Israeli High Court ruling traps Palestinian cancer patients in Gaza Strip

Date: 09 / 01 / 2008 Time: 11:39

Gaza – Ma'an –

Fourteen extremely ill patients from the Gaza Strip who were denied permits on to enter Israel for medical treatment either in Israel, Jordan, or Egypt lost an appeal to the Israeli High Court of Justice on Tuesday, according to Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) in Israel, who took the appeal to court.

Time is critical for these patients, most of whom have cancer. Early medical intervention is often a matter of life or death in cancer cases.

Israeli state attorneys argued that the patients do not need to enter Israel through Erez crossing, but should instead go to Egypt whenever the Egyptian border crossings are opened.

However, Physicians for Human Rights argued, nobody knows how long it will be before either Kerem Shalom or Rafah border crossings will be open again.

Israel strongly protested the passage of Gazan pilgrims going to and returning from the Hajj pilgrimage through Rafah without European Union observers present and without Israeli agreement.

The EU abandoned its observation position at Rafah following Hamas' mid-June rout of Fatah security forces in Gaza, and has not returned.

The PHR attorney Yohanna Lerman, noted that after the Court hearing, that Kerem Shalom has only been open four days in recent months and patients were given only one or two hours notice of the opening, which was not enough time for most of them to make arrangements for the trip.

There is no medical treatment for cancer available in Gaza now, Lerner said. Crucial radioactive materials and MRI equipment are not allowed into Gaza. "We are denying Gaza's doctors the ability to treat these patients, yet they are not allowed to go to West Bank or to Palestinian hospitals in East Jerusalem for appropriate care," he said.

In another development, PHR was informed on Tuesday evening that it had received a permit from the military for a small group of Israeli Arab medical doctors to enter Gaza through Erez crossing on Wednesday. The doctors plan to bring needed medical supplies, and to visit Ash-Shifa Hospital.

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