Needless Deaths Caused by The Politics of Inhumanity
When politics and enmity ignore human suffering, the consequences are often deadly.
Even after the end of the attacks and killing in Gaza, people are held hostage in an incredibly tangled, political web that becomes a matter of life and death for those average individuals caught in its merciless net which costs the lives of those who need medical treatment.
The politics of inhumanity seems to have the upper hand.
Mohammed Omer at IPS News reports: "Mohammed Al-Sheikh Yousef could save his eyesight if only he could cross the border out of Gaza. He was denied a permit by Israel; he got one from Egypt, but not for someone to accompany him. And he can't go on his own because he cannot see very well.
" 'f Mohammed does not get out of Gaza for medical treatment within the next 14 days, he may totally lose his eyesight and be blind for life,' Dr. Mawia Hasaneen, head of the ambulance and emergency service for Gaza hospitals told IPS in a telephone interview.
" 'In the past few weeks we have received 150 appeals from people in Gaza who are in need of urgent medical care,' says Ran Yaron from Physicians for Human Rights, a human rights group in Israel that campaigns on behalf of Palestinian patients to obtain exit permits for healthcare.
" 'We submitted 99 applications to the Israeli army on behalf of the patients, but only 15 cases were approved,' Yaron told IPS. 'Israel as the occupying power has primary responsibility for the health of the civilians of Gaza because it controls the crossings. It should not use the patients as a political tool.'
"The emergency staff often stand by helpless spectators to suffering. "I just received a call from the mother of a four-year-old child from Jabalyia refugee camp in the north, her son has congestive heart failure and respiratory distress," said Dr. Hasaneen. "As an official I can't stand watch her child dying simply because medical treatment is not available in Gaza and the borders are closed." But he has no option but to do just that.
"The Al-Mezan Centre for Human Rights based in Gaza says that at least 41 Gazans died last year of causes that can be attributed to the collapse of the medical referral process. Currently, it says the condition of hundreds of Gazans is deteriorating rapidly.
"For Gazans, what happens at the border crossings can make the difference between life and death. Medicines for many easily treated diseases sit across the Rafah crossing with Egypt or the Erez crossing into Israel. Patients cannot get across, and most medicines are not allowed in.
"Egypt says it can only reopen the border fully with the co-operation of the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority - which has no control over Gaza. Meanwhile at least 750 patients in urgent need of treatment outside Gaza are unable to leave, according to medical sources in Gaza."
Even after the end of the attacks and killing in Gaza, people are held hostage in an incredibly tangled, political web that becomes a matter of life and death for those average individuals caught in its merciless net which costs the lives of those who need medical treatment.
The politics of inhumanity seems to have the upper hand.
Mohammed Omer at IPS News reports: "Mohammed Al-Sheikh Yousef could save his eyesight if only he could cross the border out of Gaza. He was denied a permit by Israel; he got one from Egypt, but not for someone to accompany him. And he can't go on his own because he cannot see very well.
" 'f Mohammed does not get out of Gaza for medical treatment within the next 14 days, he may totally lose his eyesight and be blind for life,' Dr. Mawia Hasaneen, head of the ambulance and emergency service for Gaza hospitals told IPS in a telephone interview.
" 'In the past few weeks we have received 150 appeals from people in Gaza who are in need of urgent medical care,' says Ran Yaron from Physicians for Human Rights, a human rights group in Israel that campaigns on behalf of Palestinian patients to obtain exit permits for healthcare.
" 'We submitted 99 applications to the Israeli army on behalf of the patients, but only 15 cases were approved,' Yaron told IPS. 'Israel as the occupying power has primary responsibility for the health of the civilians of Gaza because it controls the crossings. It should not use the patients as a political tool.'
"The emergency staff often stand by helpless spectators to suffering. "I just received a call from the mother of a four-year-old child from Jabalyia refugee camp in the north, her son has congestive heart failure and respiratory distress," said Dr. Hasaneen. "As an official I can't stand watch her child dying simply because medical treatment is not available in Gaza and the borders are closed." But he has no option but to do just that.
"The Al-Mezan Centre for Human Rights based in Gaza says that at least 41 Gazans died last year of causes that can be attributed to the collapse of the medical referral process. Currently, it says the condition of hundreds of Gazans is deteriorating rapidly.
"For Gazans, what happens at the border crossings can make the difference between life and death. Medicines for many easily treated diseases sit across the Rafah crossing with Egypt or the Erez crossing into Israel. Patients cannot get across, and most medicines are not allowed in.
"Egypt says it can only reopen the border fully with the co-operation of the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority - which has no control over Gaza. Meanwhile at least 750 patients in urgent need of treatment outside Gaza are unable to leave, according to medical sources in Gaza."
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