Palestinians stranded at Rafah declare a hunger strike

[ 06/07/2007 - 06:39 PM ]

RAFAH, (PIC)-- 

A number of Palestinians stranded at the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing, in the southern Gaza Strip on Friday declared they are going on a hunger strike to protest the fact that their plight over the past twenty days was being ignored.

More than 6000 Palestinian passengers are stranded at the Egyptian side, many of them patients and they include women, children and elderly people. They are living in very harsh conditions as they have to sleep pavements and are running out of money. Many of them are in need of medical attention.

The Israeli occupation authorities have closed the Rafah crossing since 19th June and only opened it for a short while on two occasions, to allow some deported Palestinians held at Egyptian ports to return to Gaza, and the second occasion was to allow representatives of Palestinian factions who were having talks in Cairo to return to Gaza. A part from that the crossing has been closed for normal passenger movement between the Gaza Strip and Egypt.

The Mizan human rights organization has issued an appeal for the crossing to be opened to end the plight of the thousands of stranded passengers, stressing that the organization has learnt of 14 deaths so far amongst the stranded passengers whose corpses were allowed to be transported to the Strip via the Karm Abu Salem crossing, but living people are so far not allowed to return.

The organization appealed to the international community to intervene and help end the plight of those Palestinians who are being subjected to a form of collective punishment by the Israeli occupation.

Solidarity visit to the stranded Palestinian passengers at al-Areesh

[ 06/07/2007 - 12:23 PM ]

AL-AREESH, (PIC)-- 

The relief committee of the Arab Doctors Association visited stranded Palestinians at Al-Areesh to the west of Rafah to extend help and evaluate the needs of the stranded passengers.

The head of the committee, Dr. Jamal Abdessalam, who headed the visiting delegation told PIC correspondent that the delegation visited stranded passengers at al-Areesh airport and hospital and that the delegation were accompanied by Dr. Kamel al-Sha'rawi, head of the doctors syndicate in north Sinai.

Dr. Abdessalam told PIC that the delegation provided some financial help to those who needed it as well as two wheelchairs to two patients as well as taking a list of items needed by stranded passengers to provide them as soon as possible.

Most of those stranded passengers are patients from the Gaza Strip who came to Egypt seeking medical treatment.

Dr. Abdessalam also told PIC that the delegation visited about 80 passengers stranded at al-Areesh airport saying that the relief committee was in touch with them since the start of their plight and that they provided them with mattresses and covers as well as three meals a day, pointing that this visit was aimed at evaluating the medical needs of the stranded passengers.

He called on Egyptian authorities to work for the opening of the Rafah terminal to end the plight of the hundreds of stranded Palestinians.

The stranded passengers told PIC correspondent that they want to return to Gaza as soon as possible through the Rafah terminal.

A young Palestinian who was being treated for wounds in Egypt told PIC correspondent that lists of names of those wishing to return through the Karm Abu Salem crossing, which is under direct Israeli control, were being collected which he viewed as blackmail, because some of those returning risk being arrested by the Israelis claiming that they were wanted by the occupation authorities.

An elderly Palestinian who was also being treated in Egypt agreed by saying they use the fact that we are sick and we ran out of money to put pressure on us to make us agree to return through the Karm Abu Salem crossing.

Dr. Sha'rawi told PIC that he views the work that the association is doing for their Palestinian brothers as a return of favor, adding that when Sinai was still under occupation their were only three Egyptian doctors in the whole of Sinai and that about ten Palestinian doctors used to visit Sinai on voluntary basis to provide medical services to those who needed it, naming late Dr. Abdel-Aziz al-Rantisi and Dr. Mahmoud al-Zahhar as regular volunteers who used to visit even those rural areas of Sinai to bring medical services to areas that had none.

 

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