GAZA STRIP (MEMO) – New data published by Physicians for Human Rights shows that the number of Palestinian minors who the Zionist regime has refused to allow to leave the besieged Gaza Strip to access treatment has doubled.
According to data the group accessed as a result of a Freedom of Information request, in 2020, 17 percent of minors’ requests to leave the Gaza Strip for the purpose of receiving medical care not available in the Gaza Strip were rejected or refused (347 out of 2,070 requests).
In 2021, this nearly doubled to 32 percent, meaning the Zionist occupation authorities rejected 812 of the 2,578 applications submitted on behalf of minors that year.
Physicians for Human Rights, which provides assistance to patients in the Gaza Strip to obtain exit permits for the purpose of receiving health care, attribute the reasons for the higher rate, to the tightening of Zionist policies related to the issuance of exit permits for Gazan patients to the global coronavirus pandemic and the aggression on the Gaza Strip in May 2021.
According to the organization, the main reason for the high rates of rejections is the regime’s refusal to allow the minors’ parents to accompany them while they are undergoing medical care and claims that there are problems with the medical documents attached to the applications.
In such cases, sick minors who are not allowed to leave the Gaza Strip to receive health care at the time specified by the hospitals are required to replace their companions, often with people who are not relatives and resubmit their application.
“Separation from the main caregiver during hospitalization impedes the parent from providing emotional support during such difficult times when it is critical to the child’s inherent sense of security and subsequent physical, emotional, social, and cognitive maturation, “ expert on medical psychology, Dr Oren Lahak, said.
For her part, Director of the Occupied Territories Department at Physicians for Human Rights, Ghada Majadleh, said, “The closure imposed on the Gaza Strip continues, a closure that has plagued the lives of millions, and cost lives and bodies, for 15 years.”