Civil and Human Rights Looking Deeper into the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Israel is portrayed as a democracy that shares American values. Is this true? Do all its citizens enjoy the same civil rights before the law? What about the human rights of those under occupation?
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Israel denies entry for medical treatment: For some patients, no medical treatment is tantamount to a death sentence.
12/10/2006 | Rights group: Shin Bet denies vital treatment to PalestiniansBy Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondent
The Shin Bet security service is systematically preventing Palestinians who need medical treatment unavailable in the territories from entering Israel, a new report by the nonprofit organization Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) charges.
According to the organization, in many cases, patients have been denied urgent, life-saving treatment.
The report says that the Shin Bet automatically refuses entry permits, and reconsiders its decisions only if legal action is begun.
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The human rights group carried out an analysis of refused entry requests and concluded that the Shin Bet applies very general criteria in its decisions. According to the analysis, those between the ages of 16 and 35, and sometimes 18 and 40, are considered "dangerous." Single men and women, or those who are married but childless, are usually turned down. Anyone with a record of security offenses, even minor ones (i.e. former
prisoners), or with possible motives for revenge (a family member hurt by the Israel Defense Forces), is also turned down, as are students, because universities are described as "hotbeds of terrorism," and AIDS patients (the stigma that the disease carries in Palestinian society opens the patient to blackmail: attack in order to cleanse the family name).
The organization decribes the use of these profiles as collective punishment, and emphasizes that denying medical treatment to Palestinian patients violates their human rights. For some patients, no medical treatment is tantamount to a death sentence. ...
528 checkpoints and obstacles in the West Bank, up from 376 in August 2005
Roadblocks up by 40% in West BankAssociated Press in Jerusalem | Thursday October 12, 2006 | GuardianThe number of Israeli military road blocks in the West Bank grew by nearly 40% in the past year, part of an increasingly sophisticated lockdown that disrupts all aspects of Palestinian life, a UN aid agency said yesterday.
The placement of these checkpoints and unmanned physical obstacles means the West Bank is increasingly being carved up into separate parts, with travel between them becoming more and more difficult, said David Shearer, the head of the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) in Jerusalem.
In all, there were 528 checkpoints and obstacles in the West Bank, up from 376 in August 2005, Mr Shearer said, presenting new statistics.
The West Bank's Jordan Valley is now entirely off limits to Palestinians who are not residents of that area, except for those with permits to work in the valley's Jewish settlements.
The checkpoints are multiplying as Israel pushes ahead with the separation barrier which it is building along - and at some points inside - the West Bank territory. ...
