Skip to content or view screen version

HRW: Israel Arbitrarily Blocking Medical Evacuations From Gaza

Human Rights Watch | 21.10.2007 15:33 | Anti-racism | World

Ethnic cleansing, one sick Gazan at a time.

The Israeli government must feel so proud of itself for not having the any member of the IDF pull the trigger on these people: just let their treatable diseases take their course.

One also has to praise the actions of the Tel-Aviv based Physicians for Human Rights - Israel for their wonderful humanitarian work in this area.

Israel: Government Blocks Medical Evacuations from Gaza
Denials, Delays Cause at Least Three Deaths
Human Rights Watch

October 20, 2007

(New York, October 20, 2007) – Israel is arbitrarily blocking, delaying and harassing people with emergency medical problems who need to leave the Gaza Strip for urgent care, Human Rights Watch said today. At least three patients denied exit permits have died since June, and others have lost limbs or sight due to injuries and disease that have gone without proper treatment.

Despite its 2005 disengagement, Israel maintains substantial control of Gaza’s borders – land, air and sea. Since June 2007, when Hamas forcibly seized power in Gaza, Israel has made it increasingly difficult for medical supplies to get into Gaza and for any of Gaza’s 1.4 million residents to get out, even when they urgently need medical treatment.

"Israel is punishing sick civilians as a way to hurt Hamas, and that’s legally and morally wrong," said Sarah Leah Whitson, director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East division. "Israel remains the occupying power in Gaza despite disengagement, and thus has a legal obligation to facilitate medical care to the greatest extent possible."

The Israeli government, and in particular the General Security Service (Shabak), cite unspecified "security concerns" when denying medical patients exit permits from Gaza. But numerous examples point to the arbitrary nature of those decisions, Human Rights Watch said.

This week, for example, the Israeli government allowed six people with life-threatening conditions to leave Gaza, after the Tel Aviv-based Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-Israel) threatened to challenge the denied permits in court. The government had previously rejected all six on two separate occasions, citing unspecified security concerns.

The six cases include a 16-year-old girl with a congenital heart defect and two women in their twenties with cancer. They all have conditions that Israeli doctors determined require treatment outside Gaza, and one of the women had previously received chemotherapy in Israel.

Since June, PHR-Israel has intervened in 138 cases of patients from Gaza whom the government had rejected for alleged security reasons. It succeeded to date in gaining exit permits for 52 of these people.

According to PHR-Israel, in some cases the person was allowed out of Gaza only if he or she submitted to interrogation by the Shabak. An article this month in the major Israeli daily newspaper Ma’ariv documented how intelligence officers at Erez crossing, the only passenger crossing in and out of Gaza, tell medical patients that they can leave only if they provide information to Israeli intelligence.

A father who recently accompanied his five-year-old son out of Gaza to receive care for an injured eye told Human Rights Watch how he underwent questioning by Shabak at the border in a concrete room with a floor of metal grating that looked down onto an exposed basement. Interrogators sat behind bulletproof glass. Other Palestinians who left for non-medical reasons described the same room.

Israel is taking these measures at a time when its strict control of what gets into Gaza has led to deteriorating medical conditions there, Human Rights Watch said. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the increasing restrictions are "putting the access to health care especially in regard to tertiary care at risk." The organization cites a lack of some oncology drugs and a shortage of functioning laboratory equipment.

Medical facilities in Gaza cannot provide many advanced services, such as cardiovascular surgery, neurosurgery and advanced ophthalmology services.

"There are no machines to treat this in Gaza," said the father of the 16-year-old girl with the heart defect, who was finally allowed to cross into Israel this week. "If it was possible we would have done it here months ago."

In a visit to the dialysis ward at Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital, this week, Human Rights Watch found doctors having to use catheters whose expiry date had passed. "We sterilize them and do our best," a doctor said.

Human Rights Watch expressed concern that Israeli restrictions on the transfer of individuals and goods in and out of Gaza, including medical supplies – aimed at putting pressure on Hamas – are a form of collective punishment against the civilian population in violation of international humanitarian law.

In September, the Israeli cabinet declared Gaza "hostile territory" and voted to restrict "the passage of people to and from Gaza." The government says implementation of the decision is pending legal review, but the flow of people and goods into and out of Gaza has steadily declined since the cabinet’s decision, according to numbers provided by the Israeli military.

According to the United Nations, an average of 40 patients per day entered Israel from Gaza for medical treatment in July. In September, that number was down to five.

"Israel’s denial of medical care to those in urgent need amounts to collective punishment against the population, which violates international law," Whitson said. "The civilians of Gaza are paying the price."

In June, PHR-Israel and another Israel-based human rights group, Gisha, challenged Israel’s restrictions on medical evacuees in the Israeli Supreme Court. The court rejected the petition and accepted the government’s distinction between life-threatening cases, which should be allowed out of Gaza on a humanitarian basis, and those that affect "quality of life," for which the state can exercise discretion. But that distinction, when followed at all by the government, has been applied inhumanely.

According to PHR-Israel, in June the Israeli government denied an exit permit to `Ala’ `Awda, 25, who needed emergency treatment after getting shot in both legs, because it did not consider his case life-threatening. `Awda was unable to get proper care in Gaza, and doctors had to amputate his right leg. The government denied a second request, deeming the one-legged `Awda a security threat, and shortly thereafter doctors amputated his other leg.

At least three patients who were rejected for security reasons since June have died. According to PHR-Israel, they are:


* Muhammad Murtaja, 19, who died from a malignant brain tumor on the morning of July 1. The government approved his second request for entry later that day.
* Na’il Abu Warda, 24, who suffered from chronic renal disease. He had permission to leave Gaza but was denied transit through Erez nevertheless and died that night.
* Muhammad Abu `Ubaid, 72, who died on October 3 in need of open heart surgery after his exit permit was denied.


This week, Human Rights Watch interviewed three people in Gaza with medical conditions who were prevented from leaving on security grounds. They included a man who said he was accidentally shot in the ankle in May, who was not allowed out despite getting an exit permit, the girl with the congenital heart defect, and a woman with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The latter two were among those allowed out this week.

Human Rights Watch interviewed three other people who were applying for their exit permits, including a man with a herniated disc, a man with nerve compression in his back, and a man with thyroid cancer. "I will go to any country, I don’t care," said `Abd al-Safuri, 27, who needs surgery for a herniated disc.

With some exceptions, patients allowed out of Gaza must walk nearly 1 kilometer through a security zone to reach the Erez crossing, and then submit to extensive security procedures and occasional interrogation by the Shabak.

Human Rights Watch learned of some patients with prearranged clearance at Erez, who were nonetheless sent back, again for unspecified security concerns. They had to restart the complex process of getting a bed in a hospital outside Gaza, secure financial coverage, and seek security clearance for another day.

"Israel has legitimate security concerns about militant groups firing rockets from Gaza into civilian areas," Whitson said. "But denying medical treatment to a 16-year-old girl with a congenital heart defect doesn’t make Israel any safer."

www.uruknet.info/?p=m37382&hd=&size=1&l=e


PHOTO ESSAY:
hrw.org/photos/2007/iopt1007/


Human Rights Watch

Comments

Hide 1 hidden comment or hide all comments

Hidden Comment

This posting has been hidden because it breaches the Indymedia UK (IMC UK) Editorial Guidelines.

IMC UK is an interactive site offering inclusive participation. All postings to the open publishing newswire are the responsibility of the individual authors and not of IMC UK. Although IMC UK volunteers attempt to ensure accuracy of the newswire, they take no responsibility legal or otherwise for the contents of the open publishing site. Mention of external web sites or services is for information purposes only and constitutes neither an endorsement nor a recommendation.

Meanwhile back in the real world...

23.10.2007 05:19

'Hamas is creating humanitarian crisis to pressure Israel'
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yaakov Katz , THE JERUSALEM POST Oct. 22, 2007

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hamas is unnecessarily endangering Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip by generating phony humanitarian crises, head of the Gaza Coordination Liaison Administration (CLA) Col. Nir Press said Monday.

On Sunday night, Gaza's Shifa Hospital claimed that due to tight Israeli restrictions on imports into Gaza, it had run out of anesthetic for surgeries, and as a result had canceled all but the most critical procedures.

In an interview with The Jerusalem Post on Monday, Press dismissed the claims and said that in a meeting he held Sunday afternoon with Palestinian Health Ministry officials he was informed that the hospitals were running "low" on the anesthetic. On Monday morning, less than 24 hours after making the request, Israel transferred 151 nitrous oxide gas balloons to Shifa Hospital.

"It is the Palestinians' responsibility to order the supplies," Press said, noting that despite the daily rocket attacks on Israeli towns - on Monday 10 rockets and shells pounded the western Negev - Israel continued to transfer medical goods and supplies into Gaza whenever they were ordered.

Press said that orders were usually placed by the Palestinians days in advance and that Sunday's sudden announcement "was a spin by Hamas and an attempt to put pressure on Israel by creating a humanitarian crisis."

He said that the incident resembled Palestinian claims a few months ago that due to Israeli restrictions on the crossings they ran out of gas needed to operate the Gaza power plant and as a result large parts of the Strip were left without electricity for several days. Also then, Press said, Hamas unnecessarily disrupted Palestinian civilians' lives to try to create an image that a humanitarian crisis was developing in Gaza.

"These are examples of how Hamas wants to create humanitarian crisis," he explained. "They wait until the last moment and then tell us they are running out of supplies so they can create this image of a crisis."

While Israel was preventing the transfer of raw materials into Gaza - such as pipes that could be used to manufacture Kassam rockets - Press said that any order of medical supplies or food was immediately processed. He said that the CLA also allowed a number of Palestinians to cross from the Gaza Strip into Israel for medical treatment daily.

Meanwhile Monday, in an effort to improve health conditions in the West Bank, Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories Maj.-Gen. Yusef Mishlav allowed 120 Palestinian medical students to enter Jerusalem to complete their studies. Some of the students are from the Gaza Strip and have been studying medicine for the past six years at Al Quds University.

The Foreign Ministry also approved a plan to train Palestinian medical teams at Hadassah-University Hospital, Ein Kerem. Under the plan, Palestinian doctors, nurses and technicians will be trained at the Israeli hospital and in addition receive a monthly stipend of $643.

On Thursday, a joint Palestinian-Israeli conference on gynecology and childbirth will be held at the French Hospital in Nazareth. The IDF has allowed 50 Palestinian doctors to enter Israel to attend the conference.

Reality Check


Hide 1 hidden comment or hide all comments