In Our Hands

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In Washington, DC, peace and justice advocacy groups ranging from the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation to JStreet are fastidiously monitoring political developments in Israel-Palestine. No one feels terribly rosy about Israel's right wing political reality, or the fraught negotiations between Hamas and Fatah.

A school in Gaza (Photo: Ma'an Images)

It might be why people around the world are increasingly relying on grassroots popular action over political institutions for credible results. The humanitarian community feels no different.

Yesterday, the Palestine Center for Human Rights (PCHR) reported that "[f]ollowing a Hamas takeover on March 22, 2009, the effective operation of the External Treatment Department in the Gaza Strip has been halted for more than three weeks." They add that ten patients from the Gaza Strip have died as a result, while the health of more than 800 has severely deteriorated. 

It seems the Palestinian leadership has acted to acknowledge this growing crisis. PCHR continues:

"Extensive negotiations are taking place between the two ministries of health in Gaza and Ramallah, under the mediation of the health sector within the Palestinian Non-Governmental Organizations Network (PNGO), Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), and a number of national figures, with support from the World Health Organization (WHO)...

"The Health Minister in Ramallah, Dr. Fathi Abu Maghli, had established the High Medical Committee on External Treatment. The Committee consisted of seven members, including three physicians whose names were not on the approved list (according to negotiations with the Gaza Ministry of Health). The Gaza MoH rejected the formation of the modified Committee, considering it a breach of the agreement between the two parties."

Clearly, politics continue to constrain humanitarian work. It's sad and outrageous that this has already led to the death of ten patients. Local groups like PCHR are duly outraged, and hold Health Minister in Ramallah accountable for the breach of the agreement, calling President Abu Mazen to urgently intervene and re-establish the Gaza High Medical Committee on External Treatment as agreed upon.

But, what this means for us in the broader, humanitarian community is that we must continue to build capacity inside the Gaza Strip, while pushing for the immediate treatment of patients.

It means we must equip clinics with necessary tools including machines for diagnosis and treatment, and continue to train community members in first aid when emergency care is necessary.

If we take a holistic view to this problem alone, it makes sense for groups like UPA to continue funding students in their universities to study nursing, medicine and even engineering, while funding hospitals and clinics to be able to respond to chronic diseases inside the Gaza Strip, rather than depending on a permit to leave Gaza to receive treatment.

In the short term of course, we are forced to fund emergency needs while alerting the community to political issues like these. Without Israel’s interference, in this case, intra-Palestinian politics are literally causing deaths, and both the governments in Ramallah and Gaza must cooperate to save Palestinian lives.