15 july 2017
Children playing in the besieged Gaza Strip
The latest victim of the Palestinian Authority (PA)’s dramatic reduction in medical referrals for residents of the besieged Gaza Strip was a three-year-old girl, who died on Thursday after the PA failed to respond to an urgent request for treatment in an Israeli hospital.
The Hamas-run Ministry of Health in Gaza reportedly told Israeli daily Haaretz that the three-year-old girl had suffered from heart complications whichnecessitated an urgent surgery that, like many other medical treatments, was unavailable in the besieged enclave.
However, as the request went unanswered by the PA, the girl eventually died, due to her illness.
According to the Gaza Health Ministry, the girl became the 16th resident, including three newborns, in Gaza to have died from recent PA policies that have delayed the approval of medical referrals for treatment in the occupied West Bank and Israel, Haaretz reported, according to Ma’an.
In recent months, the PA Health Ministry has gradually halted and delayed medical referrals for residents in Gaza to receive treatment abroad, which came without explanation and amid a healthcare crisis that has been compounded by life-saving equipment being made inoperable due to the territory’s worsening electricity crisis.
Data collected by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) showed medical referrals issued for Gaza Strip patients reached 2,190 referrals in March, declining to 1,756 in April at a rate of 19.8 percent, to 1,484 at a rate of 32.2 percent, and to a paltry 500 in June at a rate of over 75 percent.
According to the group, of over 2,500 patients suffering from serious diseases who have already been approved by the Higher Medical Committee in June for treatment abroad, just 400 have been approved for financial coverage.
The statement warned that “a number of these patients were admitted to the intensive care unit in Gaza following their health status deterioration,” and that “hundreds of patients have been expecting death in the Gaza Strip hospitals in light of the absence of any opportunity to receive treatment abroad.”
Both the Fateh-led PA, Israel, and Hamas have been slammed by the UN, rights groups, and other Palestinians, in recent weeks, for policies aimed at consolidating political control at the expense of Gaza’s two million residents, who have already suffered the disastrous effects of Israel’s decade-long siege.
The medical sector in Gaza has been particularly hit hard by PA policies and the ongoing decade-long Israeli siege of Gaza.
Over the previous few months, the PA cut its funding to the medical sector in the besieged enclave, which has seen the typical $4 million monthly budget of Gaza’s Health Ministry plummet to just $500,000.
In the past months, the medical shelves in Gaza’s hospitals have been almost emptied, with scores of vital medicines no longer available in the besieged territory.
The PA’s delay of medical referrals has exacerbated everyday life for Palestinians in Gaza, who are now left with no choice but to exit the territory in order to receive treatment.
In 2012, the UN warned that Gaza could become uninhabitable by 2020 if current trends were not altered. In a new report released this month, the UN said that “life for the average Palestinian in Gaza is getting more and more wretched.”
Instead of reversing the devastating trends in Gaza, the “deterioration has accelerated, sped along not least by a devastating round of hostilities in 2014 from which we are only now starting to recover.”
The report also pointed to the deepening electricity crisis in the territory, while “a host of other chronic and acute problems” have become a part of daily life for Gaza’s residents.
“An 11 year-old child has not experienced more than 12 hours of electricity in a single day in his/her lifetime. No one remembers a time in recent memory when drinkable water reliably appeared out of the tap,” the report read.
Opinion/Analysis: 07/13/17 Gaza is Headed for a Deeper Political and Humanitarian Crisis
The latest victim of the Palestinian Authority (PA)’s dramatic reduction in medical referrals for residents of the besieged Gaza Strip was a three-year-old girl, who died on Thursday after the PA failed to respond to an urgent request for treatment in an Israeli hospital.
The Hamas-run Ministry of Health in Gaza reportedly told Israeli daily Haaretz that the three-year-old girl had suffered from heart complications whichnecessitated an urgent surgery that, like many other medical treatments, was unavailable in the besieged enclave.
However, as the request went unanswered by the PA, the girl eventually died, due to her illness.
According to the Gaza Health Ministry, the girl became the 16th resident, including three newborns, in Gaza to have died from recent PA policies that have delayed the approval of medical referrals for treatment in the occupied West Bank and Israel, Haaretz reported, according to Ma’an.
In recent months, the PA Health Ministry has gradually halted and delayed medical referrals for residents in Gaza to receive treatment abroad, which came without explanation and amid a healthcare crisis that has been compounded by life-saving equipment being made inoperable due to the territory’s worsening electricity crisis.
Data collected by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) showed medical referrals issued for Gaza Strip patients reached 2,190 referrals in March, declining to 1,756 in April at a rate of 19.8 percent, to 1,484 at a rate of 32.2 percent, and to a paltry 500 in June at a rate of over 75 percent.
According to the group, of over 2,500 patients suffering from serious diseases who have already been approved by the Higher Medical Committee in June for treatment abroad, just 400 have been approved for financial coverage.
The statement warned that “a number of these patients were admitted to the intensive care unit in Gaza following their health status deterioration,” and that “hundreds of patients have been expecting death in the Gaza Strip hospitals in light of the absence of any opportunity to receive treatment abroad.”
Both the Fateh-led PA, Israel, and Hamas have been slammed by the UN, rights groups, and other Palestinians, in recent weeks, for policies aimed at consolidating political control at the expense of Gaza’s two million residents, who have already suffered the disastrous effects of Israel’s decade-long siege.
The medical sector in Gaza has been particularly hit hard by PA policies and the ongoing decade-long Israeli siege of Gaza.
Over the previous few months, the PA cut its funding to the medical sector in the besieged enclave, which has seen the typical $4 million monthly budget of Gaza’s Health Ministry plummet to just $500,000.
In the past months, the medical shelves in Gaza’s hospitals have been almost emptied, with scores of vital medicines no longer available in the besieged territory.
The PA’s delay of medical referrals has exacerbated everyday life for Palestinians in Gaza, who are now left with no choice but to exit the territory in order to receive treatment.
In 2012, the UN warned that Gaza could become uninhabitable by 2020 if current trends were not altered. In a new report released this month, the UN said that “life for the average Palestinian in Gaza is getting more and more wretched.”
Instead of reversing the devastating trends in Gaza, the “deterioration has accelerated, sped along not least by a devastating round of hostilities in 2014 from which we are only now starting to recover.”
The report also pointed to the deepening electricity crisis in the territory, while “a host of other chronic and acute problems” have become a part of daily life for Gaza’s residents.
“An 11 year-old child has not experienced more than 12 hours of electricity in a single day in his/her lifetime. No one remembers a time in recent memory when drinkable water reliably appeared out of the tap,” the report read.
Opinion/Analysis: 07/13/17 Gaza is Headed for a Deeper Political and Humanitarian Crisis
13 july 2017
The deeply unpopular Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas is helping Israeli occupation authorities inflict horrendous suffering on people in the blockaded Gaza Strip, as part of a cruel and cynical political game.
It is a campaign that in recent weeks has led to the deaths of more than a dozen Palestinians denied medical treatment outside Gaza – the most recent, a little girl called Yara Ismail Bakhit.
Israel and Abbas are doing this with the complicity of a so-called international community that remains silent about the unfolding catastrophe.
Closely allied with Israel, Abbas has long defined collaboration with its occupation forces as a “sacred” duty.
This collaboration has included encouraging Israel, from the very start, to tighten its blockade of Gaza.
The decade-long siege has brought the 2 million residents caged into the territory to perhaps their most dire crisis in a period that has included successive military assaults that have killed thousands of people.
On Thursday, Gaza’s only power plant shut down after emergency fuel supplies ran out.
The territory is now dependent on just 70 megawatts of power supplied from Israel, a fraction of the 500 megawatts it needs each day.
A “power watch” feature in the Tel Aviv newspaper Haaretz shows that Gaza City received just three hours of electricity on Wednesday, while some areas received four hours.
But with the power supply now below the all-time low it reached earlier this week, most residents face long stretches without any power at all amid the sweltering summer heat.
On top of the darkness and the heat, many in Gaza face a cut off of any contact with the outside world: the PA telecom company Paltel said that internet and telephone services to thousands of customers in Gaza have been severed as generators fail.
Unheeded warnings
On Wednesday, UN human rights officials emphasized that the latest power cuts “have deepened the humanitarian crisis with hospitals in precarious conditions, water shortages growing and untreated sewage being dumped into the Mediterranean.”
Their warnings will likely go unheeded, just like so many in recent months, including from the International Committee of the Red Cross that said in May that Gaza was on the brink of “systemic collapse.”
For months, health facilities across the territory have been in crisis and Gaza City’s main hospital has slashed vital surgeries because there isn’t enough power to run life support systems.
As treatment plants fail, the territory is swimming in sewage.
Yet the European Union, which never rests from trumpeting its alleged commitment to “human rights,” has maintained a determined silence which can only be interpreted as full support for the measures inflicting such suffering on Gaza.
Instead, the EU’s embassy in Tel Aviv as well as a top UN official, touted Abbas’ authority for collaborating with Israel to increase the electricity supply to Jenin, a town in the northern occupied West Bank.
The timing of the announcement, along with a grotesque ribbon-cutting ceremony in which PA officials appeared alongside Israeli military officers, looked calculated to rub salt into the wounds of people in Gaza.
Finally, on Thursday, after months of ignoring Gaza, the EU, as part of the so-called Quartet, issued a vague statement of “concern” that said nothing about Israel’s responsibilities.
Israel’s responsibilityThe UN experts emphasized that while Israel’s power cuts were nominally implemented at the request of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, Israel remains legally responsible.
Previously, senior UN officials have attempted to play down Israel’s responsibility, shifting the blame to an internal dispute between the Abbas-run PA in Ramallah, and Hamas authorities that control the interior of Gaza.
In April, the PA told Israel it would no longer pay the full bill for electricity Israel supplies to Gaza, as part of Abbas’ campaign to oust Hamas by inflicting additional hardship on the population in Gaza.
Over the last month, Israel has sharply reduced the power it supplies to Gaza – the territory’s main source of electricity.
“Israel, as the occupier controlling the entry and exit of goods and people, bore the primary responsibility for the deterioration of the situation,” the UN human rights experts said on Wednesday, according to a UN press release.
Human rights groups previously affirmed that it is illegal for Israel, as the occupying power, to cut the electricity to Gaza no matter what Abbas says.
Despite the Israeli cabinet’s decision to accept the Palestinian Authority’s “cruel plan to further reduce the power supply to Gaza,” B’Tselem said last month, the situation in Gaza “is the result of Israel’s handiwork, achieved by its decade-long implementation of a brutal policy.”
Killing babies
It is a campaign that in recent weeks has led to the deaths of more than a dozen Palestinians denied medical treatment outside Gaza – the most recent, a little girl called Yara Ismail Bakhit.
Israel and Abbas are doing this with the complicity of a so-called international community that remains silent about the unfolding catastrophe.
Closely allied with Israel, Abbas has long defined collaboration with its occupation forces as a “sacred” duty.
This collaboration has included encouraging Israel, from the very start, to tighten its blockade of Gaza.
The decade-long siege has brought the 2 million residents caged into the territory to perhaps their most dire crisis in a period that has included successive military assaults that have killed thousands of people.
On Thursday, Gaza’s only power plant shut down after emergency fuel supplies ran out.
The territory is now dependent on just 70 megawatts of power supplied from Israel, a fraction of the 500 megawatts it needs each day.
A “power watch” feature in the Tel Aviv newspaper Haaretz shows that Gaza City received just three hours of electricity on Wednesday, while some areas received four hours.
But with the power supply now below the all-time low it reached earlier this week, most residents face long stretches without any power at all amid the sweltering summer heat.
On top of the darkness and the heat, many in Gaza face a cut off of any contact with the outside world: the PA telecom company Paltel said that internet and telephone services to thousands of customers in Gaza have been severed as generators fail.
Unheeded warnings
On Wednesday, UN human rights officials emphasized that the latest power cuts “have deepened the humanitarian crisis with hospitals in precarious conditions, water shortages growing and untreated sewage being dumped into the Mediterranean.”
Their warnings will likely go unheeded, just like so many in recent months, including from the International Committee of the Red Cross that said in May that Gaza was on the brink of “systemic collapse.”
For months, health facilities across the territory have been in crisis and Gaza City’s main hospital has slashed vital surgeries because there isn’t enough power to run life support systems.
As treatment plants fail, the territory is swimming in sewage.
Yet the European Union, which never rests from trumpeting its alleged commitment to “human rights,” has maintained a determined silence which can only be interpreted as full support for the measures inflicting such suffering on Gaza.
Instead, the EU’s embassy in Tel Aviv as well as a top UN official, touted Abbas’ authority for collaborating with Israel to increase the electricity supply to Jenin, a town in the northern occupied West Bank.
The timing of the announcement, along with a grotesque ribbon-cutting ceremony in which PA officials appeared alongside Israeli military officers, looked calculated to rub salt into the wounds of people in Gaza.
Finally, on Thursday, after months of ignoring Gaza, the EU, as part of the so-called Quartet, issued a vague statement of “concern” that said nothing about Israel’s responsibilities.
Israel’s responsibilityThe UN experts emphasized that while Israel’s power cuts were nominally implemented at the request of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, Israel remains legally responsible.
Previously, senior UN officials have attempted to play down Israel’s responsibility, shifting the blame to an internal dispute between the Abbas-run PA in Ramallah, and Hamas authorities that control the interior of Gaza.
In April, the PA told Israel it would no longer pay the full bill for electricity Israel supplies to Gaza, as part of Abbas’ campaign to oust Hamas by inflicting additional hardship on the population in Gaza.
Over the last month, Israel has sharply reduced the power it supplies to Gaza – the territory’s main source of electricity.
“Israel, as the occupier controlling the entry and exit of goods and people, bore the primary responsibility for the deterioration of the situation,” the UN human rights experts said on Wednesday, according to a UN press release.
Human rights groups previously affirmed that it is illegal for Israel, as the occupying power, to cut the electricity to Gaza no matter what Abbas says.
Despite the Israeli cabinet’s decision to accept the Palestinian Authority’s “cruel plan to further reduce the power supply to Gaza,” B’Tselem said last month, the situation in Gaza “is the result of Israel’s handiwork, achieved by its decade-long implementation of a brutal policy.”
Killing babies
Three-year-old Yara Ismail Bakhit, who suffered from a heart condition, died because she was denied a medical transfer out of Gaza.
Dr. Ashraf al-Qidra, the spokesperson for the health ministry in Gaza, said on Thursday that the toddler, from the southern town of Khan Younis, is the 16th person to die in recent weeks because they weren’t able to secure a medical transfer.
Palestinian media have circulated these pictures of Yara:
Yara’s death is another sacrifice to Abbas’ campaign against the population in Gaza; it came about due to the delays his health ministry is imposing on requests for medical transfers to Israeli or West Bank treatment facilities.
The Ramallah health ministry must approve such requests before Israel does because it pays for any treatment provided in Israeli or West Bank hospitals.
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights has documented a steady decline in medical referrals since April – when Abbas’ renewed onslaught against the population in Gaza began.
PCHR said on Monday that the PA health ministry had failed to approve or renew referrals for “hundreds of patients suffering from serious and chronic diseases without displaying the reasons behind this decision.”
According to PCHR, the number of referrals dropped from almost 2,200 in March to about 1,700 in April and fell below 1,500 in May. In June, the PA approved just 500.
As of early June, medical authorities in Gaza had approved some 2,500 patients “suffering from serious diseases that have no treatment in Gaza” for treatment outside the territory. But a month and a half later, the Ramallah authorities had only approved 400.
PCHR said it was “shocked” that West Bank hospitals have begun refusing to see patients from Gaza because there is no guarantor of payment.
Meanwhile, Abbas’ health ministry has also cut the budget for medicines for Gaza, leading to an acute crisis that is putting the lives of hundreds of people, including children with cystic fibrosis and cancer patients, in grave danger.
PCHR said: “Denying patients their right to receive medical treatment abroad, in view of the absence of a proper alternative in Gaza, is a clear violation of the right to health ensured in the Palestinian Basic Law” – in effect the Palestinian Authority’s constitution.
PCHR calls on world governments to put pressure on Israel “in its capacity as an occupying power” to guarantee the rights of people in Gaza under the Fourth Geneva Convention.
It also “calls upon the international community to pressurize the Palestinian Authority not to undermine the basic rights of Palestinians residing in the Gaza Strip” and to respect its obligations under international law to the Palestinian people it allegedly serves.
The problem is that the Palestinian Authority and its leader are tools in the hands of the so-called international community against the Palestinians and their cause.
Their role is to help Israel occupy and pacify the Palestinian population, even at the price of the lives of children in Gaza.
Dr. Ashraf al-Qidra, the spokesperson for the health ministry in Gaza, said on Thursday that the toddler, from the southern town of Khan Younis, is the 16th person to die in recent weeks because they weren’t able to secure a medical transfer.
Palestinian media have circulated these pictures of Yara:
Yara’s death is another sacrifice to Abbas’ campaign against the population in Gaza; it came about due to the delays his health ministry is imposing on requests for medical transfers to Israeli or West Bank treatment facilities.
The Ramallah health ministry must approve such requests before Israel does because it pays for any treatment provided in Israeli or West Bank hospitals.
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights has documented a steady decline in medical referrals since April – when Abbas’ renewed onslaught against the population in Gaza began.
PCHR said on Monday that the PA health ministry had failed to approve or renew referrals for “hundreds of patients suffering from serious and chronic diseases without displaying the reasons behind this decision.”
According to PCHR, the number of referrals dropped from almost 2,200 in March to about 1,700 in April and fell below 1,500 in May. In June, the PA approved just 500.
As of early June, medical authorities in Gaza had approved some 2,500 patients “suffering from serious diseases that have no treatment in Gaza” for treatment outside the territory. But a month and a half later, the Ramallah authorities had only approved 400.
PCHR said it was “shocked” that West Bank hospitals have begun refusing to see patients from Gaza because there is no guarantor of payment.
Meanwhile, Abbas’ health ministry has also cut the budget for medicines for Gaza, leading to an acute crisis that is putting the lives of hundreds of people, including children with cystic fibrosis and cancer patients, in grave danger.
PCHR said: “Denying patients their right to receive medical treatment abroad, in view of the absence of a proper alternative in Gaza, is a clear violation of the right to health ensured in the Palestinian Basic Law” – in effect the Palestinian Authority’s constitution.
PCHR calls on world governments to put pressure on Israel “in its capacity as an occupying power” to guarantee the rights of people in Gaza under the Fourth Geneva Convention.
It also “calls upon the international community to pressurize the Palestinian Authority not to undermine the basic rights of Palestinians residing in the Gaza Strip” and to respect its obligations under international law to the Palestinian people it allegedly serves.
The problem is that the Palestinian Authority and its leader are tools in the hands of the so-called international community against the Palestinians and their cause.
Their role is to help Israel occupy and pacify the Palestinian population, even at the price of the lives of children in Gaza.
The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza on Thursday announced the death of a girl child following failed attempts to obtain a medical referral from the Palestinian Authority (PA) in Ramallah for her treatment in a hospital outside the besieged enclave.
A spokesman for the ministry said that three-year-old Yara Bakhit was suffering from a medical problem in the heart.
He said the child was a victim of the PA’s recent decision to deprive Gaza patients of medical referrals, noting that this measure already led to the death of 15 patients since the start of 2017.
A few days ago, the health ministry in Gaza warned that more citizens with serious medical problems could die after the PA decided to stop giving medical referrals for patients from the impoverished and beleaguered territory.
A spokesman for the ministry said that three-year-old Yara Bakhit was suffering from a medical problem in the heart.
He said the child was a victim of the PA’s recent decision to deprive Gaza patients of medical referrals, noting that this measure already led to the death of 15 patients since the start of 2017.
A few days ago, the health ministry in Gaza warned that more citizens with serious medical problems could die after the PA decided to stop giving medical referrals for patients from the impoverished and beleaguered territory.
10 july 2017
A delegation from the Palestinian Doctors Union in Europe started performing a series of qualitative surgeries in the Gaza Strip hospitals on Monday.
Secretary of the Gaza Medical Assembly, Mohammed Zalloum, told Quds Press that the delegation, composed of 4 surgeons, arrived in Gaza on Sunday evening via the Israeli-controlled Erez crossing.
Zalloum said that the delegation will be training a number of Palestinian doctors in the field of specialized surgery and conducting surgeries for Gazan patients throughout the week.
The delegation will meet with doctors and deans of medical schools at the Gaza universities before leaving the Gaza Strip on Friday.
Zalloum described the visit as an "effort to break the siege" especially in light of the Palestinian Authority's suspension of medical referrals and the severe medicines shortages in the Gaza hospitals.
A similar delegation visited Gaza 6 months ago and performed a number of kidney transplant surgeries.
The Palestinian Doctors Union in Europe was established in 2007 and it managed to send many medical delegations to the Gaza Strip, West Bank, and Palestinian refugee camps in addition to setting up several emergency clinics in the Gaza Strip during the last Israeli aggression in 2014.
The 11-year Israeli blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip and the power crisis it entailed have severely affected the health sector.
Adding insult to injury, the Ramallah-based Ministry of Health decided last April to stop sending Gaza its share of medicines and to block all patient transfers to the hospitals of the West Bank and the 1948 occupied Palestinian territories.
Secretary of the Gaza Medical Assembly, Mohammed Zalloum, told Quds Press that the delegation, composed of 4 surgeons, arrived in Gaza on Sunday evening via the Israeli-controlled Erez crossing.
Zalloum said that the delegation will be training a number of Palestinian doctors in the field of specialized surgery and conducting surgeries for Gazan patients throughout the week.
The delegation will meet with doctors and deans of medical schools at the Gaza universities before leaving the Gaza Strip on Friday.
Zalloum described the visit as an "effort to break the siege" especially in light of the Palestinian Authority's suspension of medical referrals and the severe medicines shortages in the Gaza hospitals.
A similar delegation visited Gaza 6 months ago and performed a number of kidney transplant surgeries.
The Palestinian Doctors Union in Europe was established in 2007 and it managed to send many medical delegations to the Gaza Strip, West Bank, and Palestinian refugee camps in addition to setting up several emergency clinics in the Gaza Strip during the last Israeli aggression in 2014.
The 11-year Israeli blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip and the power crisis it entailed have severely affected the health sector.
Adding insult to injury, the Ramallah-based Ministry of Health decided last April to stop sending Gaza its share of medicines and to block all patient transfers to the hospitals of the West Bank and the 1948 occupied Palestinian territories.
8 july 2017
On Friday, Israeli soldiers, stationed across the border fence, east of Jabalia in the northern part of the besieged Gaza Strip, opened fire on Palestinian protesters wounding two, including one who suffered a serious injury.
Medical sources said the soldiers shot one Palestinian with a gas bomb to the dead, leading to a life-threatening injury, while another Palestinian was shot with a live round in his leg. Both Palestinians were moved to Kamal Adwan hospital.
In related news, the soldiers fired several live rounds at a Palestinian ambulance, east of Gaza City.
The Israeli attacks took place as the soldiers opened fire of protesters in Palestinian lands, close to the border fence, in the eastern part of the Gaza Strip.
Medical sources said the soldiers shot one Palestinian with a gas bomb to the dead, leading to a life-threatening injury, while another Palestinian was shot with a live round in his leg. Both Palestinians were moved to Kamal Adwan hospital.
In related news, the soldiers fired several live rounds at a Palestinian ambulance, east of Gaza City.
The Israeli attacks took place as the soldiers opened fire of protesters in Palestinian lands, close to the border fence, in the eastern part of the Gaza Strip.
3 july 2017
The Gaza Ministry of Health announced on Monday the death of a citizen suffering from cancer due to Israel's procrastination in allowing him to receive treatment outside the Gaza Strip.
Spokesman of the Ministry Ashraf al-Qedra said that the Israeli authorities have been procrastinating for 20 days in transferring Jameel Tafesh, 60, who was suffering from liver cancer, to a hospital in the 1948 occupied Palestinian territories.
Including Tafesh, 14 Gazan patients have died since the beginning of 2017 as a result of a joint collective punishment policy pursued by Israel and the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah against the Gaza Strip.
Spokesman of the Ministry Ashraf al-Qedra said that the Israeli authorities have been procrastinating for 20 days in transferring Jameel Tafesh, 60, who was suffering from liver cancer, to a hospital in the 1948 occupied Palestinian territories.
Including Tafesh, 14 Gazan patients have died since the beginning of 2017 as a result of a joint collective punishment policy pursued by Israel and the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah against the Gaza Strip.
2 july 2017
Gaza’s anti-siege committees called Sunday for bringing the Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas to court over his direct responsibility in the death of 13 babies in the blockaded coastal enclave of Gaza.
Spokesman for the Gaza-based Palestinian Health Ministry, Ashraf al-Qudra, called for prosecuting those held responsible for the health crisis rocking the Gaza Strip over recent weeks.
Al-Qudra’s calls were launched during a rally staged by the committee to break the siege on Gaza near Beit Hanun (Erez) border crossing, north of Gaza Strip.
Head of the National Movement, Alaa al-Din al-Bata, called on the World Health Organization to take urgent action vis-à-vis Gaza’s patients.
Al-Bata further urged the Arab Parliament, currently holding a session in Cairo, to rally round Gaza and work on unblocking the Rafah border-crossing without further delay.
“It is high time we stoop up against Abbas who wishes to destroy Gaza as his Israeli abettors do,” added al-Bata, warning of an imminent explosion in Gaza.
Speaking on behalf of the Youth Movement, Mohamed Haneyya, condemned Abbas’s recent measures and crackdowns, which he said dovetail Israeli schemes to tighten grip on Gaza, in reference to the inter-hospital transfer-bans slapped on hundreds of Gazan patients and humanitarian cases.
The anti-siege campaigners vowed to step up protest moves until the Israeli siege is lifted and the PA crackdowns are halted.
Spokesman for the Gaza-based Palestinian Health Ministry, Ashraf al-Qudra, called for prosecuting those held responsible for the health crisis rocking the Gaza Strip over recent weeks.
Al-Qudra’s calls were launched during a rally staged by the committee to break the siege on Gaza near Beit Hanun (Erez) border crossing, north of Gaza Strip.
Head of the National Movement, Alaa al-Din al-Bata, called on the World Health Organization to take urgent action vis-à-vis Gaza’s patients.
Al-Bata further urged the Arab Parliament, currently holding a session in Cairo, to rally round Gaza and work on unblocking the Rafah border-crossing without further delay.
“It is high time we stoop up against Abbas who wishes to destroy Gaza as his Israeli abettors do,” added al-Bata, warning of an imminent explosion in Gaza.
Speaking on behalf of the Youth Movement, Mohamed Haneyya, condemned Abbas’s recent measures and crackdowns, which he said dovetail Israeli schemes to tighten grip on Gaza, in reference to the inter-hospital transfer-bans slapped on hundreds of Gazan patients and humanitarian cases.
The anti-siege campaigners vowed to step up protest moves until the Israeli siege is lifted and the PA crackdowns are halted.
