[psych-hr] Urgent Medical Call to Action for Israel and the Occupied Territories

PHYSICIANS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS (USA) URGENT INTERNATIONAL
MEDICAL CALL TO ACTION FOR ISRAEL AND THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES

April 4, 2002

Unarmed Palestinian and Israeli children, women, and men are dying in great
numbers.  Violations of medical neutrality are occurring on almost a daily
basis. The killing and targeting of unarmed civilians are atrocities and
violations of human rights whether committed in war, occupation, or peace.
This intensifying crisis requires that physicians and other health
professionals of integrity in the region and throughout the world join to
defend and uphold health and human rights in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank.

The Israeli, Palestinian, and international medical communities should
demand that the Israeli Defense Forces cease shelling and firing upon
non-combatants, denying them access to food, water and essential supplies
and assaulting medical facilities, personnel and transport-- all protected
under international humanitarian law.   They should proclaim loudly that
suicide bombings against Israeli civilians come to an end.  They should make
demands of the international community to take affirmative steps toward
protecting the rights of Palestinians within their own state and of Israelis
to live within secure borders

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) (USA) calls upon Palestinian and Israeli
doctors, nurses, medics and public health workers from all political
ideologies and their professional associations to do everything in their
power to uphold the norm of civilian immunity from military attack.
Palestinian and Israeli health professionals must publicly convey their
revulsion for both suicide/homicide bombings by Palestinian militants and
attacks on civilians and medical institutions by Israeli Defense Forces
(IDF). But they cannot do this alone. The voices of medical professionals
everywhere in the world, upholding medical neutrality and demanding an end
to policies that put civilians at risk of life and health, are desperately
needed.

Palestinian and Israeli authorities have manifestly failed to insist upon
adherence to human rights norms, and the consequences for life and health of
Palestinians and Israelis have been appalling. Doctors and other health
professionals, whose first duty is to protect, defend, and enhance life and
health have a duty to demand that all participants in the conflict, end
their attacks on unarmed men, women, and children.

PHR (USA) urges health professionals around the world to demand that the IDF
end its attacks on medical facilities, personnel and vehicles.  In March
alone, six Palestinian ambulance personnel were killed by IDF fire, in most
cases the attacked ambulances had been cleared by IDF for passage in order
to reach individuals in need of emergency care. In the recent campaign in
Ramallah and elsewhere, IDF forces have attacked civilian facilities
including medical facilities, detained ambulance workers, obstructed the
provision of medical supplies to hospitals, and prevented wounded
individuals from reaching medical care.  PHR (USA) also calls upon all
health professionals to denounce unequivocally any placement of weapons in
ambulances, as has been alleged by the IDF in a Palestinian ambulance, as a
gross violation of medical neutrality.

Physicians for Human Rights (USA) notes that, despite the intensity of the
conflict, Israeli and Palestinian physicians, nurses, and medical staff have
provided unbiased care to patients and respected their colleagues regardless
of religion or ethnicity. In a recent visit to the region by a medical
delegation, Physicians for Human Rights (USA) witnessed firsthand Jewish and
Palestinian medical staff laboring together to treat the victims in
Jerusalem at the Shaare Zedek Medical Center's emergency department.

International civil society, particularly its medical component, must do
what the Palestinian and Israeli political and military leadership has
failed to do: articulate and defend the rights of besieged communities on
both sides. The problems are not limited to the traumas associated with
bombings, the shelling of civilian areas by helicopters and tanks, or other
direct assaults. A shameful toll of suffering and death is silently exacted
by total curfews, arbitrary refusals at checkpoints, interruption of vital
services and supplies to hospitals, and other measures that effectively bar
infants, pregnant women, the elderly and the chronically ill from access to
what is often desperately needed life-sustaining treatment. The interruption
of electricity to large sections of Ramallah cripples both water pumping and
sewage pumping stations that serve tens of thousands of civilians. This
creates a public health crisis that must be ended at once.

We therefore call upon our medical colleagues in Israel, West Bank, Gaza and
around the world to:

1. Denounce the violations of medical neutrality and human rights of
Palestinians, including attacks on non-combatants, obstructions of food and
medical supplies, and interference with medical personnel, facilities and
transport, by the Israeli Defense Forces.

2. Denounce suicide bombings by Palestinian militants against noncombatant
innocent Israeli civilians.

3. Demand that the international community take affirmative steps toward
protecting the rights of Palestinians within their own state and of Israelis
to live within secure borders.

4. Urge their professional medical associations and institutions to make
similar pronouncements and appeals.

---

Please send statements to:

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
Office of the Prime Minister
3 Kaplan Street
Hakirya, Jerusalem 91007
Israel
Fax: 972-2-566-4838

President Yasser Arafat
Office of the President
The Beach Forum
Gaza City
Palestinian Authority
Fax: 972-7-282-2365

Mr. Kofi Annan
United Nations Secretary General
c/o Office of the Spokesperson for the Secretary General
United Nations, S-378
New York, NY  10017
Fax: 212-963-7055

Your Head of State

Please send copies of your letters to: phrusa@phrusa.org

---

Physicians for Human Rights (USA) promotes health by protecting human
rights. In 1997, PHR shared the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize as a founding member
of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. PHR (USA) has sent numerous
medical delegations to the Israeli Occupied Territories since 1988. Most
recently, in mid-March 2002, a delegation from PHR (USA) met with Israeli
and Palestinian doctors and other medical personnel and investigated
violations of medical neutrality. Visit www.phrusa.org for recent PHR (USA)
statements, including a statement at a press conference in Jerusalem in
March 2002.




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