Saturday 7 February 2009

Arab medicine, food supplies rot in Al-Arish

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[ 07/02/2009 - 08:13 AM ]




AL-ARISH, (PIC)-- Dr. Bakat Barkani, the chairman of the Algerian doctors syndicate, has plainly accused the Egyptian government of wasting tons of medicine and blood supplies donated by Arab countries to their Palestinian brothers in Gaza Strip.

According to Barkani, tens of Algerian doctors dispatched to Gaza to help their Palestinian counterparts to treat thousands of Palestinians wounded in the cruel Israeli war on Gaza last month were held at Al-Arish and denied entry into the beleaguered Strip.

He explained that the blood donated by the Algerian people to their Palestinian brothers had expired because Egypt neither sent it to Gaza nor kept it in a safe place to avoid the damage.

"Egypt is accused of deliberately damaging tons of medicine, food supplies, and blood", stressed Barkani, adding that the Israeli occupation authority allowed little amount of medicine and food to come into the Strip through crossing points it controls, but Egypt failed to do so.

News correspondents stationed at Al-Arish city quoted Egyptian residents as saying that the government was deliberately seizing and delaying passage of those goods into the Strip although it knows that they might rot because they weren’t kept in a safe place.

Cairo abandoned the Palestinians:
Meanwhile, the Arab Bar accused the Egyptian government of abandoning the Palestinian people and leaving them to starve, saying that Egypt wants the Palestinian resistance to accept Israeli dictates.

Abdul Athim Al-Maghrabi, deputy secretary-general of the Bar, explained that the Egyptian decision to close the Rafah crossing point came after Hamas refused the Israeli dictates, and added that the opening of the crossing is linked to Hamas's "acceptance" of those humiliating conditions.

"The Egyptian administration is wrong in taking such a decision, and the justification it tries to convince us with that it is abiding by the 2005 crossings agreement is of no sense, as Egypt wasn’t a signatory to that deal and thus it isn’t bound by any obligation in this regard", Maghrabi added.

He stressed that in addition to the fact that the agreement had expired in 2006, Egypt is duty-bound by the international law to open the crossing point to save the lives of 1.5 million Palestinians who are suffering slow death in the tiny Strip.

However, Maghrabi explained that the Egyptian official stand doesn’t reflect the pulse of the Egyptian street.


Mizan: Israeli aggression destroyed water networks, put lives of Gazans at risk

[ 07/02/2009 - 07:39 AM ]





GAZA, (PIC)-- Al-Mizan center for human rights has asserted that the Israeli war on Gaza Strip destroyed water networks, and mixed potable water with waste water that affected the lives of the 1.5 million Palestinians living there.

According to a report it issued on the adverse repercussions of the brutal war on the water sector in Gaza, the center explained that the water infrastructure in Gaza was completely destroyed by the Israeli aggression.

The report also accused the Israeli occupation authority of deliberately ignoring its obligations to deliver potable water to the Palestinians in the Strip, being the occupation force on the land, and of banning international experts willing to restore the devastated water networks from entering the Strip.

As a result, drinkable water was mixed with sewerage water, putting the lives of the Palestinians at risk, the report explained, adding that at least 11 main water pumps were completely destroyed, in addition to a number of big water reservoirs.

Moreover, the center stressed that Israeli refusal to allow industrial fuel into the Strip causes sharp shortage in electricity which is needed to pump water to high residential buildings, leaving residents of those towers without water.

In this concern, the center urged international human rights institutions and UN agencies to pressure the IOA to open the crossing points and to allow fuel and basic spare parts of water networks into the Strip in order to avoid a looming human catastrophe.

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