Democratic Palestine : 40 (ص 6)
غرض
- عنوان
- Democratic Palestine : 40 (ص 6)
- المحتوى
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Obstruction of health care
Violations of medical human rights are commonplace
in the occupied territories. Medical sanctuary does not exist
for the Palestinians, whose hospitals and clinics are fre-
quently raided by soldiers who arrest wounded from their
beds. Medical personnel and patients alike are targets of
violence in these raids. Troops have beaten doctors and
nurses, and in at least one case which occurred on the
grounds of Shifa Hospital in Gaza in December 1987, shot
dead two Palestinians. Medical equipment has been dam-
aged or destroyed so as to endanger Palestinian lives. Sol-
diers have even ripped out intravenous drips from patients’
arms. As well, ambulances are frequently denied access to
the wounded or stopped and searched while transporting
them. Such delays have resulted in several Palestinians
bleeding to death before reaching hospital. Troops have
comandeered ambulances at gunpoint and used them as
decoys to enter Palestinian communities to make arrests.
Thousands of Palestinians have been arrested during
the uprising and held in Israeli prisons and detention centers
where they are routinely denied proper health care. As a
result, several prisoners have died after being denied proper
medical treatment. One woman administrative detainee
from Gaza, Tahani Abu Daqgqa, miscarried her baby after
being denied medical care when she started hemorraging in
Ramle prison. When she first asked for treatment, the
prison nurse «advised» her to have an abortion, as she was
going to lose the baby «anyway.» Tahani refused and was
Huda Munir, nine months, from Jabalya refugee camp in the Gaza Strip,
lost her eye to a rubber bullet.
-Rick Reinhard
Hill
left bleeding on her cell floor. She was eventually taken to
hospital where she miscarried her baby.
As well, medica! care is severely disrupted during the
frequent and prolonged curfews of Palestinian camps and
villages. Often health teams are denied entry under curfew.
Clinics, if allowed to open, remain empty because the popu-
lation cannot leave their homes to attend them. Such cur-
fews interfere with care for people with injuries, but also for
those with chronic illnesses. Immunization programs have
been seriously disrupted, as has prenatal care. Pregnant
women are further affected if they go into labor under cur-
few. There have been reported cases of women being forced
to sneak on foot into clinics to give birth to their babies.
Actions taken against medical personnel by the occupa-
tion authorities are varied and numerous. Doctors have
been barred from their work in villages, refugee camps and
hospitals and even punished for performing their medical
duties. In one instance, a doctor from a refugee camp in
Gaza was beaten by soldiers, tied to the hood of their jeep
and driven around the camp after treating a sick child who
came to his house under curfew. Physicians trying to reach
health centers and hospitals have had their cars stopped and
searched, often being humiliated and beaten in the process.
It is difficult to know the exact number of medical profes-
sionals who have been arrested during the uprising, but con-
servative estimates range in the dozens, most of whom are
held without charge or trial in administrative detention.
Israeli officials have also instituted cutbacks and made
medical care more financially inaccessible to the Palestinian
community as part of this front against the intifada. In July
1988, the military authorities issued new hospitalization reg-
ulations making three days advance payment mandatory for
Palestinians upon admission. The cost per night in hospital
is about $150 - an amount which exceeds the monthly
income of a large sector of the population. Accompanying
this was the cancellation of all health development projects,
a 20 percent health care personnel reduction and a two-
thirds cut in the number of hospital days allocated for Pales-
tinians in better-equipped Israeli hospitals. With these new
measures, the occupation authorities announced unequivoc-
ally their intention to use medical care as a weapon against
Palestinians in the occupied territories.
«Epidemic of violence»
«There is an essentially uncontrolled epidemic of vio-
lence by soldiers and police in the West Bank and Gaza
Strip, on a scale and degree of severity that poses the most
serious medical, ethical and legal problems.» This was the
first conclusion reached by the PHR delegation after their
visit to the occupied territories during the intifada. Then
Defense Minister Rabin’s infamous statement about using
«force, might, beatings» to crush the uprising only made
public what had been known to the Palestinians for some
time: the policy of the occupation forces is to indiscrimi-
nately inflict maximum damage on the population. It has
been conservatively estimated that tens of thousands of
Palestinians have been injured during the uprising, and
about one thousand killed. The number of those injured is
varticularly under-reported as, fearing arrest, many of the
injured do not seek care at formal medical sites.
Methods of violence employed against the civilian
population include live ammunition (including plastic bul-
lets), rubber bullets, plastic-covered metal bullets, beating,
tear gas and burns. The particular means of violence used
by the occupation forces pose severe, problematic medical
Democratic Palestine, July-August 1990 - هو جزء من
- Democratic Palestine : 40
- تاريخ
- أغسطس ١٩٩٠
- المنشئ
- الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير فلسطين
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