Accusation: Israeli checkpoints prevent Palestinians receiving medical attention

With the Durban II conference approaching, yet more accusations are aimed at deligitimising Israel

Accusation: Israeli checkpoints are unnecessarily preventing Palestinians from receiving medical attention

The Reality:

The truth of the matter is that thousands of Israelis have died and been injured in terrorist attacks over the years. The truth of the matter is that a state's principal responsibility is to ensure the safety of its citizens.

Checkpoints therefore are a sad need.

Whenever security permits it, checkpoints are removed. Procedures are cut and the sick and needy may use special processes in place to go through in a very quick manner.

No Palestinian truly in need of medical attention is denied that right. Thousands of Palestinians are treated at no cost by world class Israeli Doctors in state of the art medical facilities, but Israel must always balance the need to protect its citizens against its concern to provide healthcare to Palestinians who wish to receive it.

The Facts:

The truth of the matter is that thousands of Israelis have died and been injured in terrorist attacks over the years. The truth of the matter is that a state's principal responsibility is to ensure the safety of its citizens. This duty must be balanced against the need of non citizens to enter into the territory of a state, even if their entrance is motivated by a need to receive medical attention. Many other ways of ensuring the safety of Israeli citizens have been tried over the years and, regrettably, many of them failed and as a result lives were lost.

Checkpoints therefore are a sad need. They have become a vital component in the struggle to prevent terrorist attacks and have proved their worth by stopping terrorists from killing innocent civilians in Israel and the West Bank. If there was a mechanism to ensure the safety of Israeli civilians without inconveniencing innocent Palestinians, such a mechanism would be in place. This is why, whenever improvements in safety have allowed it, Israel has removed every possible checkpoint in order to facilitate the movement of Palestinians.

Procedures for going through checkpoints are also constantly expedited and improved in order to minimize crossing times, which Israel understands are burdensome and uncomfortable. Since Israel provides state of the art medical attention to all Palestinians who need it, priority is always given to those in need of medical attention so that treatment can be administered in a timely manner and all dangers are averted.

A troublesome issue however, has been the exploitation by terrorists of Israel's high level of concern for the welfare of the sick in order to launch terrorist attacks. Some have posed as patients, producing false medical documents, used ambulances to transport weapons, posed as pregnant women in order pass quickly and even gone as far as exploiting truly ailing individuals who are made to think they have no other hope but to carry out terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians in order to be considered martyrs.

No Palestinian truly in need of medical attention is denied that right. Thousands of Palestinians are treated at no cost by world class Israeli Doctors in state of the art medical facilities, but Israel must always balance the need to protect its citizens against its concern to provide healthcare to Palestinians who wish to receive it.