The Muslim News

International Middle East Media Centre:

A Palestinian man who was on his way to receive medical treatment inside Israel was left on the ground for over an hour by Israeli border police, until he finally passed away.

Nemer Mohammed Salim Shuhaiber, 77, from al-Sabra neighborhood in Gaza City, was admitted into the Intensive Care Unit at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on 21 October 2007 as he was suffering from an acute heart attack. Since he was in a serious condition, the Palestinian Ministry of Health decided to transfer him to an Israeli hospital. On Monday, 22 October 2007, the liaison officer at the Ministry was able to coordinate with Israeli occupation authorities his passage through Erez crossing.

The patient’s sons, Nahidh and ‘Adnan, also obtained permits to accompany him to the Israeli hospital. According to Nahidh, 42, he accompanied his father to Erez crossing. The ambulance driver was permitted by Israeli occupation authorities to pass through the crossing. When the ambulance moved forward, Israeli occupation troops fired at it, so the driver was forced to drive back and the patient was not able to travel to the Israeli hospital on that day although he was in a serious condition.

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights has issued a strong condemnation of the de facto murder of the patient by Israeli authorities. The Center called for the international community, particularly the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, World Health Organization and the ICRC to exert pressure on Israeli occupation authorities to allow access of patients from the Gaza Strip to hospitals in the West Bank and Israel through Beit Hanoun (Erez) crossing.

Meanwhile, Israeli authorities demolished on Wednesday morning all houses, tin-houses, in the unrecognized Arab village of Taweel Abu Jaroul, in the Negev, for the twelfth time, and uploaded all the belongings of the residents on eight trucks before dumping them in a nearly trash-yard.

Local sources reported that policemen took the identity card of Aqeel Al Talalqa, head of the village council, and took his car keys in order bar him from leaving the village to ask for help or to object to the authorities.

Al Talalqa appealed all popular institutions to intervene and aid the residents of village, and stated that the villagers insist to remain steadfast in their lands.

He also told the police officers that the villagers will rebuild their houses since they are built on their lands, and challenged the Israeli official claims which state that the village’s houses are constructed on state lands.

Al Talalqa added that the residents installed tin-houses and tents immediately after the police left the area and that they will remain in their lands, and will not negotiate with the Israeli government as long as it continues its illegal acts of demolishing.

He appealed human rights groups to provide the homeless residents with tents and voiced an appeal to all Arab residents in the Negev to unite against the organized attacks that target their villages and presence in the area.

It is worth mentioning that after demolishing the houses in the village, the police headed to Al Araqeeb nearby area, and attempted to demolish the house of Sheikh Sabah Al Toury, but he managed to obtain a decision from the Israeli district court to delay the demolishing for ten days.

Hasan Rafay’a, head of the Regional Council of the Unrecognized Villages in the Negev, stated that Israel, and extremist Jewish groups, are attacking the Arab villages in the Negev, although the residents own the lands.

He added that Al Talalqa family owns 22.000 Dunams of land, and that the Israeli policy is to overtake all Arab lands.

“We will remain steadfast, we will rebuild; demolishing and intimidation practiced by the government will not resolve any problem, and will only lead to undesired results”, Rafay’a stated, “The Israeli government must negotiate with is instead of attacking us, and must act to resolve our problems instead of dictating its own decisions”.

http://www.imemc.org/article/51073

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