A 20-year-old Palestinian woman from the Gaza Strip who died shortly after being evacuated to Italy for medical treatment had cancer, Israel said on Sunday, after the woman was widely reported to have arrived at the hospital in a “state of severe physical deterioration.”
The cancer diagnosis had been omitted from reports of her death.
COGAT, the Defense Ministry body that coordinates humanitarian matters in the Gaza Strip, took to X with a copy of a document issued by Nasser Hospital, in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis, in which it was stated that Marah Abu Zuhri suffered from leukemia.
The medical report stated that Abu Zuhri required “urgent” medical treatment “as soon as possible.”
“Italian authorities contacted Israel requesting Marah’s evacuation due to her illness, and Israel approved it,” said COGAT.
Abu Zuhri had been admitted to the University Hospital of Pisa late Wednesday and died on Friday.
The hospital described her as arriving in a “state of severe physical deterioration,” and as having a “very complex clinical picture” and serious wasting, which is when a person has significant weight and muscle loss.
Italian media reports — cited by publications including the BBC, the Guardian, and AFP — subsequently asserted that she was suffering from severe malnutrition, despite the hospital not saying as much.
On Friday, after undergoing tests and starting treatment, she died after a sudden respiratory crisis and cardiac arrest, the hospital said.
The woman was flown to Italy with her mother on one of three Italian air force flights that arrived this week in Rome, Milan, and Pisa, carrying a total of 31 patients and their companions.
All the patients suffered from serious congenital diseases, wounds, or amputations, the Italian foreign ministry said at the time.
So far throughout the war, more than 180 children and young people from Gaza have been brought to Italy.
The head of the Tuscany region, Eugenio Giani, offered his condolences to the woman’s family.
COGAT asserted that Abu Zuhri’s evacuation to Italy “could have taken place earlier, as Israel had proposed several possible dates for the transfer,” but did not elaborate on why it ended up taking so long.
“Israel facilitates the medical transfer, with a focus on children, and encourages countries around the world to make such requests, while Hamas keeps cynically exploiting them for its twisted agenda,” COGAT added.
Images and reports of starving Gazans drew international outrage last month and heaped pressure on Israel until, on July 27, it announced measures to allow more aid into the Gaza Strip.
Jerusalem has nevertheless strongly denied allegations of widespread starvation in the Gaza Strip, arguing that many of those who died while malnourished were suffering from preexisting illnesses and therefore do not represent the circumstances of the general population of the war-torn territory.
Famine experts have said that this is typical in the early stages of a hunger crisis.
The war in Gaza began on October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists invaded southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, of whom 49 are still held, among whom 20 are believed to be alive. Hamas is also holding the body of an IDF soldier killed in Gaza in 2014.
Times of Israel staff and agencies contributed to this report.