Foreign experts barred by IDF from Gaza mental health conference

Defense Ministry's Civil Administration for Gaza says no permits to the conference, "Siege and Mental Health, Walls vs Bridges," were issued.

By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH
erez crossing 224 88 ap (photo credit: AP [file])
erez crossing 224 88 ap
(photo credit: AP [file])
Some 120 physicians, academics and health professionals from the US, Canada and Europe who have arrived to attend an international conference on mental health in Gaza on Monday and Tuesday are protesting an IDF refusal to let them enter the Strip through the Erez crossing. Some of the organizers and delegates to the Gaza Community Mental Health Program's fifth International Conference, to be held in cooperation with the World Health Organization on "Siege and Mental Health, Walls vs Bridges," will hold a press conference in an east Jerusalem hotel Sunday morning to voice their outrage. "We protest this last-minute decision by the Israeli authorities and regard it as a deliberate attempt to stop professional communication and exchange between the international medical community and Gaza medical professionals," they said, in an invitation to the press conference. The Health Ministry, which has a representative who facilitates permits for Palestinians' exit from Gaza for humanitarian medical care in Israel, did not comment and referred The Jerusalem Post to the Defense Ministry's Civil Administration for Gaza. Civil Administration spokesman Peter Lerner said that although the conference had been planned for a year, the administration was asked for permits for "61 people" to pass through Erez only three weeks ago, and it had refused to issue any. "Since the Hamas terror organization's takeover in 2007, we have had a policy of allowing entrance to Gaza from Israel only for humanitarian treatment there, but not for conventions or assemblies. This event is not humanitarian but populistic and for propaganda, as one can see from the titles of the events, such as Gaza Palestinians being "civilian victims of a siege," Lerner said. He added that "everything in Gaza is influenced by fact that an IDF soldier, Gilat Schalit, has been held in Gaza for over two years, with no one here knowing his whereabouts or anybody being able to visit him." Would-be participant Dr. Alan Meyers, a pediatrician at Boston University's School of Medicine and a member of the American Jews for a Just Peace organization that aims to "improve the daily life and health care of people in the occupied territories," told the Post that if foreign participants were not allowed to pass through the crossing, they would demonstrate there. Then they would attend a gathering for them and West Bank health professionals in Ramallah with a videoconference linking them to the event in Gaza. But he added that he would regret not being able to meet Gazan doctors personally and to visit their hospitals. While not a psychiatrist or psychologist, Meyers said his practice in Boston includes many patients who had suffered trauma from criminal events and their own poverty. He is visiting Israel for the sixth time. The organizers said the conference "aims to describe and assess the wider mental health and health effects of the ongoing siege policy imposed by the Israeli government on the 1.4 million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip. Many of the participants had prepared presentations on their own work on violence, social stress and poverty, as well as the mental health of children... What better irony to highlight the effects of the siege?" they said of the last-minute refusal. "The conference has been organized to serve as a forum for professional discussion and scientific exchange concerning the impact of the Gaza siege on children, families and communities, and peacemaking efforts... We demand the Israeli authorities to change their decision and allow conference participants to enter Gaza," they said. Asked whether he would raise the situation of Schalit and the years of rocket attacks by Gaza terrorists on the city of Sderot and the western Negev, Meyers said he denounced the treatment of Schalit and the Palestinians' depriving him of his basic human rights. He said International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) representatives should be allowed by Hamas to visit Schalit. The Boston pediatrician also criticized the attacks on Sderot and "all violence against civilians," but added that Israelis were capable of helping their citizens deal with their trauma, while Gazan civilians were "trapped." While the Arab world has done very little to help Gazans, Meyers added, the population was "primarily Israel's responsibility, even though Israeli settlements and the IDF have pulled out of Gaza." Meanwhile, the ICRC said on Thursday that the fact that "several hundred seriously ill patients in the Gaza Strip who cannot obtain urgently needed medical treatment is extremely worrisome. "In recent weeks, because of a standstill in cooperation between Palestinian authorities in Ramallah and Gaza, imports of essential medical supplies have been reduced to a trickle, aggravating an already critical situation." "This is having a serious impact," said Eileen Daly, the ICRC's health coordinator for Gaza. "For example, children suffering from cystic fibrosis, a serious lung disease, have not had access to proper medication for the past week. They need to take the medication every day, or their condition will deteriorate rapidly."