Ref: / 2022
Date: 06 April 2022
Press release
“On the occasion of World Health Day”
ICSPR calls for an end to the racial discrimination in realizing health rights in Gaza.
Tomorrow -Thursday, April 7- marks the World Health Day, the day on which the world celebrates the anniversary of establishing the World Health Organization in 1948.
The occasion comes while health justice in Palestine is still absent, and patients are still unable to obtain the health services they need, especially in Gaza and in light of the Israeli siege imposed on the Strip, where discrimination is clearly practiced against them, represented in depriving patients of access and enjoyment of their health rights as a result of restrictions imposed on freedom of movement to and from the Gaza Strip, especially cancer patients, heart diseases and congenital malformations. Patients continue to be denied access to hospitals to receive appropriate health care outside the besieged Strip, while the policy of detention and interrogation of patients and their companions continues.
The International Commission to Support Palestinians’ Rights (ICSPR) stresses that patients in the Gaza Strip are the most marginalized and subjected to discrimination, especially as they live between the scarcity of medical resources and the refusal of medical transfers. ICSPR warning against the continued restrictions imposed on patients in the Gaza Strip, and the continuing shortage of laboratory materials, medicines and medical supplies, accordingly:
- ICSPR calls on all parties to intervene and exert great efforts to ensure the effective enjoyment of the right to physical and mental health, and to provide equal possibilities and means of obtaining the necessary health care.
- ICSPR calls for pressure on the occupation authorities to stop any discriminatory acts, and to activate mechanisms of international justice and accountability to compel the occupation state to respect its obligations under international law.
- ICSPR calls on the international community to take concrete and urgent steps that would stop the ongoing violations of the rights of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to receive appropriate health care, and to put pressure on the occupation authorities to respect and implement the obligations stipulated in the international humanitarian law.
- ICSPR calls on international agencies, institutions and specialized organizations to continue providing support to the Palestinian health sector to enable it to provide health services appropriately to the population.
