Al-Jazeeera has more on the treatment, or rather the lack of it, of Palestinians in need or medical care. We reported that Israel is only letting out people with the most severe cases, and only if they agree to inform on their fellow Palestinians. The outrageous behaviour of Israel was highlighted by the organisation Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) and Al-Jazeera has been speaking to its director, Hadas Ziv.
Al Jazeera: Your organisation has collected dozens of testimonies of patients who were pressured to collaborate with the Israeli General Security Services. How did you find out about this? A Palestinian will not easily admit he or she has been asked to become an informant.
Ziv: True; it is not a subject people talk about easily and it happened gradually. Our organisation tries to support Gazan patients who were prevented by the Israeli authorities from treatment in Israel, or from crossing Israel on their way to hospitals in the West Bank.
Instead of clear rejection or admittance, the Israelis started saying: "permit pending interrogation". The permit became conditional - not so much on individual health conditions, but on the outcome of the interrogation at the Erez Crossing.
Then, many of the patients we were in touch with came back from interrogation and told us they did not get the permit: "They tried to extort me to collaborate and I wasn't willing to give them information, so they sent me back to Gaza."
When more and more people told us the same story, we understood that this was a new policy.
How do you know the testimonies are true?
The testimonies come from very different people, of different ages, different political opinions and from different towns in the Gaza strip. To believe that there is such a high degree of co-ordination among all the patients is pretty far-fetched. But more importantly, it needs a lot of courage to speak to us about this.
Some of the patients have a lot to lose if they talk. more
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