Nov

20

Palestinian Cancer Patient, Prevented from Crossing Border, Dies

November 20, 2007 |

Straight from “the only democracy in the Middle East”, with the best human rights record:

This past weekend, a Gaza cancer patient named Nail al-Kurdi, 20, waiting since July for permission to cross into Israel for treatment, died of his illness. For five months, officials of the Shin Bet security service received request after request from Physicians for Human Rights, asking that they grant al-Kurdi a permit to be treated in Israel.

Request after request was denied. The stated reason? Security. In July, he was referred to Ichilov hospital for urgent diagnostic procedures. As the refusals mounted, his cancer spread. In a case involving al-Kurdi and a number of other seriously ailing Palestinians denied travel requests for treatment, the physicians group appealed the Shin Bet refusals to the High Court. The court allowed prosecutors an extension in the case to allow them to study it further. Al-Kurdi did not survive the extension.

Maybe if al-Kurdi had some juicy info for Shin Beit, he would’ve been allowed to cross…or wait, that doesn’t help either…

Consider the case of Y.H., a 37-year-old Gazan in need of open-heart surgery. By contrast to al-Kurdi, the Shin Bet granted Y.H. an exit permit, so that he could travel to the West Bank city of Nablus for the operation. According to the physicians group, when he came to Erez Crossing to leave Gaza, Shin Bet agents called him aside for interrogation.

“If you help us we will help you,” Y.H. quoted the agent as telling him, adding that the Shin Bet man asked him to provide information about his acquaintances.

The physicians group said that when Y.H. replied that he had no such information, “the interrogator said ‘If you don’t help up we won’t help you. Go and die in Gaza.’ He sent him back home, promising that he would never leave Gaza.” [full article]

If your heart is still rock hard and this story didn’t move you, maybe putting a face on this name would help.

[h/t: Sabbah]


Comments

2 Comments so far

  1. Abed on November 20, 2007 2:22 pm

    their day will come.

  2. Andy on November 20, 2007 5:50 pm

    Like the name - al-Kurdi - must be a “Palestinian”, of course. Like al-Shamsi and al-Masri. Poor guy, rest in peace. (if he’s not a fictious brother of fictious al-Durra boy). Too bad all that bilions of $US were spent on armaments or stolen by PLO freedom fighters. Could have build a nice radiological center in Gaza. Abed, you are so emotional. I wonder why? Perhaps your sister doesn’t love you any more?

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