clear

Creating new perspectives since 2009

Europeans call for saving Gaza patients

June 28, 2017 at 12:32 pm

Newborn babies at the intensive care unit are seen at the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on 27 June, 2017 [Ali Jadallah/Anadolu Agency]

The European Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza has expressed its deep concern about the deaths of two Palestinian children after they were prevented by Israel from leaving the enclave to receive treatment in the occupied West Bank, Quds Press has reported. After hearing that infants Mosaab Al-Ar’eer and Bilal Ghebin had died, the campaign group called for the lives of seriously ill patients in the Gaza Strip to be saved.

#EndGazaSiege

“Preventing patients from travelling for treatment is a crime to be added to the list of other crimes committed by the Israeli occupation authorities against civilians in Gaza,” said spokesman Mazen Kaheel. “Israel’s imposition of collective punishment on more than two million people in Gaza is a flagrant violation of the simplest of human rights which are guaranteed by international laws and conventions and, indeed, Divinely-revealed religions.”

Kaheel insisted that the Israeli occupation authorities must be brought to account for their constant violations of international humanitarian law. “Israel must pay for its crimes,” he added.

Read: Israeli NGO warns of worsening health conditions in Gaza

The European campaign called on the World Health Organisation, the UN and the Palestinian Authority to secure a humanitarian corridor for patients and people with basic needs to move freely in order to access proper treatment in specialist hospitals, wherever they are located. The group’s statement said that it has contacted several parties in the EU regarding this issue.

According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, 13 patients have died due to being unable to leave the Gaza Strip for treatment, two of them within the past few days.