Closing of Rafah Crossing
Rafah Crossing between Gaza and Egypt, was closed down from June 2007 until early March 2008, when it was opened for a short time following a Hamas-Egyptian agreement for a selected group of patients from Gaza to go to hospitals in Egypt. An Egyptian medical committee approved the crossing of wounded Gazans who could not receive the necessary treatment in Gazan hospitals and of patients with referrals for chemotherapy, radiology treatment, and heart surgery. Other patents were returned to Gazan hospitals for treatment. Subsequently, Rafah Crossing was closed and remains closed at the present time. Palestinian patients and healthcare professionals trying to travel through Rafah crossing are exposed systematically to humiliating treatment and long waiting without access to basic humane services that may affect their health and cause harm and often are treated as prisoners or security risk.
Barriers to access to Healthcare
The siege that Israel has imposed on the Gaza Strip since Hamas took over control of the security apparatus there in June 2007 has greatly harmed Gaza’s health system, which had not functioned well beforehand. Many services and specialist and life-saving treatments are not available to Palestinians inside Gaza, and since the siege began, access to medical care in hospitals outside Gaza has decreased. In addition, as clashes between the army and armed Palestinians escalate, treatment of chronic patients, among them cancer and heart patients, is postponed, and the supply of medicines and medical equipment to Gaza is delayed.
Lack of medicines and medical equipment
The lack of medical equipment and medicines in Gaza is steadily increasing. According to figures of the World Health Organization, in January 2008, 19 percent of necessary medicines were lacking, primarily those needed in surgery and in emergency cases, antibiotics for initial care of children, and cancer drugs. 31 percent of vital medical equipment is lacking too. There is also a grave shortage of replacement parts for equipment and of disposable items, such as bandages, syringes, and plaster for casts.
Reduced Access to Medical Services Outside of Gaza Strip
Hospitals in the West Bank and in Gaza are sometimes not equipped to deal with more advanced medical problems and procedures. In such cases, doctors will refer their patients to more sophisticated treatment centers in Israel.
Such treatment is often delayed by the Israeli bureaucratic process which has to approve requests. Ambulances traveling from the Gaza to hospitals in east Jerusalem are often delayed or denied at security checkpoints.
Israel has cut back on issuing permits to enter the country for the hundreds of patients each month who need immediate life-saving treatment and urgent, advanced treatment unavailable in Gaza. The only crossing open to patients is Erez Crossing, through which Israel allows some of these patients to cross to go to hospitals inside Israel, and to treatment facilities in the West Bank, Egypt, and Jordan. Some patients not allowed to cross have referrals to Israeli hospitals or other hospitals. Since Hamas took over control of the Gaza Strip, the number of patients forbidden to leave Gaza “for security reasons” has steadily increase.
According to the Palestinian Health Ministry and the WHO, a few dozen Palestinians died after Israel delayed or prohibited their exit from Gaza to receive medical treatment. The patients’ right to optimal and rapid treatment was infringed, and that delay in the permit, or refusal to grant it, impaired their quality of life, their chances to be cured, and their possibility to live a longer life.