URGENT APPEAL
Ministry of
Health, Palestine
March 12, 2001
The Palestinian people in the West Bank
and Gaza continue to suffer from the arbitrary occupation measures, since more
than 5 months in the form of collective punishment, including siege and closure
of all cities, in addition to shooting and bombing of the civilians leading to
thousands of injuries.
In the last few days, the occupation authority had escalated their restrictive
measures against the civilian population, including complete closure of all entries
and exists of all villages including all villages around Jerusalem, isolating
them from each other and the nearest cities.
A flagrant example is that 33 villages located north west to Ramallah including
Berzeit University, had been completely isolated, and consequently 80,000 people
are not allowed to leave their villages, or reach Ramallah where all
health and educational institutions are located.
Under such harsh inhuman arbitrary measures and circumstances, the Ministry of
Health became
unable to provide its vital activities and its routine medical services,
particularly the implementation of the vaccination programs and campaigns to our
children, which can lead to the spread of very dangerous epidemics.
Most of the Medical Teams are not allowed to reach the hospitals and the primary
health care centers, which are almost paralyzed and cannot provide their
services to the civilian population.
Even the waste disposal operations, cannot be carried out leaving piles of
garbage in the towns and villages and this will endanger health and the environment.
Furthermore, the ambulances are not allowed to transfer the injured people and
patients to the medical facilities, thus seriously endangering the life of our
people.
All these measures are considered serious violations to the principles of the
human rights, and all international laws and legitimacy including the famous
Forth Geneva Convention, that stresses on the necessity of maintaining the
civilians health in war time.
On behalf of all our people and deprived children and in the name of humanity,
we appeal urgently to the United Nations, all international societies, and peace
lovers all over the world, and in particular to all international human right
agencies, and Red Cross and Crescent societies, to act immediately and take the
necessary intervention, to stop all these inhuman arbitrary acts against the Palestinian people to allow them to live in peace and dignity and to enjoy their
basic human rights as other nations do.
Minister of Health
Dr. Riyad Za'anoun
|
|