Palestine Today 051809

A child in Gaza dies due to the Israeli siege, and settler attacks reported in the West Bank. These stories and more coming up, stay tuned.

The News Cast

A ten-year old child with cancer has died in the Gaza Strip while awaiting Israeli government permission to cross the border to reach a scheduled appointment with a specialist inside Israel.

Ribhi Jindiyeh underwent chemotherapy last year. In March his condition worsened. Because of the lack of medical supplies in Gaza due to the Israeli closure, his parents consulted with a doctor in Israel to get the needed medical treatment.

Ribhi's father applied to the Augusta Victoria hospital in Jerusalem for treatment for his son. According to the Associated Press, a staff member at the hospital told their reporter that a fax machine at the hospital may have been broken, and the request was not answered for weeks. Finally, the child was accepted into a treatment program in the Israeli hospital, but the Israeli government refused to issue the boy the permit needed to cross the closed border into Israel.

Palestinian medical sources report that over 300 patients have died since June 2007, when the elected Hamas government began its administration in Gaza, and the Israeli government implemented a full closure on the Strip. Virtually no one has been able to enter or leave the besieged coastal Strip, and supplies of needed medicines and equipment are dwindling to near nothing in Gaza's hospitals and clinics.

In the West Bank, scores of Israeli right wing groups and settlers arrived to southern city of Hebron on Monday. The settlers and right wing groups were given permission by the Israeli government on Sunday to tour the Palestinian controlled part of the old city of Hebron, under the protection of the Israeli military.

Scores of Palestinian youth from “Youth against settlements”, a local NGO in Hebron gathered at the entrances of the old city to stop the settlers and soldiers from staging their tour. The settlers arrived at midday, but stopped at the nearby military checkpoint before leaving. Some cases of settler attacks on residents were reported during the tour of Israeli settlements in the old city.

Earlier on Monday four Palestinian civilians were kidnapped by Israeli forces during an invasion targeting the central West Bank city of Ramallah.

The Israeli military radio announced that the four are what the army calls “wanted Palestinians”, adding that they were taken to military detention camps for questioning. Palestinian sources reported that the troops ransacked and searched homes in different parts of Ramallah before kidnapping the four men and leaving.

Conclusion

Thank you for joining us from occupied Bethlehem. You have been listening to Palestine Today from the International Middle East Media Center, www.imemc.org. This report has been brought to you by Ghassan Bannoura.