British Medical Journal, 19 February 2005

Barrier in West Bank threatens residents' health care, says report
Deborah Cohen
London

Almost a third of West Bank Palestinian villages will be denied free and open access to healthcare facilities once the Israeli government has completed constructing the West Bank barrier, says a report by the French non-governmental organisation Medecins du Monde.

In June 2002 the Israeli government began to build a barrier around the West Bank that, according to the Israel Defence Forces, will "lessen the impact and scope of terrorism on the citizens of Israel." Already 185 km long, it will eventually be 622 km long and consist of fences, ditches, patrol roads, and a concrete wall 8-9 m high costing an estimated $4.7m (£2.5m; 3.6m) per km.

Worst hit will be the villages confined within the "seam zone," the territory between the green line (the 1949 armistice line that delineates Israel's pre-1967 border with the West Bank) and the barrier, according to the report. Villages situated in the enclaves formed by the route of the barrier will also be badly affected, it says. Palestinians wanting to leave these areas to travel to another town in the West Bank will have to apply for a permit and pass through a checkpoint or gate guarded by a soldier.

People requiring emergency health treatment in Palestinian hospitals in other parts of the West Bank face an even longer journey than at present and may not be able to access emergency care at all during the night, according to Regis Garrigue, head of Medecins du Monde's Palestinian projects. He said: "The people inside the enclaves are in a big jail. Sometimes the passage into the enclaves is shut for a day or a night or even a week."

In Abu Dis and Aizaria, two Palestinian towns where the barrier has already been completed, the average time for an ambulance to travel to the nearest hospitals in Jerusalem has increased from about 10 minutes to over one hour and 50 minutes, according to the report. Mr Garrigue says that once the barrier is completed this problem will affect many more villages.

"If patients don't have access to their medical facilities or if medical staff cannot reach the facilities to provide medical services the healthcare system is bound to deteriorate," the report warns.

Dr Yitzhak Sever, director of the Department of International Relations in the Ministry of Health, said that all the inhabitants on the west of the barrier, located within the seam zone, are given permits to travel to other Palestinian hospitals. More than 45 000 permits for patients were issued over the past year. He also stressed that Israeli doctors treat Palestinian patients and train health professionals, despite the former Palestinian Health Minister's refusal to sit on joint Palestinian-Israeli health committees after the second intifada in 2000.

"Maybe the barrier will not be continued, we don't know. It's there for security reasons as determined by the Ministry of Defence. I know in the majority of places in the West Bank, building is frozen and the barrier will be under debate in the negotiations about disengagement and peace. We hope the new era will being peace for the two peoples," he told the BMJ.

The Ultimate Barrier: Impact of the Wall on the Palestinian Health Care System is available at www.healthandwall.org under "More info"

Simon J Plosker,
Managing Editor, NGO Monitor
NGO Monitor, 13 Tel Hai Street, Jerusalem 92107, Israel

As practitioners of medicine, the British Medical Journal’s readers understand the need to base a diagnosis on scientific and accurate information as understood by a qualified physician. It is unfortunate, therefore, that the BMJ has given credence to Medecins du Monde’s highly politicized and biased report on the effects of the Israeli security barrier on Palestinian healthcare.

NGO Monitor (www.ngo-monitor.org) has analyzed this report in detail, highlighting the absence of credibility. Figures and claims are based on hearsay and testimonies of anonymous Palestinian sources, which have proven in the past to be unreliable at best and distorted to fit the Palestinian narrative in other cases. Other sources cited include extremist organizations such as the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions and the Palestinian Environmental NGO Network (PENGON), whose focus is primarily on attacking Israel, rather than on promoting Palestinian health care. Its authors deliberately ignore the clear evidence that the security barrier has reduced terrorist attacks and saved many lives – a vital part of the picture.

Indeed, MDM’s report closely follows the standard Palestinian political narrative, lacking in context and questioning the legitimacy of Israel's reasons for the construction of the security barrier. The language is also based on radical politics, including the misleading term "the Wall" (reminiscent of the "apartheid wall" used by many NGOs in their campaigns). With the involvement of the Palestine Red Crescent Society, the report also criticizes IDF searches of ambulances, ignoring the documented abuse of medical facilities and vehicles in Palestinian terror attacks.

Thus, this report, and the activities of Medecins du Monde, partnered with Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, is a clear abuse of medical issues and human rights. This politicization deserves no place in the pages of a respected publication such as the British Medical Journal.

Competing interests: Managing Editor of NGO Monitor which was founded to promote accountability, and advance a vigorous discussion on the reports and activities of humanitarian NGOs in the framework of the Arab-Israeli conflict.