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OPT: Health-related violations

Evacuation of wounded

AlAeidi wounded family update - still trapped for the fourth day running

The family, including six injured persons, is trapped in an isolated area outside Gazacity, for the fourth consecutive day. Despite involvement of PHR-Israel, the Red Crescent, the Red Cross, Israeli journalists and members of parliament, there is no progress. A letter was sent by fax to PHR-Israel on 7.1.09 from the Aide to the Minister of Defense Adv. Ruth Bar, according to which contact had been made with the family and the request for evacuation had been "transferred to the relevant professional bodies". The Israeli military authorities, however, have still not sent any evacuation team nor permitted the access of Palestinian or international evacuation teams to the six injured persons. Gunfire still prevented the exit of the family from their homes. During the pause of fire, ambulances were still not able to reach the house, which was surrounded by Israeli forces.

Attacks on medical personnel, medical facilities, civilians

High Court Petition to protect medical personnel and ensure evacuation

On 6.1.09 8 Israeli human rights organizations submitted a petition to the Israeli High Court of Justice to stop targeting medical personnel and ambulances and to enable evacuation of wounded people within Gaza. Adalah's attorney Fatmeh Al Aju wrote the petition based on information collected by Physicians for Human Rights-Israel.

Attack against ICRC (Red Cross) coordinator in Gaza, 6.1.09

Testimony of Muhammad Ramadan of the ICRC, 7.1.09:

Yesterday at 13:00 the driver and I set out to transfer urgent medical supplies by ICRC truck to Khan Younis. Our exit was pre-coordinated with the Israeli army and the truck is clearly marked with the ICRC symbols. When we reached netzarim junction [on the main north-south road in Gaza- PHR-Israel], a tank short at us from its machine gun. I could see the tank clearly. The bullets his the ground 15 meteres away from us. Afterwards we were also shot at from the air. We back up some 100 metersand then the tank shot again. We went back to the office and after an hour we set out again, but we were shot at again in the Netzarim area. In the end we didn't transfer the medical supplies. It should be noted that this axis has been closed since the start of the operation and only today, 7.1.09, we can travel through them for the first time, although we have been clarifying the need for access since the start of the operation

The shelling of the UNRWA school on 6.1.09

According to the most recent reports regarding a direct hit on the UNRWA school in Jabaliya yesterday, 43 people have been killed, all civilians, mainly women and children.

According to the Director of the Kamal Adwan hospital which received most of the casualties, Dr. Bassam Abu Warda, the school had been given by UNRWA as a temporary shelter to ten families who had been ordered to flee their homes due to bombardment of their homes.

According to Dr. Abu Warda, 30 dead bodies and 40 injured people were brought to his hospital, while 10 bodies and 30 injured people were sent to the neighboring hospital Al Awda. He defined 25 of the wounded persons he saw as seriously wounded. He said that there were many children among the casualties, and that 70% of the adults were women. He said he had seen no armed persons among the casualties and that all were civilians.

Air Strike on A-RaeiyaMedicalCenterand its mobile clinics: 5.1.09.

This medical center, located near shifaa hospital in GazaCity, in the center of a residential area, was opened four years ago. There are no governmental or military installations in its vicinity.

On Sunday 4.1.09, after the workers of the center had left, the mobile clinics remained parked in the parking lot. At 1am on the 5th of January both the center and the vehicles were bombed from the air. Israeli human rights organization Btselem has collected testimony from the head of the executive committee of the medical center, Raed Sabah, who said: "The center is well known, and everybody knows it only provides medical services. It admits more than 100 patients per day, and bears flags with medical symbols. No warning was received before the air strike".

The damage to the center is estimated at 800 thousand dollars. The center provides expert care for internal diseases, a pediatric clinic, gynecology and obstetrics services, urology, neurosurgery and emergency service. The three mobile clinics of the center, donated by the Spanish, were completely destroyed. The workers have submitted a complaint to the Red Cross.

Eyewitness report of Yihia Hassan, an ambulance driver who was injured while on duty on Jan. 4, 2009. Collected by PHR-Israel on Jan. 6, 2009.

My name is Hassan, I am 38 years old, and a father of 4 children and I live in Tel al- Hawa. I work as an ambulance driver for al Khidmat at- Tabiya al- Askariya hospital.

On Jan. 4, 2009 I was at the hospital at 16:00, we got a phone call from one of the residents, he said some people in the region of Dachduch, south of Al -Hawa, were injured. I went out with the rescue vehicle together with the volunteer Anas Faisal Na'im and with Rafat abd al-Ghal, and with Muhammad al- Jamasi. Another ambulance left together with us, with Hazem al -Berawee as the driver, and Yasser al- Shabir as the volunteer. When we arrived at the scene, at the end of 10 th street, we met a ten year old boy who told us that the people who are injured are all inside on Ramle st. The two ambulances parked and the volunteers Anas, Rafat, Muhammad and Yasser walked in the direction of the place where the wounded were lying. This was about 50 metersfrom the rescue vehicles. When we arrived, a plane shot a missile toward the place were the wounded were waiting. The second driver and myself, we ran away from the scene with one of the vehicles, in the direction of Al Quds hospital. In the hospital we were told that Yasser, Rafat, Anas and the young boy were killed.

Condition of sick patients deteriorates due to inability of Gazahospitals to treat them and inability to refer to external centers

PHR-Israel knows of 16 severe medical cases whose requests to exit Gazafor medical care unavailable in Gazawas sent to the Israeli authorities but never answered. The Palestinian Medical Referrals Coordinator Rif'at Muhaisan, working from home, spoke of 12 such cases, and an additional four applied directly to PHR-Israel - three cancer patients, one of them a one-year old girl, and one urgent neurosurgical case.

Erez Crossing authorities told PHR-Israel today that it would not open the Crossing to referred patients at present.

In addition, since Gaza hospitals were obliged to send many of their chronic patients home due to the crisis, it is feared that many of the chronically ill are in deteriorating condition due to lack of access to medical care. PHR-Israel is collecting data on this issue.

Testimonies collected on Tuesday, Jan. 6 2009 by PHR-Israel, from Gazaresidents it had assisted in the past.

Khaled, from Khan Younis, a father of four children

There is no electricity. We have water but there is no medicine in the hospitals. The UN food supplies stopped coming some time ago, so there is no food. The only things left in the stores are snacks or chocolate. There is no milk, no flour and no eggs. The boys don't sleep all night long and my four year old daughter will not eat. Amir, my ten year old son was supposed to travel to Israelfor his scheduled chemotherapy treatment, he had a permit (from the Israeli army) but the way to the Erez crossing was blocked by tanks and it was impossible to reach the crossing. We tried to get to the European hospital which is 8 km. away from our house but the roads were blocked and hardly any cars were able to pass, so I carried Amir on my back the whole way. The hospital was out of the medicine that Amir needed and we were told that they can not give him the treatment that he gets in Israel. So Amir is not being treated and is not taking any medicine or pain killers.

The Al Sawafiri family, Gazacity

The father: 30 people from our extended family are staying with us because their house is adjacent to Mahmoud Al- Zaher (A Hamas leader) and they are afraid to stay at home. There is no electricity, no cooking gas and no water. There is a severe shortage of food in the village. What little food that can be found is extremely expensive, for example a box of eggs costs 17 shekels (more than 3 euro). Drinking water has to be bought in bottles but it is so dangerous to leave the house for supplies that they try to go out as little as possible.

Ashraf Kdeih, Khan Younis, near the Israel-Gaza border

We get electricity for only four hours a day, once a week there is water in the taps so we save as much as we can in plastic bottles. A 12 kg. container of cooking gas that used to cost us 35 shekels (about 7 euro) is now 150 shekels (about 50 euro), and it is extremely difficult to find containers. My wife and I are both at home but we send our children to Khan Younis because it is safer there. The children are terrified but we manage to keep in touch on a daily basis. All day long we hear the bombing and it is impossible to leave the house. Yesterday I got a phone call from an automatic machine that said, in Arabic, that we need to leave the house and move to the city. We have no where to go to and I don't want to evacuate, so as of now we are imprisoned in our own house.

Antar, Beit Lahiya

We are 16 people in the house, 12 of them are children and a baby that was born this week. We all live in one room and we go out only when we have to go to the toilets or to shower. Two hours a day there is electricity and during these two hours some one runs to prepare bread or to cook in the kitchen. The stores in the neighborhood are closed and it is too dangerous to go out and look for products. Yesterday, one of our family members, who also lives in the neighborhood, went out for food and was killed. All the windows in the house are broken so it is cold at night and we do not have enough blankets. We hear the bombing from all directions, tanks, jeeps, planes- it is terrifying.

Testimony collected on 7.1.09 by PHR-Israel from Sa'ed, resident of GazaCity

The tanks are surrounding the city and are shooting inside all the time. We are 150 people in one four-room apartment. People keep looking at their children and hugging them. My daughter, 3 years old, keeps asking, when will the plane come. We are all longing for death. Donkeys and dogs in Israelhave a better life than ours. There is nothing here. In Gazacity there is no electricity, here we have electricity for 6 hours a day. The water is very dirty but we have no choice so we drink it. We haven't seen the international organizations recently. Mothers go out into the streets to look for their children, one mother saw the head of her son disconnected from its body. I want my kids and the children in Sderot to go to school. Your media doesn't show you the truth - we are being shot at from every direction, also from the sea now. We are strangling here, let them just open the crossings, they don't let us live. I tell you - now all of Gazais Hamas? One and a half million people. Khaled Meshal wants to be a leader - he kills a nation, Ehud Barak wants to be a leader - he kills a nation. It's worse than 1948.

"3-hour humanitarian pause" ?

The Israeli army informed us yesterday morning that from 13:00 until 16:00 the shooting would be paused to enable evacuation of injured and to let people purchase essential goods. However, according to the information collected by PHR-Israel, most Palestinians are not aware of this declaration and therefore cannot take advantage of it. Although the Red Cross had been informed, the Palestinian Civil Affairs Committee had not been informed of the pause until PHR-Israel's call prompted it to enquire by phone with the army. PHR-Israel called upon the Israeli army to inform all Palestinians, in any form, whether by loudspeakers or any other way, of the planned pause. The shooting did stop, but there were not enough teams or enough coordination mechanisms in place to evacuate all those who needed evacuation. Moreover, free movement was not enabled in all parts of the Gaza Strip, resulting in continuing difficulties in evacuation.

Donations flow in for emergency medical aid

Following the appeal PHR-Israel sent out for aid to Gazahospitals, numerous people from Israel - both Jews and Arabs - and overseas sent us donations, whether as small symbols of support and protest from individuals or as more significant donations for concrete aid. PHR-Israel is purchasing a first dispatch implants for urgent orthopedic procedures today, to a value of about 100,000 US dollars.

Miri Weingarten
Director, OPT Department and International Advocacy
Physicians for Human Rights-Israel
+972 3 5133115
+972 546 995199