Jamal’s nine-year-old body is paralysed. He experiences constant, uncontrollable, violent spasms. He cannot sleep through them. Nor can his mother. To keep the spasms under control, a drug called baclofen is required. It relaxes the muscles and stops the shaking. Suddenly halting the use of baclofen can have serious health consequences.Jamal’s mother, my cousin Shaima, wrote to me from the family’s tent in al-Mawasi displacement camp in Gaza a week ago. It was her son’s seventh day without the medicine. The violent, neurological spasms that seize Jamal’s limbs leave him screaming out in pain.Baclofen is unavailable anywhere in Gaza: not in hospitals, not in clinics, not in Ministry of Health warehouses, and not even through the Red Cross. Shaima has searched all of them. It is one of the many medicines blocked by Israel, along with painkillers and antibiotics.Jamal now endures dozens of spasms each day. There is no alternative medication or substitute. There is no relief, only pain.Jamal’s story is not to be told, if the likes of former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo are to have their way. Nine-year-old Jamal is suffering from debilitating seizures in Gaza, where medication for his condition is blocked by Israel [Courtesy of Ghada Ageel]Speaking at the United States-based, Israel-focused MirYam Institute last month, he said, “We need to make sure that the story is told properly so that when the history …
