Gaza’s hospitals short of surgeons and supplies

Eva Bartlett | Electronic Intifada

11 June 2009

One of the most densely populated places on earth only has two cardiac surgeons to serve its entire population. According to Dr. Nasser Tatter, head of Shifa hospital’s cardiology unit, that only explains part of the medical crisis that exists in the Gaza Strip today.

“We are in bad need for cardiac surgeons,” said Dr. Tatter, further explaining that one of the two surgeons is ill and unable to perform surgeries. The second, Tatter added, isn’t able to work independently, rendering Gaza devoid of specialists able to perform open heart surgery.

Dr. Tatter estimates that there are roughly 400 patients in Gaza in need of such surgery. Some, he said, have died from their heart maladies. “Many have tried to leave, to go outside for surgery,” Tatter said. “But they were denied exit by the Israeli and Egyptian authorities.”

Israel’s sanctions and siege regime imposed on Gaza’s 1.5 million Palestinian citizens has been in place since March 2006, shortly after Hamas was democratically elected in internationally monitored elections. It was further tightened in June 2007, when Hamas gained control of the Gaza Strip in factional fighting with the rival Fatah political party.

The years of closed borders has severely crippled Gaza’s health sector, denying patients vital medicines, replacement parts for hospital equipment, access to outside medical care, and preventing the entrance of outside expertise. Moreover, Gaza’s civilian infrastructure was devastated during Israel’s three week assault on Gaza (December 2008-January 2009), making the treatment of patients within the tiny coastal territory near impossible.

After listing the urgently needed equipment and medical supplies Dr. Tatter explains that “We have enough for maybe five operations.” He adds that in the past it took a month to get even basic supplies and solutions.

However, in spite of the difficult circumstances, what is really lacking are the actual cardiac surgeons necessary for heart procedures. “We have the hospital and the equipment need for the procedures. We do have a shortage of some instruments and solutions used in the surgery but we could do a small number of operations today if we had the doctors.”

“We would like to send doctors outside for specialist training, but because of the closed borders it’s impossible,” says Dr. Tatter. The problem, he says, is that it is not easy to simply train others. “It requires specialists to do the training.”

Roughly 10 years ago, surgeons were coming to Gaza from different countries, staying on to provide training and/or operations. Today, the Israeli siege, supported by Egypt has made it near impossible for visiting doctors to enter Gaza, no matter how badly they are needed.

From 4 May to 22 May, a group of visiting medical specialists attempted to enter Gaza via the Egyptian-controlled Rafah crossing. Three medical professionals, two from London’s Hammersmith Hospital, waited nearly one month for permission to enter Gaza, to establish a cardiac surgery unit at Shifa Hospital and to provide some of the vitally-needed training to doctors and medical students.

Omar Mangoush, a cardiac surgeon at Hammersmith, Christopher Burns-Cox, a retired consultant physician, and Kirsty Wong, a nurse at Hammersmith Hospital were the latest team to head to Gaza via Palestine International Medical Aid (PIMA), a UK-based charity which has successfully sent two medical delegations to Gaza already this year.

On 19 May, after two weeks of being denied entry by Egyptian authorities, the Hammersmith team, joined by six other doctors and nurses, began a hunger strike to protest the banning of medical expertise from Gaza. Even when Code Pink and Hope convoys were granted entry, Egyptians controlling Rafah refused to allow the Hammersmith team into Gaza.

Christopher Burns-Cox, who has previously visited Gaza five times in order to provide medical training, reported that he’d planned to both consult with medical students at Gaza’s al-Azhar University and with patients at the Strip’s al-Wafa rehabilitation hospital.

He added that his colleague, Dr. Mangoush, was “keen to restart what is life-saving and not necessarily very expensive surgery.” However, since both of his colleagues were using their leave time to travel to Gaza and due to the wait at Rafah crossing, it is unlikely that either will be able to return any time soon. Although not accompanying the Hammersmith team, Dr. Sonia Robbins, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon from the UK, also found herself locked out of Gaza, although she is a regular visiting doctor in Gaza.

Just a few days after the PIMA trio left, the siege claimed Gaza’s 337th victim, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Muhammad Rami Ibrahim Nofal, a one-year-old infant from Khan Younis, died on 25 May precisely because of the inability to operate on his heart.

Eva Bartlett is a Canadian human rights advocate and freelancer who arrived in Gaza in November 2008 on the third Free Gaza Movement boat. She has been volunteering with the International Solidarity Movement and documenting Israel’s ongoing attacks on Palestinians in Gaza. During Israel’s recent assault on Gaza, she and other ISM volunteers accompanied ambulances and documenting the Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip.

Israeli bulldozers demolish 15 barns, three shacks in Jordan Valley

Ma’an News

17 June 2009

Israeli bulldozers demolished 15 animal barns and 3 shacks owned by Palestinian residents of Ein Al-Hilwa neighborhood in the Jordan Valley near Israeli settlement of Masquin, eyewitnesses reported Wednesday morning.

Palestinian Authority official Ghassan Daghlas, who monitors Israeli settlement activity in the northern West Bank, condemned the demolition describing it as part of a clear Israeli policy aimed at emptying the Jordan Valley of all Palestinian residents.

Daghlas called on the international community to exert pressure on Israel to stop displacing the Palestinian citizens from their homes and lands they have lived on for decades.

Aid agencies denounce Gaza blockade

Ma’an News

17 June 2009

A group of 38 United Nations and non-governmental organizations issued a denunciation of Israel’s ongoing blockade of the Gaza Strip.

The groups, which include UNRWA, the United Nations Development Fund for Women and Oxfam International, the amount of goods now allowed into Gaza is still one-quarter of what it was before the imposition of the blockade in 2007.

Israel locked down Gaza’s borders following the June 2007 Hamas takeover, trapping 1.5 million Palestinians inside and creating scarcities of numerous items, including food, medicine, and fuel. Currently, construction materials, needed to rebuild the Strip from last winter’s war, are completely barred.

The following is the full text of the humanitarian agencies’ statement:

We, United Nations and non-governmental humanitarian organisations, express deepening concern over Israel’s continued blockade of the Gaza Strip which has now been in force for two years.

These indiscriminate sanctions are affecting the entire 1.5 million population of Gaza and ordinary women, children and the elderly are the first victims.

The amount of goods allowed into Gaza under the blockade is one quarter of the pre- blockade flow. Eight out of every ten truckloads contains food but even that is restricted to a mere 18 food items. Seedlings and calves are not allowed so Gaza’s farmers cannot make up the nutritional shortfall. Even clothes and shoes, toys and school books are routinely prohibited.

Furthermore the suffocation of Gaza’s economy has led to unprecedented unemployment and poverty rates and almost total aid dependency. While Gazans are being kept alive through humanitarian aid, ordinary civilians have lost all quality of life as they fight to survive.

The consequences of Israel’s recent military operation remain widespread as early recovery materials have been prevented from entering Gaza. Thousands of people are living with holes in their walls, broken windows and no running water.

We call for free and uninhibited access for all humanitarian assistance in accordance with the international agreements and in accordance with universally recognized international human rights and humanitarian law standards. We also call for a return to normalized trade to enable the poverty and unemployment rates to decrease.

The blockade of the Gaza Strip is creating an atmosphere of deprivation in Gaza that can only deepen the sense of hopelessness and despair among people. The people of Gaza need to be shown an alternative of hope and dignity. Allowing human development and prosperity to take hold is an essential first step towards the establishment of lasting peace.

Signed By:

Action Against Hunger

Acted

Acsur-Las Segovias

American Friends of UNRWA

American Near East Refugee Aid

Asamblea de Cooperacion Por la Paz

Austcare

Biladi

CARE International West Bank and Gaza.

Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions

DanChurchAid

Defense for Children International

Enfants du Monde-Droits de l’Homme

International Relief Fund for the Afflicted and Needy – Canada

Japan International Volunteer Centre

Life Source

Medecins du Monde France

Medecins du Monde Spain

Medecins du Monde Switzerland

Medical Aid for Palestinians

Movement for Peace

Mujeres por la Paz y Acción Solidaria de Palestina

Norwegian People’s Aid

Norwegian Refugee Council

Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights

Oxfam International

Paz Ahora

Peace and Solidarity Haydée Santamaría, Cultural Asociation

Premiere Urgence

Relief International

Spanish Committee of UNHCR

Spanish Committee of UNRWA

Swedish Organization for Individual Relief

Terre des Hommes Italy

United Nations Development Fund for Women

United Nations Relief and Works Agency

War Child Holland

World Vision International

Farmers, activists beaten and arrested in Saffa

Palestine Solidarity Project

15 June 2009

This Saturday, as has been done every Saturday for over a month, International and Israeli activists joined Hamad and Jabber Soleiby and their families as they worked their land in Saffa, near Bat ‘Ain settlement. This Saturday, however, both the Israeli army and settlers from the right-wing extremist settlement were ready and waiting.

While soldiers stood by and watched, settlers threw rocks at the farmers and solidarity activists and rolled boulders down into the agricultural land. Soldiers then shouted across the small valley to the solidarity activists, telling them it was a closed military zone and the people would have to leave. While the farmers and solidarity activists agreed they would leave if ordered to, attempting to avoid a confrontation such as those that had occurred the previous two weeks, they still demanded that the settlers were forced to leave at the same time, fearing they would do damage to the agricultural land after the farmers left the area.

After the solidarity activists and farmers began to leave the area, soldiers and border police ran up from behind the group and grabbed the youngest farmer. When international and Israeli activists from Palestine Solidarity Project and Anarchists Against the Wall objected, the soldiers began indiscriminately beating the solidarity activists. Internationals were placed in choke-holds, thrown to the ground and had their heads smashed into rocks. Israeli activists were dragged by their hair and all were beaten with batons while trying to protect the Palestinian farmer.

Finally, the soldiers managed to pull the Palestinian farmer away from the activists, who were held on the ground by several soldiers and border police. In the end, the Palestinian was only questioned and asked to show his ID before being released, while one American-Israeli from Palestine Solidarity Project, and a Scottish National and a German national from International Solidarity Movement were all arrested and accused of attacking soldiers and border police.

While in custody, the Scottish national was attacked again by one of the border policemen, who grabbed him by the throat and threw him against the wall while in the Qiryat Arba police station.

Even though the aggression and violence was clearly on the part of the border police and soldiers, the three activists were still brought before a judge in the Jerusalem “peace” court, where they were all given conditional releases pending a further investigation of the allegations.

A world away, Palestinian seeks justice

Iain Marlow | The Star

16 June 2009

First came the fence, which splintered the olive trees from Bil’in, the Palestinian village that tended them. Then came the tear gas canister that hit a local, well-liked man named Basem Abu Rahme in the chest, killing him.

Everyone knew Basem, which is what everyone called him. Mohammed Khatib, one of the village’s 1,700 residents, was at that protest, and is still deeply disturbed by the death. Khatib, 35, was in Toronto on the weekend on a national tour to promote the village’s latest bid to seek justice – using Quebec’s courts to stop Israeli settlements.

“We want to show that there is no justice in Israel,” said Khatib.

The case, filed last year, alleges Green Park International Inc. and Green Mount International Inc. are complicit in war crimes because they helped build an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank. The village’s lawyers have based their case on international and domestic Canadian law.

Canada’s federal Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act states a population transfer by an occupying power to “territory it occupies” is a serious violation of international humanitarian law.

Montreal lawyer Ronald Levy, who represents the corporations, declined to comment in detail, saying only he “questioned why they found it necessary to conduct a cross-Canada tour.”

Mark Arnold, the village’s Canadian lawyer, said Levy will argue the case should be tried in Israel and that it should be dismissed on jurisdictional grounds. First, Arnold said, the case deserves to be heard here because the companies are registered in Quebec.

“Secondly, the Israeli courts have never, and will never, hear a case that deals with the illegality of settlements on the West Bank.”

For human rights groups and others, using domestic law to prosecute alleged foreign crimes is not new. In May, under the same federal act, a Quebec court found Désiré Munyaneza guilty of war crimes committed during the Rwandan genocide in 1994.

Most famously, the American oil corporation Unocal was dragged into a U.S. court in 2005 by Burmese villagers who alleged the company was complicit in human rights violations there. The company settled for an undisclosed amount, generating buzz among human rights groups that domestic laws may help in their struggle against international corporations.

In 1998, however, a Quebec court dismissed a class-action suit that sought damages from a Canadian company, Cambior, for a chemical spill in Guyana. The judge said the plaintiffs should instead seek redress in the Guyanese legal system.

But Emily Schaeffer, an Israeli lawyer representing the village, said they are looking to a recent, more positive precedent involving the corporation Veolia, commissioned to run a rail system between West Jerusalem and East Jerusalem, also considered occupied territory under international law.

“The French courts ruled that they had jurisdiction over acts that took place in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories,” Schaeffer said. “That sets a really good precedent for us, particularly, because it’s a French court’s civil law system, which the Quebec courts were modelled after.”

The dismissal motions begin Monday in Montreal.