ISRAEL-OPT: More Palestinians entering Israel on health grounds
www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=70200

BEIT EL/TEL AVIV, 15 February 2007 (IRIN - UN Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs ) - More and more Palestinians are gaining permission
to enter Israel and East Jerusalem for medical reasons - one of the few ways
they can still obtain a permit.

Behind an oversized desk, Dalia Bessa, the Health Coordinator for the
Israeli Civil Administration in the West Bank, answers her numerous phones
in Hebrew, English and Arabic. One woman needs a permit to go to Jerusalem
for cancer treatment; on another line, a report comes in about a car
accident near Nablus. A moment later a Palestinian director of an East
Jerusalem hospital files his request.

"We got 81,000 Palestinians permits to enter Israel for health reasons in
2006, a rise of 61 percent from 2005," Bessa says from her office in Beit
El, near Ramallah. Without those permits, no hospital will grant entry to a
Palestinian patient.

She believes the increase is due to the Israeli security barrier, which
limits Palestinians' movements, and a strike in the medical sector. She
expects even more Palestinians to require permits in 2007.

While fewer and fewer Palestinians from the West Bank, and none from Gaza,
are able to enter Israel to work - a situation unlikely to change - Bessa
says 90 percent of applicants are granted permits when the reason is
medical.

Aid blocked

Karni Crossing, the main commercial crossing into the Gaza Strip, is
frequently closed by Israel due to intelligence alleging imminent attacks.

The Israeli human rights organisation Gisha has filed a High Court petition
demanding that Karni be open longer so that aid can get through to Gaza. A
hearing is set for the end of February.

Meanwhile, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) owes more than
US$1 million in penalty fees to storage companies at the Ashdod Port in
southern Israel, since it is unable to transfer containers in and out of the
Gaza Strip quickly enough. This is wasted aid money, UNRWA officials say.

Shlomo Dror, a spokesman at the Israeli Ministry of Defence, says that
without the international aid organisations there would be a humanitarian
crisis in the Palestinian areas. "We don't want a crisis like that," Dror
emphasised. "But, if one did emerge, we would have to go in [to the
Palestinian areas] and help. But we want the Palestinian Authority to take
responsibility, not us."

Gabi Ashkenazi replaced Dan Halutz on Wednesday as the Israeli
Chief-of-Staff but the coordination branches are expected to remain the
same. However, work with the Palestinian side may improve if the
Palestinians establish a unity government, as the military will not deal
with Hamas.

Major Peter Lerner, in charge of humanitarian coordination in the Gaza
Strip, explains that the army has implemented changes.
"Before 2003, we had three people doing this. Now 21 people coordinate
humanitarian affairs in the Palestinian areas," he says, "leading to better
services and operations."

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