Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, March 2003, pages 24-25

Special Report

 

U.S. Physician Assesses Needs of Gaza’s Imprisoned PopulationS

 

By Pat McDonnell Twair

Few people travel to Gaza these days. The Israeli government portrays it as a hotbed of terrorists. Journalists avoid it. No one reports on what is happening in this 25-by-8-mile stretch of land that is the world’s largest concentration camp.

In the first two weeks of October, however, Dr. Laila al-Marayati, a Glendale, CA-based gynecologist, traveled to Gaza, the world’s most densely populated and patrolled piece of real estate. She went there to assess medical and nutritional needs of the 1.5 million Gazans living under Israeli guns, tanks and bulldozers.

Her fact-finding trip was on behalf of KinderUSA, an organization she founded with four other physicians in March 2002. The doctors’ purpose was to fill the vacuum left after the Bush administration closed the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) on Dec. 4, 2001, shortly after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon visited the White House. The seizure of all records and bank accounts of the HLF froze the largest source of U.S. humanitarian aid to needy Palestinian families.

Weeks after the founding of KinderUSA, its president, Dr. Riad Abdelkarim, traveled to Palestine to prioritize emergency assistance for Palestinians surviving Israel’s brutal reoccupation of their population centers. No sooner did the American-born Dr. Abdelkarim attempt to open a KinderUSA bank account in Jerusalem than he was arrested. After two weeks of international protests, he was released (see June/July 2002 Washington Report, p. 12, and Dr. Abdelkarim’s account on p. 32 of the August issue).

This time, Dr. al-Marayati was selected to conduct site visits to projects being undertaken by KinderPal, the representative of KinderUSA in Gaza and the West Bank. Nor did she visit Gaza as a stranger.

Her father, the late Dr. Sabri El Farra, belonged to one of the oldest families in Khan Younis. In Los Angeles, where he was the physician for CBS Hollywood employees, he helped establish the Islamic Center of Southern California and was lovingly referred to as the godfather of the Los Angeles Muslim community. In addition, after the signing of the Oslo accords, Dr. El Farra and his brother, Mahmoud, were instrumental in the construction of the Gaza International Airport and several factories in the region.

A decade ago, Dr. al-Marayati’s reports on Bosnian rape victims earned her international recognition. In 1995, she was appointed by First Lady Hillary Clinton as a representative to the 4th World Conference on Women in Beijing. She subsequently served as the sole Muslim on the nine-member U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Her husband, Salam, is Los Angeles director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council.

Dr. al-Marayati first visited Gaza as a young girl in 1981. This past Oct. 8, accompanied by her uncle, Ziad El Farra of Glendale, she entered Gaza at Rafah, on the Egyptian-Israeli border.

“We passed through customs without incident—except for the demeaning treatment of my uncle,” she recalled. “The customs officer shouted at him to look at him when he was speaking to him. Instead of giving him the usual three-month visa, he scratched out the number three and replaced it with a one. And, incidentally, they gave my uncle’s car a 10-month visa.”

During her first visit to Gaza, al-Marayati said, she was greeted by her El Farra relatives at the Tel Aviv airport and they drove to Jerusalem and throughout the West Bank for family reunions.

“It is astonishing to see the confinement of the people now,” she stated. “We couldn’t even visit our family cemetery—it was designated as a military zone. Two decades ago, we had enjoyed the beach—now that’s off limits to Palestinians.”

On Oct. 9, Dr. al-Marayati toured the Yabna refugee camp in Rafah, where scores of homes have been demolished around the perimeter of Israeli military positions. Nor do Israelis remove the unsightly rubble, which becomes a dangerous play area for children bereft of parks or recreational areas. Less than an hour after her visit, several Israeli Merkava tanks and an armored bulldozer entered for more demolitions, which killed two civilians and injured 14 Gazans.

At Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, Dr. al-Marayati was gratified to learn that the majority of physicians are El Farras—first and second cousins who have opted to remain under occupation and care for their fellow Palestinians. Many of the 100 Gazans wounded during an Oct. 7 Israeli attack on a Khan Younis neighborhood were being treated at Nasser Hospital. The prognosis was very poor for one patient who had been wounded in an earlier Israeli raid on Rafah. A 40-year-old obstetric nurse, the mother of seven was shot in the right eye while preparing a meal in her home. Massive brain trauma left little hope for recovery.

Across from Nasser Hospital is the newly built Mubarak Hospital for Women and Children. Approximately 500 to 600 deliveries are made here each month, with premature births on a marked increase.

From 3 a.m. to 7 a.m. on Oct. 10, Dr. al-Marayati told the Washington Report, her sleep was disrupted by the sound of Apache helicopters circling over Khan Younis and Rafah.

“Periodically throughout each day, we regularly hear the roar of F-16 fighter jets passing overhead,” she stated. “One Gazan told me the sound everyone fears is that of the Apache, because they know something bad will soon happen.”

Balloons equipped with cameras hover over Gaza towns and camps while drones (unmanned surveillance aircraft) habitually monitor the area. The most ominous device, she said, is the winch, a medieval instrument that rises like a mobile watch tower higher than the tallest building. Snipers sit for eight-hour shifts in the enclosed platforms observing human traffic below.

In North Gaza, Dr. al-Marayati delivered medications donated by the Palestine Human Rights Campaign to the Al-Awda Hospital. Adjacent to the Jabaliya refugee camp, the facility is funded and run by the Union of Health Work Committees. About 130 deliveries take place here daily. Since it opened in 1997, there have been no maternal fatalities and only 12 fetal deaths.

However, the hospital has been obliged to convert a large teaching theater into a triage area to treat the many who are wounded whenever the Israelis go on a rampage.

In addition, the obstetrics unit prepares “delivery packs” equipped with necessary supplies for a husband or other relative who must handle a home birth during Israeli curfews or when roadblocks prevent access to the hospital.

“How can the world stand by and allow this?” Dr. al-Marayati asked in exasperation.

On Friday, Oct. 11, the day of rest, Dr. al-Marayati visited relatives, and saw huge segments of her grandfather’s property which have been completely razed. An Israeli checkpoint adjacent to the Gush Katif settlement renders El Farra land along the beach in Khan Younis completely inaccessible. Just outside the settlement, a large winch keeps watch against any movement by Palestinians daring to think of taking a dip in the Mediterranean.

Dr. al-Marayati estimated that the 60 percent of land left for Gazans to live on has been made even smaller by demolitions, property destruction and attacks from settlements. Forty percent of Gaza is occupied by fewer than 5,000 Israeli settlers, protected by some 20,000 Israeli troops.

Why does the Israeli government perpetuate such an inequitable and expensive policy?

“A large aquifer sits underneath the largest cluster of settlements in southern Gaza,” Dr. al-Marayati noted. “This precious water supply is pumped into Israel. A small amount is then pumped back to Gaza, but it doesn’t meet the needs of the Palestinian population, which must rely on wells that often are contaminated and have an unacceptably high salt water content.”

Stealing water isn’t Israel’s only violation of the Geneva Conventions. Whenever the Israeli army removes fruit-bearing trees belonging to Palestinian farmers they carefully uproot them for replanting in Israel proper or in Israeli settlements.

One project KinderPal is undertaking at al-Mograka village is a school bus program for children. In the past, the youngsters had to walk two miles to an UNRWA school and were endangered by gunfire from the Netzarim settlement. KinderUSA has provided funds to lease a bus that transports 400 students to schools in four daily round trips.

A recurrent health problem Dr. al-Marayati observed during her trip is anemia, from which nearly 50 percent of Palestinian children and reproductive-age women suffer. It is caused by poverty (70 percent unemployment) and frequent border closures preventing the flow of foods rich in iron and nutrients.

KinderUSA is addressing nutritional gaps by supplying vouchers for non-perishable items containing calcium, proteins, iron and vitamin C.

“In this way,” al-Marayati explained, “Palestinian farmers and vendors can sell eggs, yogurt, feta, chickpeas, dates and halawa.”

In southern Gaza, KinderPal is cooperating with Al-Huda Development Association to provide a hot breakfast program for five schools. Local women are hired to make croissants filled with cheese, olive oil and zaatar, dates or chocolate.

“Each child is given two rolls, and we hope to add a piece of fruit and carton of milk,” she said. “The focus is on the neediest children, but the situation is so severe that three-fourths of the children qualify as needy. The heartbreaking thing is that many of the youngsters save their food and take it home to share with their siblings.”

As a result of over-population in a diminishing area, schools operate on two, and sometimes three, different shifts per day. Vaccines are sufficient so far, she commented, but described dental care as “atrocious” and pre-natal care as sub-standard. Children requiring specialized treatment for diabetes or heart and kidney disease face a death sentence because local facilities lack sophisticated equipment.

“Even if these children’s parents had the money to go to Hadassah hospital,” she remarked, “they would never receive permission to enter Jerusalem.

“Children traumatized by ongoing war situations are depressed and suffer a variety of mental problems,” added Dr. al-Marayati. “The constant threat of violence is not conducive to a healthy outlook on life. When a person loses hope, he or she will die.”

Dr. al-Marayati also visited hospitals and clinics on the West Bank. For a more detailed report, visit:

Pat McDonnell Twair is a free-lance writer based in Los Angeles.

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