Dire Conditions for Patients Seeking Medical Treatment outside Gaza
Munir Mukheirz’s health had deteriorated rapidly. He was suffering from a seriously debilitating, emaciating disease for which he required urgent medical treatment unavailable in Gaza. Despite strenuous efforts to move him to a hospital outside the Strip, the Israeli border closures and restrictions on the movement of people meant that Munir was forced to remain in a quarantine unit in Gaza European Hospital. Doctors had diagnosed him as suffering from jaundice, a malignant tumor and a serious pancreatic disorder. His wife and four children were unable to visit him for fear that he might contaminate them.
Munir – an engineering graduate whose father fled to Gaza in 1948 – lives with his family in the Khan Younis camp.
On Saturday, 19th January, Munir finally managed to leave Gaza following persistent campaigning on his behalf by numerous human rights organisations. Munir was one of the "lucky" ones. Hundreds and hundreds of other people in similarly critical medical conditions are still waiting, and hoping, to be given permission to leave.
"I’m not going abroad for entertainment," says Munir, "I need urgent medical treatment. As soon as my therapy is completed, the very next day, bring me back to Gaza."
Khan Younis, January 2008
Document Sources: United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)
Subject: Access and movement, Closures/Curfews/Blockades, Gaza Strip, Health
Publication Date: 28/01/2008