The Desperate Search for Insulin

Diabetics in war-torn Gaza fear not just bombs and bullets but uncertain supplies of medicine that could cost them their lives

- VIRGINIA JEFFRIES

ABDALLAH ALABADLA REMEMBERS THE NIGHT HE thought he was going to die. The college student had fled his home in Gaza City for Khan Younis, a place he thought would be safer. But soon after arriving, he found the city emptied of critical medical supplies.

"I went to every pharmacy in the area where I was staying, desperately looking for insulin," he said in a phone interview from Cairo, where he evacuated in March. "I thought I was going to die because I didn't find it. I don't know how to describe it. It was a horrible moment."

Alabadla, 23, was in his final semester at Al-Aqsa University, where he studied English literature before the October 7 attacks on Israel by Hamas and subsequent Israeli invasion of Gaza. He also has Type 1 diabetes and relies on taking insulin daily to stay alive.

Before the launch of Israel's offensive seeking to release the Israeli hostages and destroy Hamas, United Nations bodies estimated that up to 71,000 Palestinians in Gaza were living with diabetes as of November 2023. It is not known now how many of them have since fled or been killed.

Insulin is one of the medicines in "acute shortage" in Gaza, according to the World Health Organization, recalling a time before the advent of insulin therapy, when having diabetes-today considered a treatable condition-almost always meant a death sentence within a matter of days or weeks.

Alabadla and others say they have gone to extreme measures to survive the shortage. They now frequently switch between multiple types of insulin based on availability rather than what is recommended for their unique needs, use expired insulin or resort to insulin rationing-a potentially fatal practice.

Dr. Waseem Alzaanin is a physician in Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza. Like Alabadla, he has Type 1 diabetes.