The Gaza Health Crisis: WHO’s to Blame? - by Daniel Pomerantz

...The safety and health of Gaza residents matters, and when agenda driven NGOs divert attention away from the real causes of health problems, they become complicit in perpetuating those problems: by delaying or denying real solutions. The media worsen the problem by failing to hold the relevant organizations to account, through even the most basic fact checking.

Daniel Pomerantz..
Honest Reporting..
19 February '18..

Fifty four Palestinians died in Gaza while awaiting a medical travel permit from Israel.

This is according to a joint statement issued last week by several NGOs (non-governmental organizations): Human Rights Watch (HRW), Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, Amnesty International, and Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI), that slams Israel for a 54% decrease in medical travel permits to residents of Gaza.

Except on closer examination, it appears that in most cases relevant to this 54% decrease, Israel didn’t deny the permits: the Palestinian Authority did.

Joint statement

The joint statement statement purports to be based on a report by the UN’s World Health Organization (WHO).

The NGOs (including the WHO) placed blame primarily on Israel, as in the following statement from HRW:

Israeli authorities approved permits for medical appointments for only 54 percent of those who applied in 2017, the lowest rate since the World Health Organization (WHO) began collecting figures in 2008. WHO reported that 54 Palestinians, 46 of whom had cancer, died in 2017 following denial or delay of their permits.

Yet what the statement leaves out is that the WHO numbers are actually related to permit denials by the Palestinian government.

(Continue to Full Post)

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