Palestinian Kids Die as a Result of PA Boycott

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights reported (PCHR) on December 4th that two Palestinian children, members of the same family, died recently as the result of a political decision by the Palestinian Ministry of Health. For the full article see http://tinyurl.com/caevz2h by "Missing Piece" dated Dec 18th

On November 2nd The PA ministry issued a decision decreasing the transfer of seriously ill patients to Israel, citing the high cost of treatment in Israeli hospitals.
The measure has nothing to with finances however, but was the result of the long standing PA policy of boycotting Israel.

PCHR submitted a report on the deaths of Mohammad Azzam Sahwil (9) and his sister Hiba Azzam Shawil (8):

Yearly thousands of Palestinian patients are treated in Israeli hospitals. From the Israeli perspective high costs were never a reason to refuse them treatment.

There have even been cases in which funds for treatment were raised among the Jewish public in Israel. The best known example of this was the story of Mohammed Abu Mustafa, a Palestinian baby from Gaza who was born without an immune system. The baby was saved by Israeli doctors after a anonymous Jewish Israeli donated the costs of the treatment.

The Peres Peace Centre has a special fund known as ‘Saving children’ that enables hundreds of Palestinian children to receive free medical treatment in Israel.

Recently the IDC website No Camels ran a story about a pregnant Palestinian woman who received emergency treatment in the Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem.
The woman was pregnant with twins whose blood supply was insufficient. According to No Camels ‘A small catheter was inserted into her womb and using a laser device, her placenta was burnt and separated to two parts – one for each baby. The procedure was carried out successfully and the lives of the twins were saved.’

It is obvious that the decision to deny seriously ill Palestinians treatment in Israeli hospitals has nothing to do with finances but everything with the ongoing political war against Israel by the Palestian Authority.

Last week several planned informal meetings which aimed to promote normalization between Israelis and Palestinians, were thwarted by Fatah. Hatem Abdel Khader, a senior Fatah official, told Palestinian journalist Khaled Abu Toameh that Fatah has declared war on all informal meetings between Israelis and Palestinians.

It is highly doubtful however that this new PA attempt to boycott Israel will succeed.

An earlier economic boycott failed miserably after the Palestinian public refused to participate. One has only to visit the West Bank to see that Palestinians massively buy Israeli goods and are involved in trade with Israel. Despite an ongoing ban thirty thousand Palestinians work in the Jewish communities in the West Bank and their number keeps growing.

The current normalization boycott seems to be ignored as well. While Fatah was busy sabotaging reconciliation meetings in Jerusalem and Beit Jallah last week, Israeli scientists met their Palestinian counterparts at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, in order to discuss further cooperation.

So the real victims of this boycott appear to be the seriously ill Palestinians who do not have the ability to ignore this cynical attempt to destroy normalization with Israel.