Urgent Appeal to the International Community #2

 

 

The Israeli occupational forces offensive actions have continued into its third week now. These actions are in the form of bloody massacres, state’s organized terror, destruction of infrastructure, prevention of transporting medical, human and food supplies, continued closures of access roads and closures (which caused the death of a patient at Rafah Checkpoint), the transfer of thousands from the areas of Rafah Airport, north of the Gaza Strip in which one person have been martyred per hour, five injured during the past five days. More than 50 women are subjected to risky pregnancies due to lack of medical supplies and vital needs such as electric supply and water resources in the medical and health facilities in occupied Gaza Strip.

 

We in the Health Work Committees (HWC) reaffirm the dangers consequent in case the health and medical systems collapse in the Gaza Strip and the rest of the occupied Palestinian lands due to the bombing of the medical facilities and the deprivation of the hospitals and medical facilities from receiving medical supplies, human resources and basic needs in addition to terrorizing the medical and emergency teams.

 

The Health Work Committees highly regards the decision of the UN’s Human Rights Council of forming an investigating committee, its condemnation of the assault and its demand that it stops. We demand immediate protection for the Palestinian people that includes temporary protection of the occupied city of Jerusalem.

 

The Health Works Committees anticipates that a UN’s resolution condemning the Israeli Assault and military operations is immediately drawn. It is aroused and concerned that any delay in a resolution and its implementation forcing the occupation forces to stop its offensive will cause an inevitable and comprehensive human and health catastrophe in the occupied Strip, especially that the medical supplies in hospital and clinics have started to run out. HWC is alarmed that long gone communicable diseases such as cholera, diarrhea, dysentery, anemia, dehydration and dermal inflammations especially among children will prevail. This will expose more than one fourth of a million children to severe chronic communicable diseases preventing their natural development and growth.

 

The Health Work Committees watches with deep concern the deterioration of the human and health conditions and conveys its deep apprehension of the potential collapse of the Palestinian formal and non formal health systems. Adding is the hazards caused by the unavailability of gasoline to maintain the electric supply. This anticipates a catastrophe with uncontrollable effects that cannot be halted. At hand information about the above mentioned situation in addition to continued raids and military strikes warns that the humanitarian conditions in the Gaza Strip are in severe humanitarian crisis.

 

 

 

 The Health Work Committees calls upon the International Community to exert pressure on Israel so that it immediately terminates its measures against hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the Strip. Measures illustrated in preventing sick people from and to the Strip, preventing of food and medical supplies, and abiding by the Fourth Geneva Conventions of 1949.

 

The Health Work Committees demands that the International Community and all peace seekers in the World pressure Israel to abide by Article 54 of the added protocol of the Geneva Conventions that prohibits attacking civilians, starving them, destruction of their institutions, and the execution of collective punishment in accordance with article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Conventions of 1949.

 

The Health Work Committees calls all the health, medical and human local and international organizations to immediately intervene to save the children, women and civilians in the Gaza Strip and the rest of the occupied lands including Jerusalem and to urgently provide all humanitarian support to maintain medical and human institutions from collapsing.

 

 

The Health Work Committees

July 10, 2006