Fourteen extremely ill patients from the Gaza Strip who were denied permits on to enter Israel for medical treatment either in Israel, Jordan, or Egypt lost an appeal to the Israeli High Court of Justice on Tuesday, according to Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) in Israel, who took the appeal to court.Time is critical for these patients, most of whom have cancer. Early medical intervention is often a matter of life or death in cancer cases.Israeli state attorneys argued that the patients do not need to enter Israel through Erez crossing, but should instead go to Egypt whenever the Egyptian border crossings are opened.

However, Physicians for Human Rights argued, nobody knows how long it will be before either Kerem Shalom or Rafah border crossings will be open again.