GAZA, Feb. 4 (Xinhua) -- A health official in the Gaza Strip said on Monday that 120 to 130 new cancer cases are discovered in the besieged Palestinian enclave every month.
"The numbers of cancer patients in Gaza are significantly increasing compared with the previous nine years," Khaled Thabet, head of Oncology Department at al-Rantisi Cancer Center in Gaza City, told reporters.
"In 2018, around 1,800 cancer patients in total were discovered," he noted.
According to Thabet, breast and colon cancers are the most common for women and men in Gaza respectively.
"Radiation therapy is not available at all," he noted.
Thabet pointed to rapid demographic changes, the excessive use of Insecticides and the chemical remnants of Israeli wars as the three reasons behind the significant increase in the numbers of cancer patients in Gaza.
However, about 60 percent of the cancer patients can't receive Israeli permissions to travel from Gaza to Israel or the West Bank to continue their medical treatment, the Gaza official said.
