Over 50 Palestinian patients died in 2017 awaiting Israeli medical permits: WHO
gaza city — More than 50 Palestinians died waiting for Israeli visas to travel for medical treatment last year, with only around half of all applications granted, new figures showed on Tuesday.
A total of 54 Palestinians died awaiting permits in 2017, the World Health Organisation said, in what rights activists called an overly bureaucratic system which deprives Palestinians of their right to healthcare.
Gazans require Israeli permits to leave the enclave and travel to occupied Jerusalem or the West Bank for treatment which the Palestinian Authority pays for. Israel argues rigorous checks are necessary for security reasons.
High-quality medical care for conditions such as cancer is not possible in Gaza, largely due to a shortage of facilities and Israel’s restrictions on imports of key medical technology.
Of more than 25,000 applications to travel for treatment in 2017, only 54 per cent were granted in time for their appointments. This was down from 62 per cent the year before and 92 per cent as recently as 2012, the WHO said.
“There is a worrying decline in the approval rate for patients to exit Gaza, with 2017 the lowest rate since WHO began monitoring this in 2008,” said Gerald Rockenschaub, head of WHO offices in the Palestinian territories.
In a joint statement on Tuesday, Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Medical Aid for Palestinians and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel called on Israel to ease restrictions.
Omar Shakir, Israel-Palestine head for HRW, said they had seen “wider and wider” use of security justification to reject or delay permits for Palestinians.
Five-year-old Aya Abu Mutlaq, from Khan Yunis in southern Gaza, was born with severe brain deficiencies. Her parents say she died after three appointments in an east Jerusalem hospital were missed.
“We repeated the same process three times, but her condition deteriorated and she died 10 days after the date of the (final) appointment,” her father Ghaleb said.
Faten Ahmed, a 25-year-old mother of two, died of brain cancer in August 2017. She had once been given a permit to travel to east Jerusalem for treatment but then returned to Gaza as agreed.
She applied for a new permit to continue treatment but did not hear back in time for her appointment and eventually died, her mother-in-law Nima said. —