The Israeli government informed the Supreme Court on Monday that it refuses to allow the evacuation of critically ill patients from the besieged Gaza Strip for treatment in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, citing “security reasons.”
This came in response to petitions filed with the Supreme Court (the highest judicial authority) by Israeli human rights organizations, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
The newspaper reported that “the government declared before the Supreme Court that it insists on refusing to allow the evacuation of critically ill patients from the Gaza Strip to receive treatment in hospitals in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.”
In its response, the government claimed that “the departure of Gaza residents to the West Bank or to Israel entails security risks, namely the transfer of information and the export of terrorist infrastructure.”
Despite maintaining the blockade on the Gaza Strip, the government suggested that Gazan patients “travel to a third country.”
She claimed that thousands of Palestinian patients in Gaza “left for treatment in countries including the UAE, Romania, Jordan, Turkey, France, Italy, and Belgium, as well as Egypt, Luxembourg, Malta, and Norway.”
Haaretz quoted Israeli lawyer Adi Stegman, who represents the organizations that filed the petition, as saying, “The state’s response to the Supreme Court is cruel, illegal, and immoral. It ignores the sick, the elderly, and children.”
She described the decision as “a death sentence for thousands of innocent patients.”
