Ref: 37/2023

Date: 22 March 2023

Time: 11:44 GMT

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) condemns the arrest of a cancer patient on his way back from treatment abroad. PCHR is concerned over the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF)’s ongoing policy of arresting the Gaza Strip patients and their companions during their travel to treatment in the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem.

According to PCHR’s follow-up, on Tuesday evening, 21 March 2023, IOF arrested Ahmad Mahmoud Yaseen Abu ‘Awwad (52), from Gaza City, on his way back with his wife Rehab ‘Ali Abu ‘Awwad (47) to Gaza after receiving treatment at al-Mutalaa Hospital in occupied Jerusalem.

Patient’s son, Mahmoud Ahmad Abu ‘Awwad (28) said to PCHR’s fieldworker that his father has been suffering from cancer in the left kidney for a year and a half. After removing the tumor, it was found out that cancer had spread to the bones and due to the lack of treatment at the Gaza Strip hospitals, he was referred for treatment at Al-Mutalaa Hospital in Jerusalem. His father and accompanying mother arrived at the Hospital on 15 March 2023 via an ambulance due to his father’s serious health condition and inability to move. He was waiting for his father’s arrival yesterday, 21 March 2023, but IOF at Beit Hanoun “Erez” crossing arrested his father and allowed his mother to return alone to the Gaza Strip.  By this he said his father will no longer be able to continue his treatment at Al-Mutalaa Hospital as he is supposed to go back to the hospital on 15 April 2023.

In the beginning of March, IOF had arrested a patient’s companion while traveling with his daughter-in-law, who is a cancer patient and receives treatment at Istishari Hospital in Ramallah.

These measures violate all international conventions and instruments that guarantee the right to appropriate medical care and the right to movement codified by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

PCHR reiterates its strong condemnation of the Israeli policy to arrest patients and their companions and calls upon the international community, particularly the High Contracting Parties to the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention and International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), to exert pressure promptly on the Israeli authorities to stop this inhuman and unjustified policy.  PCHR also demands them take serious action to facilitate the movement and travel of patients from the Gaza Strip to the hospitals in Israel or the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem, especially that perpetuating this policy puts the lives of hundreds of patients at risk and deprives them of receiving the proper medical treatment for their serious diseases that is unavailable at Gaza Strip hospitals.