More Palestinians Are Dying Waiting to Get Medical Treatment Because Israel Won’t Give Them Travel Permits

Newsweek quotes USCPR Executive Director Yousef Munayyer in an article about the rapidly escalating humanitarian crisis for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. As Israel maintains its decade-long siege on the coastal enclave, Palestinians are dying as they are denied exit permits that would allow them to leave for life-saving medical treatment.

Meanwhile, the percentage of travel permits Israel accepted for “exceptional humanitarian cases” dropped from 92 percent of all applications in 2012 to only 54 percent in 2017, according to the World Health Organization. Some advocates argue that these decisions constitute a violation of human rights that could cause the security situation in Gaza to unravel.

“Israel is testing the extent to which it can ignore and deny the basic rights of Palestinians in Gaza. People who could otherwise be saved if they had access to proper medical treatment are being left for dead, trapped inside the cage Israel has created in Gaza,” Yousef Munayyer, executive director of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, told Newsweek.

“For leaders in Tel Aviv, Washington and perhaps even Ramallah, Gaza is considered a problem they wish would just disappear. But it isn’t going anywhere, and the desperate conditions they are exacerbating there will soon enough lead to another inevitable explosion.”

Read the article.