[News] Israel's killer bureaucracy - imposes severe restrictions on Palestinian patients seeking medical treatment

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://electronicintifada.net/content/israels-killer-bureaucracy/17226


  Israel's killer bureaucracy

Refaat Alareer <https://electronicintifada.net/people/refaat-alareer> 28 
June 2016

There are scores of ways by which Israel kills Palestinians; shedding 
their blood with sophisticated weapons is only one.

This is the story of my cousin Awad Alareer, who died because Israel 
imposes severe restrictions on Palestinian patients seeking medical 
treatment outside the Gaza Strip, especially in the occupied West Bank, 
including Jerusalem.

Awad, an 18-year-old from Gaza, died less than a year after he was 
diagnosed with bone cancer.

He needed permits to get treatment outside Gaza. Israel delayed issuing 
those permits on several occasions.

Awad came from a family of farmers. They were expelled from land in the 
greater Gaza Strip during the Nakba 
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/nakba>, the 1948 ethnic cleansing 
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/ethnic-cleansing> of Palestine.

Awad was named after his grandfather, who is now aged 84 and one of the 
oldest farmers in the Gaza Strip.

The elder Awad lost tens of acres when Israel was established on 
Palestinian lands in 1948. After 2000, he lost most of what remained of 
his land to the “buffer zone” that Israel imposed on Gaza.

In practice, the “buffer zone” covers everywhere in Gaza that is within 
two kilometers of its boundary with present-day Israel.

According to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights 
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/pchr>, approximately 30 percent of 
Gaza’s agricultural land cannot be worked 
<http://pchrgaza.org/en/?p=5019> without severe personal risk. The 
buffer zone has caused a huge loss of livelihood.

“Awad wanted to be a farmer just like his grandfather,” said his brother 
Basel, 25. “Awad was talkative, loved by all. He was a helpful person. 
He even helped his mother with her chores, something young boys of his 
age would almost never do in Gaza.”

In 2001, Israeli occupation forces opened fire at Palestinian farmers in 
the Shujaiya <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/shujaiya> neighborhood 
of Gaza City, killing Awad’s uncle, Tayseer Alareer, while he was 
farming his land. Tayseer was shot by Israeli troops at Nahal Oz, a 
kibbutz that also hosts a military watchtower.

The very same troops would stop occasionally at Tayseer’s farm and ask 
for chickpeas or an ear of corn.

Little Awad grew up knowing all these things about his family and 
Palestine’s history. He knew that the Israeli occupation caused them 
poverty and pain.

He knew that the best way to resist those occupying thieves was to keep 
farming Palestine’s land.


    Death sentence

Last year, Awad complained of severe pain in his thigh. Painkillers did 
not help.

He was X-rayed at al-Shifa hospital 
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/al-shifa-hospital> in Gaza City.

Then he was transferred to a hospital in the Khan Younis area for an MRI 
scan, followed by a biopsy.

The results showed cancer.

“Cancer in Gaza is a death sentence. We do not have the proper equipment 
here,” Awad’s father, Amin Alareer, 47, told me.

Egypt rarely opens Rafah — the border crossing between it and Gaza, the 
sole outlet for the vast majority of Gaza’s approximately 1.9 million 
residents. “And Israel takes ages doing its so-called security vetting 
procedures,” Amin added.

Following a short delay due to the long list of patients desperately 
seeking medical treatment outside Gaza, Awad’s case was approved by 
An-Najah University Hospital in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus 
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/nablus>, inaccessible to 
Palestinians in Gaza without Israeli permission.

All he needed was an Israeli permit.

“Awad’s file was sent to the Israeli side,” said Amin. “I was supposed 
to accompany him. After about three weeks of waiting, both Awad and I 
were rejected. We had to reapply through the Palestinian Centre for 
Human Rights.”

“Awad was finally accepted,” Amin added. “But I was rejected. And he had 
to be accompanied by someone. So we sent an application for his mother. 
All this while Awad’s health was deteriorating.”


    Urgent

However, when Awad was ready to travel, he had already missed his 
appointment at An-Najah University Hospital.

So he was referred to the Augusta Victoria Hospital in East Jerusalem 
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/east-jerusalem>. Eventually, he was 
allowed to visit that hospital in mid-October. Tests confirmed he had 
bone cancer in his thigh and an operation was scheduled for December.

Awad went back to Gaza. As he waited for his operation, and for another 
Israeli permit to be issued, he tried to lead a normal life by going to 
school.

The word “normal” needs to be qualified when it comes to Gaza. His 
school had been bombed during Israel’s 2014 attack.

Awad underwent the operation in December. Fortunately, it was a success. 
But Israel had hindered it by delaying the entry of a prosthesis to 
replace a thigh bone. That device had to be imported from Turkey. It 
took two weeks to arrive.

Follow-up care is of vital importance following a major operation.

It seems that the Israeli authorities know this very well. And they play 
dirty.

Awad stayed in Jerusalem for approximately three weeks after his 
operation. He then returned to Gaza.

“Awad was supposed to go back for a follow-up appointment after three 
weeks — on 19 January this year,” his father said. “But Israel once 
again rejected him. Twice. And every time we had to apply from scratch 
as if he had never been vetted before.”

It was 5 April before Awad was allowed to visit the Jerusalem hospital 
again. “That meant the cancer had already spread viciously to his 
lungs,” his father said.

Awad’s lung cancer was inoperable.

He was sent back to Gaza and placed in intensive care.

Three weeks later, Awad died.


    Killing the sick

The bitter irony is that Israel markets 
<http://www.timesofisrael.com/breakthrough-cancer-cure-has-deep-israeli-roots/> 
itself as a global leader in treating various types of cancer.

“It’s just too painful to know that a few miles away, Israelis who stole 
our land receive the best and fastest medical care,” Basel, Awad’s 
brother, told me. “If we still had our land, we could have sold some of 
it and sent Awad to the best hospitals in America or Europe.”

Bassam al-Badri is a doctor working for a section of the Palestinian 
Authority <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/palestinian-authority> in 
the West Bank that tries to arrange treatment for patients in Gaza. He 
said that if rapid action is taken, patients in Awad’s situation can 
often be saved or at least have their lives prolonged.

“Time is a crucial element for patients with chronic diseases, 
especially those with tumors,” he said. “A case sometimes takes 20 to 30 
days for Israel to vet, when the patient cannot wait more than a few hours.”

“Because Israel usually rejects applications, we end up working three or 
five times on the same applicant, tripling and quadrupling our effort,” 
he added. “Each time a sick person’s application is turned down, we have 
to start from scratch.”

“We know Israel knows everything about us,” he said. “Why do cases take 
up to a month to check? This is a deliberate attempt to kill those sick 
people. It’s a war crime.”

“International conventions guarantee medical treatment to soldiers,” 
said Maher Shamiya, a leading official in Gaza’s health ministry. “Here 
we’re talking about kids, women, the elderly and other sick people who 
pose a threat to no one. And yet Israel takes forever to let them travel.”

A Hamas <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/hamas> source, who spoke on 
condition of anonymity, said that Israel resorts to the “deliberate 
arm-twisting and blackmailing of patients and their families.”

Huge pressure is put on patients into giving intelligence to, “and even 
collaborating” with, Israel, the source added. The Israeli authorities 
tell patients that they must act as informers if they are to obtain 
treatment outside Gaza.

This has been long documented 
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/israeli-siege-kills-another-child-patient-gaza/3426> 
by human rights groups and journalists.

Patients have been called to the Erez checkpoint by Israel, supposedly 
to receive news about their requests to travel. While at the checkpoint, 
the patients have been arrested.

For example, Mahmoud Abu Ful from Jabaliya refugee camp in Gaza, was 
detained 
<http://mezan.org/en/post/21358/Israeli+Authorities+Continue+to+Extort+and+Arrest+Palestinian+Patients%3A> 
after being summoned to Erez in April this year. He had been shot during 
a protest in October 2015 and had sought permission to receive treatment 
for his injuries in the West Bank.

The Gaza-based Al Mezan Center for Human Rights 
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/al-mezan-center-human-rights> has 
contended that Israel is using Erez as a “trap to arrest patients, with 
no consideration of their health conditions.”

Awad, then, is among numerous Palestinians who have been treated cruelly 
while they were ill. Shaking his head, my uncle reflected on the effects 
of that cruelty.

“Israel is a developed country,” he said. “But when it comes to treating 
Palestinians, it’s a third world country. Very, very slow. And that 
costs lives here.”

/All images courtesy of the author./

/Refaat Alareer is the editor of Gaza Writes Back: Short Stories from 
Young Writers in Gaza, Palestine 
<http://www.amazon.com/Gaza-Writes-Back-Stories-Palestine/dp/1935982354/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1406558061&sr=8-1&keywords=Gaza+Writes+Back>. 
Twitter: @ThisIsGaza 
<https://twitter.com/ThisIsGaZa>/<https://twitter.com/ThisIsGaZa>


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