Geneva – Ma’an – The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor called on the international community to exert effective pressure on Israel to ensure the opening of the crossings and allow the travel of thousands of injured and sick people in the Gaza Strip; to save their lives from certain death awaiting them while they continue to be prevented from traveling, and the lack of the possibility of treating them inside the Strip due to the systematic Israeli targeting of the health sector there with destruction and siege, which has put most of its components out of service.
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor said that Israel continues to besiege the wounded and sick in Gaza and prevents them from traveling to receive treatment after destroying or putting out of service most of the hospitals in the Gaza Strip, stressing that this will cause the death of more than 26 thousand wounded and sick people who need urgent external transfer to save their lives, in addition to thousands of others who need to travel
to complete treatment or receive necessary health and rehabilitation services that are not available in the Gaza Strip.
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor pointed out that since the Israeli army took control of the Rafah crossing on May 7 and closed it, the movement of Palestinians has stopped, including the travel of the injured and sick for treatment abroad according to the established mechanism, which used to allow a small number of them to travel after subjecting their names to arbitrary Israeli security checks.
He stated that throughout the past period, none of the injured or sick were allowed to travel abroad, despite the collapse of the medical system in the Gaza Strip, and the removal of 34 hospitals out of 36 in the Gaza Strip as a result of the systematic Israeli targeting, as a small number of hospitals are currently operating partially, without the availability of medical equipment and medicines and with a state of severe exhaustion for the medical teams that have been working for nine
months without rest.
He pointed out that Israel allowed 21 patients to travel with a number of their relatives on June 27, through the Kerem Shalom crossing in coordination with the World Health Organization, while more than 12,000 wounded people remained in need of travel to save their lives, in addition to 14,000 patients, including about 10,000 cancer patients and the rest with other serious diseases who are threatened with imminent death if they do not travel for treatment.
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor said it had received many complaints and appeals from injured and sick people demanding to be allowed to travel to save their lives.
‘My house was bombed by the Israelis on July 3, killing three of my children,’ Israa Jihad al-Jundi, 32, a resident of Shuja’iyya, east of Gaza City, told the Euro-Mediterranean team. ‘As for me, I found myself a ball of fire and blackness and I could no longer hear anything. I realized that I had been hit by a missile. I found myself in the neighbors’ house
and my legs were covered with a concrete belt in my house. The neighbors took me out and took me to the Baptist Hospital. A plate was placed in my right leg and an external plate. I suffered several fractures in my limbs, pelvis, and chest. I cannot move. There is no device to stabilize the pelvis. I am dying every day and my request is to be sent abroad for treatment.’
Bilal Munir Abu Sultan, a resident of northern Gaza, said: ‘I have cancer. Since last April, the disease has spread to my neck significantly. I need to travel for treatment to save my life. I must travel immediately before the cancer spreads throughout my body. There is no treatment here.’
‘I was seriously injured on October 23, 2023, after Israeli planes bombed my family’s house, killing all of them, my father, my mother, and 4 of my siblings, including 3 children,’ said Abdul Rahman Muhammad (17 years old). ‘I was the only one who survived at the time, and I suffered burns and fractures. My condition improved from the burns, but I still ca
nnot walk. They installed an external plate for me, then removed it. They performed surgery on me, but it failed. I currently cannot walk, and I have electricity in my leg. As a result of the destruction of hospitals and the lack of treatment, there are no opportunities for me to be treated here. I appeal to everyone to help me get treatment and travel.’
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor stressed that the ongoing siege and closure of crossings, after the Israeli army destroyed hospitals and health facilities in the Gaza Strip and put most of them out of service, means an Israeli decision to carry out a mass execution of patients and the injured and to deliberately kill them.
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor said that the destruction of hospitals, medical facilities and transportation, the prevention of the entry of medicines and medical equipment, and the killing and arrest of medical personnel are part of the genocide committed by Israel against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip
since October 7, 2023, so that those who were not directly killed die by being deprived of necessary treatment. The destruction of this sector comes at the forefront of the systematic, organized and large-scale plan implemented by Israel to destroy the lives of Palestinians in the Strip, and turn it into an uninhabitable and uninhabitable place that lacks the most basic necessities of life and basic services, through a series of integrated crimes, the most dangerous of which is the systematic and large-scale targeting of the health sector and putting it out of service through destruction and siege, bringing it to the point of no return, and depriving Palestinians of opportunities for survival, life and recovery, and even shelter.
He stressed that the crimes committed by Israel against hospitals and protected persons in the Gaza Strip also constitute full-fledged war crimes, in addition to being crimes against humanity, as they are carried out within the framework of the systematic and widespread Israeli mili
tary attack against the civilian population in the Gaza Strip.
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor also stressed that the Israeli army is carrying out its crimes against the hospitals of the Gaza Strip without the slightest respect for the rules of international law, especially international humanitarian law, and in flagrant violation of the principles of distinction, proportionality, military necessity and taking necessary precautions, as well as a serious violation of the special protection enjoyed by civilian hospitals and medical staff, and the protection enjoyed by civilians whether in this capacity or because they are not directly participating in hostilities, as well as a violation of the protection enjoyed by the wounded and sick, and the prohibition of targeting them, even if they are military personnel.
Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor renewed its call for urgent international intervention to establish field hospitals in northern Gaza, pressure Israel to stop its repeated attacks on
hospitals that have put them out of service, ensure the safety of medical staff, patients, the wounded and the displaced inside, enable them to receive life-saving treatment, and ensure the transfer of thousands of emergency cases for treatment abroad.
Source: Maan News Agency