Category: Gaza - Page 18 - International Solidarity Movement

Interview to Dr.Rami Mokdad, head of the Oncology Department from Shifa Hospital in Gaza

10th July 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza Team | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

No private hospital in Gaza treats cancer, only the public ones, and that the treatment is free of charge.

“At Shifa Oncology Department we treat everyday 150 patients, and we are in total 3 doctors, 5 nurses and have just 15 beds. Obviously that’s not enough.“

Dr. Rami Mokdad:

“In the last 10 years it has grown a lot the number of patients with cancer in the Gaza Strip. Especially in young people and children, before most of the cases affected old people, but since the Zionist aggressions against Gaza started it became normal to receive children and young people with cancer.

The three kinds of cancer that have grown more in those years are thyroid cancer, leukaemia and multiple myeloma cancer.

For example, in 2005 we had less than 50 cases of thyroid cancer, in 2014 we had 300 cases. Actually we are receiving each month between 70 and 100 new cases of cancer patients. In this oncology department, the most important in the Gaza Strip, we treated in 2010 around 2800 patients. On 2013 the number grew to 5000 and the last year, 2014, we treated around 6000 patients. And I’m afraid these numbers will continue to grow even more. In 10 years we’ll have a huge crisis in Gaza, as the risk factors are getting worst; the use of war weapons by Israel in highly populated areas, the consumptions of polluted water, the use of polluted land for growing food, etc.

Another special case we find in Gaza is the nasopharyngeal cancer, especially in children. Those cases come from areas where the people had primary contact with the Zionist bombs, especially with white phosphorous, but also in cases where their home was bombed.

Due to the blockade we find a lot of difficulties for making the diagnosis and treating those patients. For example in Gaza we don’t have either radiotherapy or molecular therapy, and we find a lot of obstacles to send the patients to the West Bank to receive the appropriate treatment. We also don’t have PET scan, isotope scan or laboratory markers. We also suffer from an important shortage of chemotherapy supplies and other drugs, we could say that we work with the 40% of the supplies we really need. As even when we receive some of these drugs, we don’t receive them continuously, so we never know if the next week we’ll be able to provide the needed treatment to the patients.

The Palestinian Authority is responsible for this shortage of drugs, as they don’t send the supplies intended for Gaza due to its will to punish Hamas.

This attitude from the Ramallah based government, along with the blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt that doesn’t allow the patients to leave the Strip in order to receive the treatment outside, and in the case of Egypt, that also doesn’t allow the entrance of medical supplies and drugs through Rafah Border; are responsible of our inability to treat properly the cancer patients from Gaza.

Unfortunately, due to the lack of resources of the local government we don’t have any serious studies addressing the cancer issue. And we don’t know why any of all the International Agencies or NGOs is studying that.”

Israel once again commits an act of state piracy in the Mediterranean

29th June 2015 | Freedom Flotilla Coalition | International Waters, off the coast of Occupied Palestine

At 02:06AM today (Gaza time) the “Marianne” contacted Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) and informed us that three boats of the Israeli navy had surrounded her in international waters, while sailing approximately 100NM from Gaza coast. After that we lost contact with the “Marianne” and at 05:11AM (Gaza time) the IDF announced that they had “visited and searched” Marianne. They had captured the boat and detained all on board “in international waters” as they admitted themselves. The only positive content in the IDF announcement was that they still recognize that there is a naval blockade of Gaza, despite Netanyahu’s government recent denial that one exists.

We have no reason to believe that Marianne’s capture was “uneventful”, because the last time the IDF said something like that, in 2012, the people on board the “Estelle” were badly tasered and beaten with clubs. Back in 2010, ten passengers of Mavi Marmara were murdered by the IDF during a similar operation in international waters.

It is disappointing that the Israeli government chose to continue the absolutely fruitless policy of “no tolerance”, meaning it will continue to enforce an inhumane and illegal collective punishment against 1.8 million Palestinians in Gaza. Israel’s repeated acts of state piracy in international waters are worrying signs that the occupation and blockade policy extends to the entire eastern Mediterranean. We demand that the Israeli government cease and desist the illegal detainment of peaceful civilians travelling in international waters in support of humanitarian aid.
We call on our governments to ensure that all passengers and crew from the “Marianne” are safe, and to strongly protest against the violation of international maritime law by the Israeli state. We call on all civil society organizations to condemn the actions of Israel. People all over the world will continue to respond and react to this injustice, as will we, until the port of Gaza is open and the siege and occupation is ended.

For more updates visit: ff3.freedomflotilla.org

Khader Adnan, an example for all prisoners and Palestinians

29th June 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza Team | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

Today, the weekly concentration in solidarity with the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails focused on the last victory of Khader Adnan.

Spokesmen from different factions and committees pointed to Khader Adnan as an example for all prisoners and all Palestinians for his steadfastness and patience. They celebrated that finally, his hunger strike got its reward.

"Khader Adnan is in danger" — “Khader Adnan is in danger”

All the people who demonstrated demanding his release, all the human rights activists, and all independent media were also thanked, as this victory wouldn’t have been possible without them. The spokesmen highlighted as well that they will keep fighting until the total liberation of the land and the release of all prisoners.

Spokesmen from different factions speaking on Khader Adnan

Hussein Abu Naim, former prisoner and head of the Union of Prisoners, thanked Khader Adnan for adding a new victory to the cause.

A mural of Khader Adnan with the number 55, the number of days he was on hunger strike this time.

Attacks on fishermen continue in Gaza

13th June 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza Team | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

During the last weeks, the Israeli military has been shooting at the fishermen of Gaza almost daily with rubber coated steel-bullets and live ammunition. They also kidnapped 15 fishermen. Three of the injured and seven of the kidnapped belong to the Baker family, who are also the family of the 4 boys who were murdered by the Israeli military while they were playing football on the beach during the last massacre in Gaza. Yesterday, in Deir el Balah, the army stole 37 fishing nets and today the shooting went on all along the Strip.

ISM met some of the recently released fishermen from Baker family.

One of members of the family is Ziad Fahed Baker, 21 years old. Three weeks ago, he left the port on his small boat along with four other fishermen. As they were fishing at less than three miles away, the Israeli navy approached and ordered them to leave without taking the nets with them. They answered that they would leave but not without the nets. Ziad knew that abandoning the nets would leave his family without any income, so they ignored the soldiers and started collecting them. At this point the soldiers shot Ziad in the leg, and the 5 fishermen decided to flee to the port. Unfortunately the Israeli gunboat followed them and when they were just a mile and a half from the shore shot the engine of Ziad’s boat. With the boat stopped they ordered Ziad and the other four fishermen, two of whom were also injured, to swim towards their ship. Once in the gunboat they were blindfolded and handcuffed to a metal bar, “What are they afraid of? That we would leave flying?”

They were then taken to Ashdod, where Israeli forces subjected them to the usual routine of insults and humiliations before sending them back to Gaza.

They also explain how the Israeli military bombs the waters where they are working in order to scare away the fish and how the blockade prevents the entrance of all the tools needed for their activity, engines, fibber glass, hooks…

From the 1500 boats that laboured in the past, just 150 are still working today. This year the income of the fishing sector has decreased an 80% regarding the past year.

Ziad’s cousin, Mohamed Zied Baker, 30 years old, was also attacked last week while labouring in Sudania, north of Gaza. They ordered him to stop, shot him with rubber-coated steel bullets, kidnapped him and once in the Israeli boat they handcuffed him and stepped on his head with their boots.

Ziad, Mohamed, Fahed, Walid and Emad – this one, just 16 years old, also got shot with live ammunition and kidnapped – have similar stories to tell.

“They are now targeting the youngest fishermen, almost children”. “They want to scare us, but they can’t, we are Palestinians”.

Story and photos by Valeria Cortés

UN spurns Palestinian children

8th June 2015 | Hemaya Center for Human Rights | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

UN spurns Palestinian children
Ban Ki-moon’s decision not to include Israel on the list of violators of children’s rights twists the knife in the heart of every Palestinian parent, making it very clear that in the eyes of the United Nations, Palestinian children’s lives don’t count.

When a military with the most sophisticated and accurate weaponry on the planet can kill more than 500 children in cold blood with complete impunity, as Israel’s absence from the list shows, it reveals more than just the complete disregard for Palestinian lives that has become so commonplace in the halls of power. It also makes it abundantly clear that the UN, the single most important international organisation charged with protecting the lives of the most vulnerable, is failing spectacularly.

Children are the lifeblood of the future. How can any world citizen look at the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Palestinian child death toll from the 2014 Israeli aggression, and this decision, and not be appalled?

At best it reflects the paucity of responsible leadership evident in the UN under Ban Ki-moon’s secretaryship, which has seen public faith in the international organisation reach an all-time low.

At worst it underlines the gross politicisation of an organisation purporting to uphold the rights of ALL humans – and failing.
The only way Ban Ki-moon’s decision – if not his entire leadership in relation to the Palestinian issue – can be called a success is if the intention is to ‘grow’ a generation of increasingly angry cynics with no respect for the abject hypocrisy emanating from Geneva and New York.

Hemaya expresses its utmost disappointment in the attitude to Palestinian children that the decision represents, and calls on human rights bodies and concerned citizens everywhere to roundly reject it by supporting and valuing those Palestinian children who survived, and who continue to suffer under illegal occupation, repression and siege.

Gaza, June 08, 2015

Featured image by Ashraf Amra / APA Images