From Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights:
Today Al Mezan releases ‘Children in the Gaza Strip’s Access to Medical Care’ a factsheet published under the Save the Children UK funded project ‘Child Rights at the Centre: Enhancing National Capacities to Monitor, Document, and Report on Child Rights Issues in the oPt.’ The factsheet documents Israel’s policies towards the Gaza Strip which result in children being denied the right to access proper medical care.
The ongoing siege on Gaza which stops essential medical equipment and drugs from entering and causes sporadic fuel and electricity cuts combined with the closure system which prevents medical professionals from travelling abroad to access advanced training outside Gaza. These policies have resulted in a medical system in Gaza which cannot provide care and procedures for many patients. Children requiring care that is unavailable have to go outside Gaza, usually to hospitals in Israel, Jerusalem or the West Bank (as well as to Egypt and Jordan). In order to access these hospitals children require a permit from the Israeli authorities. The process for acquiring a permit is long and complex and often results in denials. Since January 2008, 4 children have died because their application was denied or took too long to be approved.
Israel also denies children’s access to medical care when it prevents ambulances from accessing the Buffer Zone. Ambulances require prior coordination with the Israeli military authorities before they can access the sick or injured in the Buffer Zone. 173 children have died because ambulances have been denied access to reach them (throughout the Gaza Strip, not just in the Buffer Zone).
The policies outlined in this factsheet result in serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law which Israel, as the Occupying Power in the Gaza Strip, has an obligation to uphold.
“Children in the Gaza Strip are deprived from receiving quality medical treatment and access to procedures that can save their lives. The right to access medical treatment and to enjoy the highest attainable physical and psychological health is one of the Israeli systematic violations of children’s rights in the Gaza Strip,” Samir Zaqout, Al Mezan’s fieldwork coordinator, states. “This has particularly been the case in the last five years since Israel tightened its siege on the Gaza Strip.”
In addition to the polices outlined in this factsheet which directly affect access to medical care Samir Zaqout says that “the Israeli siege has caused a deterioration in the health of children due to increasing poverty levels and diseases among children such as anemia. Israeli military attacks have also injured thousands of children, hundreds of them sustaining permanent physical disabilities.”
Palestine / Israel Links
Today, in a landmark step for children’s rights,
the UN General Assembly has adopted a new Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) establishing a complaints procedure for violations of children’s rights.
The new treaty will enable children, or their representatives, claiming that their rights have been violated to bring a complaint to an international committee of children’s rights experts if they have not been able to get remedies for these violations in their countries. A coalition of over 80 international and national NGOs, coordinated by the NGO Group for the CRC, which has been actively campaigning for the treaty since 2006, welcomed the news.
Ethnic Cleansing of Invented People. By Miko Peled
‘Israeli children are educated to see the Palestinians as a problem that must be solved and as a threat that must be eliminated. They can go through life, as I did growing up in Jerusalem, without ever meeting a Palestinian child. They know nothing of the life or culture of Palestinians who quite often live only several hundred meters from them.’
“Rudd seeks action on torture allegations involving Palestinian children” by John Lyons
The Permanent Palestinian Observer at the United Nations, in New York – USA, Riyad Mansour, stated that 182 countries at the General Assembly voted Monday for the Palestinian right to self-determination.
French clothing firm Lacoste censors, expels Palestinian artist Larissa Sansour from prestigious contest
Owner of Lacoste, which censored Palestinian artist, is major donor to Israel, Zionist causes
Fabulous win for justice against racist corporatism.
Boycott Israeli products this Christmas.
An Open Letter to CSU Chancellor Charles Reed Regarding the CSU-Israel Study Abroad Program – boycott!
Israel on another rampage : ‘Israeli bulldozers Wednesday razed and demolished a number of water wells, agricultural sheds and land in Dahr Sobh area north of Kafr al-Deek, a town west of Salfit in the northern West Bank, according to local sources.’
More ziofascism uncovered in the UK: UK charity with Mossad links secretly denounced anti-Zionist Jews to government
Another great reason to boycott Israeli academic institutions : Tel Aviv University accused of spying on student activists – TAU security head writes lecturers requesting details of students seen in video urging fellow students to join a campus protest.
Victim of Israeli fascism : 972mag pointedly gags itself from publishing advocacy for BDS – good comments beneath
Will more Israelis pay the price in solidarity with Palestinians for civil disobedience?
A confederacy of hypocrites – “Britain, France, Germany and Portugal release a statement saying settlements in West Bank and East Jerusalem illegal; Israel’s UN envoy: Palestinian conditions are real obstacles to peace.”
?14 UN Security Council members criticize U.S. for blocking condemnation of Israel : ‘Israel’s security and the realization of the Palestinians’ right to statehood are not opposing goals,’ says Britain’s UN Ambassador.
US falls for zionist ‘security’ hasbara – but it suits US hegemony to maintain colonial domination of ME via Israel
Israel officials: Security Council criticism on West Bank violence ‘disgusting’
OCHA The MonThly huManiTarian MoniTor November 2011
Israel’s siege punishing Gaza orphans: The most vulnerable people are seriously affected by Israel’s illegal siege: “All development in our institute has stopped since the siege,” says Sarraj. “The buildings we currently have we built with money from the Islamic bank and foreign NGOs [non-governmental organizations] and donors, before the blockade.”
OCHA report 14-20 Dec: Illegal settler price tag attacks, 7 Israel navy attacks on Gazan fishermen [.pdf]
Other Links