Gazans call on Egypt to reopen Rafah crossing for patients

Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-04 00:42:18|Editor: MJ
MIDEAST-GAZA-RAFAH-CROSSING-PROTEST 

Palestinians gather at Rafah crossing point between southern Gaza Strip and Egypt during a protest, on July 3, 2017. Dozens demonstrated on Monday at Rafah crossing point between southern Gaza Strip and Egypt calling on the Egyptian Authorities to reopen the closed crossing for patients who need medical treatment. (Xinhua/Khaled Omar)

GAZA, July 3 (Xinhua) -- Dozens demonstrated on Monday at the gate of Rafah crossing point between southern Gaza Strip and Egypt calling on the Egyptian Authorities to reopen the closed crossing for patients who need medical treatment.

The demonstrators rallied at the borders with Egypt to call for immediate transfer of patients, who suffer critical health conditions, to Egyptian hospitals after many of the patients were banned from reaching Israel and the West Bank.

They waved the flags of Egypt and Palestine and chanted slogans that called on Egypt to reopen the crossing point for patients and students.

The crossing point of Rafah had been completely closed for several months.

"Save the children of Gaza from death, open Rafah crossing," the demonstrators chanted as they waved their valid Palestinian passports.

The crossing was partially reopened in March 6.

The demonstration was organized one day after a senior Hamas delegation headed to Cairo for talks with Egyptian security officials, according to Hamas officials.

Islamic Hamas movement officials had earlier stated that the Egyptian side promised to permanently open Rafah crossing point after finishing a renovation of the crossing buildings late August.

Earlier this week, the Hamas-run ministry of interior had announced the building of a buffer security zone along the borderline area between Gaza Strip and Egypt to boot and restore security situation.

Last month, Gaza Hamas chief Yahya al-Senwar and Hamas security chief Tawfiq Abu Naim paid an eight-day visit to Egypt and held talks with Egyptian security officials on easing the hard living situation in Gaza and security arrangements.

After the visit, the Egyptian authorities allowed the entry of fuel trucks into the Gaza Strip, most of them to operate the only power plant after it stopped generating electricity for more than two months.

Moreover, dozens of Palestinians gathered outside Shifa Medical Center in Gaza city to demand medical treatment for patients in hospitals in the West Bank and Israel.

They called for the need of neutralizing the file of medical treatment for Gaza patients and isolated it from the differences and the internal Palestinian division that has been going on for 10 years.

They blamed Israel for "the policy of collective punishment and the unjust siege."

The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza recently accused the Palestinian Authority of reducing the number of permits funded financially to treat patients from the Gaza Strip in the West Bank and Israel.

The Palestinian Authority's Health Ministry in the West Bank denied the accusations, saying the transfer programs of patients in Gaza continue, and that some of them are banned by Israel from leaving the Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile, the UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, Nikolay Mladenov, arrived in the Gaza Strip on June 28 to meet Hamas leaders for the second time in four days.

A Hamas official told Xinhua that Mladenov was "mediating several files related to deteriorating humanitarian conditions, most notably the electricity crisis."

Mladenov met last month with President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, where he discussed "the latest developments in the political process and the situation in the Gaza Strip," according to the official Palestinian news agency WAFA.

Abbas stressed the importance of annulling the administrative committee set up by Hamas in Gaza and enabling the consensus government to perform its tasks and prepare for holding the general elections as a genuine way to end the division.

The United Nations has repeatedly warned of the consequences of the continued deterioration of humanitarian conditions in Gaza in light of the severe shortage of basic services provided to its population of more than two million people.

 

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KEY WORDS: Gaza
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