GAZA CITY, Sept 20: Cancer patients are being deprived access to much-needed health care in Israel since the army left the Gaza Strip, by being refused entry to the Jewish state, activists and Palestinian doctors charge.

The allegations are denied by Israeli military sources who insist there has been no change of policy in allowing Palestinians entry for medical care since soldiers left the Gaza Strip on September 12 after a 38-year occupation.

“Israel only gives permits in extremely urgent cases. We make 30 to 50 requests every day, mostly for cancer patients, but they are only accepted in five per cent of cases,” said Muawiya Hassanein, head of emergency services at the Palestinian interior ministry.

Israeli rights group, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, charges that in only ‘six to seven urgent cases’ a day have Palestinian patients been authorized to go to Israel since the pullout, compared to a pre-pullout average of 40.

Sixteen Palestinian children suffering from cancer, who regularly undergo chemotherapy in Israel, many of them at the Tel Hashomer hospital near Tel Aviv, have also since been barred from Israel, the group said.

Among them is 11-year-old Mohammed Mansur, who has suffered from kidney and lung cancer for two and a half years. “What sin did this child commit to be deprived care,” says his father Sufian Mansur, 43.

Maha Abu Shanab, from the Nusseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, has begged the Palestinian Authority, as well as Israeli and Palestinian non-governmental organizations to be able to go to Israel for thyroid cancer treatment.

The 25-year-old mother-of-two, whose husband was killed by Israeli troops during the Palestinian uprising, said she had undergone the necessary tests at Tel Hashomer before the pullout but had been refused a permit to return.

“Now that I need an operation to save my life, I’m refused a permit. What’s the point of leaving the Gaza Strip if they want to kill us?” she said.

The closing of the Egypt-Gaza border terminal has seen the Palestinian health ministry ask Israel to admit more cancer patients who might otherwise have been treated in Egypt, said the ministry’s Doctor Mohammed Bseiso.

“Treatment in Israel — paid for by the ministry — is much more expensive than in Egypt and can cost up to 15,000 dollars for some patients,” he said.

On Monday alone, he said, the Israeli army refused entry to 22 patients, most of them cancer sufferers, at the Erez crossing between Gaza and Israel, although they had permits.

“It couldn’t have been for security reasons because most of them were children,” he said.

Israeli military sources said that since September 11, 225 Gaza residents have been given permits to go to hospital in Israel.

“I have no way of telling you how many people used the permits they were issued, but permits were issued and no one who came to Erez was turned back,” one source told AFP.

“No change of policy has been made in the DCO (district coordination office) regarding the distribution of permits since the end of disengagement,” the source added.

Palestinian health services, which are grossly under-equipped, said they hope to solve the problem in the long-term by November’s planned opening of an oncology unit at the Al Shifa hospital in Gaza, paid for by Saudi donors.

“We can then offer necessary treatment on the spot, including chemotherapy and radiotheraphy, for most cancers,” said chief doctor Khamis al-Najjar.—AFP