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Weekend Edition November 14-16, 2014<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/11/14/israel-bans-renowned-doctor-and-human-rights-activist-mads-gilbert-from-entering-gaza-for-life/">http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/11/14/israel-bans-renowned-doctor-and-human-rights-activist-mads-gilbert-from-entering-gaza-for-life/</a><br>
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<div class="subheadlinestyle">Solidarity Not Pity</div>
<h1 class="article-title">Israel Bans Renowned Doctor and Human
Rights Activist Mads Gilbert from Entering Gaza for Life</h1>
<div class="mainauthorstyle">by BEN NORTON</div>
<div class="main-text">
<p>Israel <a
href="http://www.thelocal.no/20141114/israel-shuts-gilbert-out-from-gaza-for-life"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.thelocal.no']);">has
banned</a> Norwegian doctor and human rights activist Mads
Gilbert from entering Gaza for life.</p>
<p>Gilbert, a professor at the University Hospital of North
Norway, where he has worked since 1976, earned international
renown for his philanthropic work in late 2008, during
Israel’s Operation Cast Lead, an attack that, <a
href="http://www.btselem.org/statistics/fatalities/during-cast-lead/by-date-of-event"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.btselem.org']);">according
to Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem</a>, killed
roughly 1,400 Gazans, including almost 800 civilians, 350 of
whom were children.</p>
<p>The aid worker, along with fellow Norwegian doctor Erik
Fosse, decided to volunteer in Gaza as soon as he heard that
bombing had started, on 27 December 2008. Thanks to diplomatic
and economic support (in the sum of $1 million dollar of
emergency funding from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign
Affairs), the two physicians managed to arrive in the strip by
30 December.</p>
<p>The Israeli government prevented all international press from
entering Gaza during Cast Lead (a documentary, <a
href="http://thewararoundus.com/filmmakers"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://thewararoundus.com']);"><em>The
War Around Us</em></a>, was made about the only two
foreign reporters in the strip at the time), in <a
href="http://www.indypendent.org/2010/02/12/eyewitness-gaza-interview-dr-mads-gilbert#sthash.xbZ5aQsF.dpuf"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.indypendent.org']);">what
Gilbert called</a> Israel’s insidious “PR plan.” The doctor,
as one of the only international aid workers in Gaza, thus
devoted considerable time to speaking with local Palestinian
news outlets, some of whom were reporting on behalf of foreign
networks including BBC, CNN, ABC, and Al Jazeera.</p>
<p><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7812547.stm"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://news.bbc.co.uk']);">BBC
aired an interview with Gilbert</a>, conducted in the
hospital. The questions asked, and the answers garnered, were
eerily similar to those he would give just five years later,
during Operation Protective Edge. The interviewer began asking
him to respond to Israel’s claims that it was not targeting
civilians, that it was only attacking Hamas militants. Gilbert
called the claim “an absolutely stupid statement” and
explained that, among the hundreds of patients he had seen at
that point, only two had been fighters. The “large majority”
were women, children, and men civilians. “These numbers are
contradictory to everything Israel says,” he reported.</p>
<p>Gilbert drew attention to the fact that the overflowing
hospital did not have enough supplies to treat all of its
patients, and censured the international community for doing
nothing to assist them. Israel would not let in foreign
doctors, and yet Palestinians were “dying waiting for
surgery.” “This is a complete disaster,” he remarked, calling
it “the worst man-made disaster” he could think of. “There are
injuries you just don’t want to see in this world.”</p>
<p><strong>Operation Protective Edge</strong></p>
<p>In 2008 and 2009, Gilbert treated Palestinians who had been
grievously wounded by Israel’s use of experimental and illegal
chemical weapons, including <a
href="http://www.hrw.org/fr/node/81821"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.hrw.org']);">white
phosphorous</a>, <a
href="http://www.democracynow.org/2009/1/14/white_phosphorous_and_dense_inert_metal"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.democracynow.org']);">dense
inert metal explosives (DIME) munitions</a>, and <a
href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/20/israel-using-flechette-shells-in-gaza"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.theguardian.com']);">flechette
shells</a>. In July 2014, in the midst of Israel’s most
recent attack on Gaza, Gilbert <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/israel-firing-experimental-weapons-gazas-civilians-say-doctors"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://electronicintifada.net']);">spoke
with <em>Electronic Intifada</em></a>, revealing that he
saw indications of renewed use of DIME weapons and flechettes.</p>
<p>While volunteering in Shifa hospital, Gaza’s principal
medical facility, Gilbert <a
href="http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/israelgaza-conflict-mr-obama-do-you-have-a-heart-spend-one-night-with-us-in-gaza-it-would-change-history-norwegian-doctor-mads-gilberts-open-letter-evokes-conditions-in-shifa-hospital-30452235.html"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk']);">penned
an open letter</a>, lamenting the unspeakable horrors the
Israeli military was instigating.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[Israel's] “ground invasion” of Gaza resulted in scores and
carloads with maimed, torn apart, bleeding, shivering,
dying… All sorts of injured Palestinians, all ages, all
civilians, all innocent.</p>
<p>The heroes in the ambulances and in all of Gaza’s hospitals
are working 12 to 24‑hour shifts, grey from fatigue and
inhuman workloads (without payment in Shifa for the last
four months). They care, triage, try to understand the
incomprehensible chaos of bodies, sizes, limbs, walking, not
walking, breathing, not breathing, bleeding, not bleeding
humans. Humans!
…
Ashy grey faces – Oh no! not one more load
of tens of maimed and bleeding. We still have lakes of blood
on the floor in the emergency room, piles of dripping,
blood-soaked bandages to clear out – oh – the cleaners,
everywhere, swiftly shovelling the blood and discarded
tissues, hair, clothes, cannulas – the leftovers from death
– all taken away… to be prepared again, to be repeated all
over.</p>
<p>More than 100 cases came to Shifa in the last 24 hours.
Enough for a large well-trained hospital with everything,
but here – almost nothing: electricity, water, disposables,
drugs, operating-room tables, instruments, monitors – all
rusted and as if taken from museums of yesterday’s
hospitals. But they do not complain, these heroes.</p>
<p>Now, once more treated like animals by “the most moral army
in the world.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The doctor directed one heart-wrenching passage to President
Obama, writing “Mr Obama – do you have a heart? I invite you –
spend one night – just one night – with us in Shifa. I am
convinced, 100 per cent, it would change history. Nobody with
a heart and power could ever walk away from a night in Shifa
without being determined to end the slaughter of the
Palestinian people.”</p>
<p>Israel later attacked Shifa hospital. Doctors Without Borders
(MSF) “strongly condemn[ed]” the incursion, saying it
“demonstrate[d] how civilians in Gaza have nowhere safe to
go.” MSF director Marie-Noëlle Rodrigue <a
href="http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/news-stories/press-release/gaza-msf-strongly-condemns-attack-al-shifa-hospital"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org']);">stated,
in an official statement</a>, “When the Israeli army orders
civilians to evacuate their houses and their neighborhoods,
where is there for them to go? Gazans have no freedom of
movement and cannot take refuge outside Gaza. They are
effectively trapped.” Shifa was one of the over 10 medical
facilities Israel bombed in its 50-day offensive.</p>
<p><strong>Human Rights Work</strong></p>
<p>In 2000, <a
href="http://www.nordlys.no/kultur/article303781.ece"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.nordlys.no']);">Gilbert
made headlines</a> for saving the life of a skier who had
been trapped in sub-zero water. She had been pronounced
clinically dead, with a body temperature of 57 °F, but Gilbert
managed to revive her. For his service, Gilbert was awarded
the Northern Norwegian of the Year award.</p>
<p>Before Operation Protective Edge commenced in early July
2014, Gilbert toured medical and health facilities and
individual homes in Gaza, researching for a United Nations
Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near
East (UNRWA) <a
href="http://www.unrwa.org/sites/default/files/final_report_-_gaza_health_sector_june-july_2014_-_mads_gilbert_2.pdf"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','download','http://www.unrwa.org/sites/default/files/final_report_-_gaza_health_sector_june-july_2014_-_mads_gilbert_2.pdf']);">report
on the dire state of the strip’s health sector</a>. He wrote
of “overstretched” health facilities, widespread physical and
psychological trauma, “a deep financial crisis,” a lack of
needed medical supplies, and a “severe energy crisis.” He also
noted the “devastating results of the blockade imposed by the
Government of Israel,” with rampant poverty, a 38.5%
unemployment rate, food insecurity in at least 57% of
households, and inadequate access to clean water. All of these
already extreme ills were only exacerbated by the July-August
Israeli assault on Gaza, an onslaught that left roughly 2,200
Palestinians dead, including over 1,500 civilians, more than
500 of whom were children.</p>
<p>Gilbert is not the only one Israel has recently prevented
from entering Gaza. In August, just after the end of its
military assault, Israel refused to allow Amnesty
International and Human Rights Watch, the world’s leading
human rights organizations, from entering the strip, impeding
them from conducting war crimes investigations. The
organizations had been requesting access for over a month,
before Israel had even begun its ground invasion of Gaza, yet
were continuously prevented from doing so, <a
href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.611015"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.haaretz.com']);">Israeli
journalist Amira Hass reported in <em>Haaretz</em></a>,
“using various bureaucratic excuses.”</p>
<p>Israel has banned Human Right Watch investigators from
entering Gaza since 2006; Amnesty International has been
refused access since 2012. Dr. Mads Gilbert is the latest
esteemed <em>persona non grata</em> to be added to this
growing list.</p>
<p><strong>Solidarity, Not Pity</strong></p>
<p>Other aid workers and medical professionals have faced even
worse consequences for volunteering to help Palestinians. In
August, <a
href="http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/twilight-zone/.premium-1.610619"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.haaretz.com']);">Israeli
occupation forces killed a social worker</a>. In the same
month, as the Israeli military engaged in a campaign to target
and openly murder Palestinian civilians who spoke Hebrew, <a
href="http://www.alternet.org/world/israel-put-trial-war-crimes?paging=off¤t_page=1#bookmark"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.alternet.org']);">Israeli
forces assassinated volunteers working with the Palestine
Red Crescent</a>, a non-profit humanitarian organization,
part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.</p>
<p>A common myth suggests that Israel ended its occupation of
Gaza with its 2005 disengagement. The state’s ability to ban,
and even kill, internationally recognized human rights
organizations and doctors—not to mention <a
href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/oct/17/israeli-military-calorie-limit-gaza"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.theguardian.com']);">food</a>,
<a
href="http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-07-23/next-gaza-disaster-after-war-with-israel-no-cement-for-rebuilding"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.businessweek.com']);">construction
equipment</a>, and <a
href="http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/suffocating-gaza-israeli-blockades-effects-palestinians-2010-06-01"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.amnesty.org']);">medical
supplies</a>—from entering Palestinian territory, however,
demonstrates that Gaza is by no means autonomous. Israel’s
siege of the strip is clearly a continuation of its
47-year-long illegal military occupation.</p>
<p>As legal scholar <a
href="http://www.thenation.com/article/180783/five-israeli-talking-points-gaza-debunked"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.thenation.com']);">Noura
Erakat explains</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Despite removing 8,000 settlers and the military
infrastructure that protected their illegal presence, Israel
maintained effective control of the Gaza Strip and thus
remains the occupying power as defined by Article 47 of the
Hague Regulations. To date, Israel maintains control of the
territory’s air space, territorial waters, electromagnetic
sphere, population registry and the movement of all goods
and people.
…
Palestinians have yet to experience a day of
self-governance. Israel immediately imposed a siege upon the
Gaza Strip when Hamas won parliamentary elections in January
2006 and tightened it severely when Hamas routed Fatah in
June 2007. The siege has created a “<a
href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/jan/07/gaza-israel-palestine"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.theguardian.com']);">humanitarian
catastrophe</a>” in the Gaza Strip. Inhabitants will not
be able to access clean water, electricity or tend to even
the most urgent medical needs. The World Health Organization
explains that the Gaza Strip will be <a
href="http://www.unrwa.org/newsroom/press-releases/gaza-2020-liveable-place"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.unrwa.org']);">unlivable</a>
by 2020. Not only did Israel not end its occupation, it has
created a situation in which Palestinians cannot survive in
the long-term.</p>
<p>In his July interview with <em>Electronic Intifada</em>,
Gilbert made it clear that his work as a medical
professional cannot be done—the Palestinian people cannot
live healthy, yet alone free, lives—while Israel continues
its illegal siege and occupation. “As a doctor, my
prescription is very clear. Number one, stop the bombing,
and that means stop Israel from bombing civilians and
indiscriminately hitting families. Number two, lift the
siege. And number three, find a political solution,” he
stated.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In a <a
href="http://www.dailytargum.com/article/2014/10/doctor-shares-experience-in-gaza"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.dailytargum.com']);">late
October discussion</a> with the <em>Daily Targum</em>,
Gilbert encouraged Americans to do what they can to speak out
against Israel’s illegal occupation and blockade of the
Palestinian territories, and to pressure their government to
stop its indefatigable support for Israeli crimes.</p>
<p>At present, the US provides Israel with over 3.1$ billion of
military aid per year. In the past 52 years, <a
href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.611001"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.haaretz.com']);">over
$100 billion US tax dollars</a> have been given to the
country in military aid alone.</p>
<p>“You are the change-makers,” Gilbert told American readers.
“The key to the change when it comes to the occupation of
Palestine lies in the United States.” “Solidarity, not pity,”
he said, is the solution.</p>
<p><em><strong>Ben Norton</strong> is an artist and activist.
His website can be found at <a
href="http://www.bennorton.com/"
onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackEvent','outbound-article','http://www.bennorton.com']);">http://bennorton.com/</a>.</em></p>
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