GAZA STRIP (Dispatches) – A six-year-old Palestinian child has been pronounced dead in the Gaza Strip after Zionist regime authorities did not grant him permission to leave the besieged enclave for treatment.
The Gaza-based al-Mezan Center for Human Rights said on Sunday that Farouq Abul-Naja, who was suffering from a type of brain atrophy, was due to be treated at Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in the occupied Al-Quds given the fact that there was no treatment for his condition in Gaza hospitals, the Palestinian Information Center reported.
The Palestinian NGO held Zionist regime authorities responsible for the death of the child as a result of the occupying regime’s strict restrictions on freedom of movement for the people of Gaza, particularly on the travel of patients who need treatment outside the coastal enclave.
Abul-Naja missed an appointment for treatment at the hospital in January because the request filed for his travel was under review by the occupying regime authorities for months. Later in August, he missed another appointment at the hospital as the regime authorities had not yet approved the request for his travel.
Al-Mezan Center also pointed out that four Gazan patients, including three children, have died since the beginning of the year due to the regime’s reluctance to grant them the necessary permits for access to medical treatment outside Gaza.
Palestinians have to travel for serious conditions that the overburdened health system in Gaza cannot treat, but face long waits for permits to enter the occupied territories.
Gaza has been under a crippling Zionist siege since June 2007. The blockade has caused a decline in living standards as well as unprecedented levels of unemployment and unrelenting poverty in the Gaza Strip.
The occupying regime has launched three major wars against the enclave since 2008, killing thousands of Gazans each time and shattering the impoverished territory’s already poor infrastructure.