without providing any straightforward answers.

Bureaucratic runaround

The spokesperson for the Iraqi Ministry of Health, Saif Albadr, did not answer repeated calls from Al Jazeera.

While the head of public relations at the Health Ministry, Ruba Falah Hassan, told Al Jazeera that the case is “political.”

“Frankly, this is a political issue, not health-related.. I’m not authorised to talk about it,” she stated.

The newly appointed Iraqi government spokesperson, Haidar Al-Aboudi, told Al Jazeera that he “will look into the matter”.

For the Palestinians stranded in the Medical City, they maintain that they lack the financial means to buy commercial airline tickets even if their papers are returned, meaning they desperately need a coordinated effort by a charity or government body to facilitate their travel back to Egypt.

“I am not asking for a luxury or an exception,” Abdul Moati pleaded in her final remarks.

“I am asking for a simple human right: that my family does not remain divided between life and death. Open a safe path, facilitate our family reunification, and let me return to my family before it is too late.”

Firefighters worked to free riders stranded 30.4 metres in the air after a rollercoaster malfunctioned and their car became stuck at Pleasure Pier amusement park in Galveston, Texas. No injuries were immediately reported.

Shocking images caught the hours long queues bank holiday travellers faced in Dover and Folkestone on the hottest days of the year so far

Bank holiday travellers have been plunged into chaos as some drivers were forced to wait nearly five hours for ferries at Dover.

Brits looking to escape the UK for the long weekend and hot weather were dealt with a massive blow as thousands of cars were kept waiting in sweltering temperatures. Shocking images showed massive queues at the Port of Dover as people tried to catch ferries over to mainland Europe.

The port issued a warning to travellers and the new EU border checks were suspended to help ease the massive congestion on one of the hottest days of the year so far.

Motorists heading to the Eurotunnel for the LeShuttle railway reported delays of an hour or more to check-in in Folkestone.

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Motorists, on Saturday morning, faced delays of up to two hours to reach the port then a wait of up to two and a half hours to complete immigration and processing before getting on their ferries.

The news entry/exit system (EES) involves people from third-party countries, like the UK, having their fingerprints registered and photograph taken to enter the Schengen Area.

The port, in a statement to holidaymakers amid the travel chaos, warned this bank holiday was the first major period it has faced with the new EES system in place.

It said: “We recognise that the border process is slower with the current EES system, and this May Half Term is the first peak period since its introduction.

“French border teams are doing their best within the parameters given and are working with the highest available resources. We are continuing to work hard with them and our other partners to reduce wait times and get you on your way as quickly as possible. It is extremely important to stick to main routes on your journey to the Port, as not doing so causes extra delays and access issues for our local community.”

‘Are you caught up in the Dover queues? Contact us at webnews@trinitymirror.com

In a desperate bid to ease congestion, the French authorities suspended extra EU border checks under the EES, the port announced. It also said anyone who has missed their ferry crossing because of queues can travel on the next available slot free of charge.

Holidaymakers also faced hours long waits at Dover on Friday, but the congestion has appeared to ease on Saturday afternoon. In an update around 1.15pm on Saturday, the port said the processing time for tourist traffic had dropped to 50 minutes.

Despite this, the port said there were “still queues in the check-in plaza for tourist traffic and approach lanes for all ferry operators”. More than 8,000 travellers are expected at the port on Saturday.

The travel nightmare comes on a long weekend where multiple temperature records could be broken – with parts of the UK possibly hotter than the Seychelles on Saturday. Records could be broken for the the hottest May day in the UK and England, currently 32.8C; the hottest May day in Wales, currently 30.6C ; as well as the UK and England’s hottest bank holiday, which sits for now at 33.3C, according to the Met Office.

Highs of 30C are likely to be seen in the south of England on Saturday after the UK saw the hottest day of the year so far when temperatures hit 28.4C in Heathrow, Cambridge and Cranwell in Lincolnshire on Friday afternoon. This would be hotter than the temperatures forecast for popular holiday spots like Split in Croatia and even Victoria in the Seychelles.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) issued amber heat health alerts on Friday morning for the East Midlands, West Midlands, the east of England, London and the South East. They will remain in place until 5pm on Wednesday and replace less severe yellow alerts which were previously issued.

The alerts mean there is likely to be “a rise in deaths, particularly among those aged 65 and over or with health conditions” and increased demand on all health and social care services, according to the UKHSA website. Yellow alerts have been issued for the north-east and north-west of England, Yorkshire and Humber, and the South West.