Posted on 1-7-2003
Israel
Bars Entry To Medical Delegation
From Palestine Monitor, Saturday 28th June, 2003
Palestine Medical Relief denounces the Israeli prevention of
a Medical
Delegation from Belgium and Holland, to enter Israel with the
purpose of
investigating the Health Services in the Occupied Palestinian
Territories.
On the 23rd of June 2003 a Medical Delegation arrived at Tel
Aviv's Ben
Gurion Airport. The visit was organized by Holland's Palestine
Solidarity
Group Stop the Occupation, of which Gretta Druisenberg is
Chair. Other
organizations involved in the visit were Medical Aid for the
Third World;
Doctors for Peace (Flemish Division of International Physicians
for the
Prevention of Nuclear War); the Flemish Action Platform Palestine
and CODIP
(Center for the Development, Documentation and Information Palestinians).
Palestine Medical Relief was facilitating the visit.
Within hours of their arrival, Doctors taking part in the visit
were
deported, as Israeli officials described their visit as having
Political
rather than Humanitarian intent. In response, Dr Mustafa Barghouthi
stressed that the Israeli Government has not succeeded in preventing
support for the Palestinians. Rather, it has made the Medical
Delegation
even more determined to support the issue of medical neutrality
in Palestine.
Gretta Druisenberg, wife of the President of the Central European
Bank,
invoked fury from the Israeli Government in the past when she
raised the
Palestinian flag on her balcony in Holland and then announced
in a press
conference her determination to gather six million signatures
against the
Israeli Occupation. Palestine Medical Relief protests against
these recent
actions by the Israeli Government as yet again, they have violated
the
principals of medical neutrality. The Israeli Army has launched
continuous
attacks against Palestine Medical Relief Health Services and
Staff. This
recent action is their attempt to cover up their gross violations
of
International Law.
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