posted 12-29-2001 10:00 PM            

Fragmentary and sporadic news reports published in the mainstream American media fail to reflect accurately either the daily or the cumulative toll of Palestinian civilians killed and wounded during the first year of the current intifada. The past year's tolls demonstrate all too clearly, however, that the numbers of Palestinians killed and wounded vastly exceed the Israeli deaths and injuries publicized by the American media.

As the superior power, moreover, Israel is severely restricting, if not denying, medical treatment to Palestinians through such tactics as the destruction of ambulances carrying the wounded, attacks on caregivers and ambulance drivers, lack of access to medicines as well as facilities, and checkpoint detention of mothers about to give birth.

Since most medical treatment in Palestine is provided free of charge, there is a critical need for donations of funds and equipment to aid organizations, which are trying desperately to respond to the current medical emergency in the context of a destroyed local economy.

A year after the outbreak of the al-Aqse intifada, Palestine Red Crescent Society estimates, which cover most, but not all, treatment centers, were that nearly 16,000 Palestinians had been wounded, and at least 667 killed--30 percent of them children. The dead included victims of Israeli assassinations.

Prominently marked Red Crescent ambulances, the Society reported, were fired on and struck over 166 times, causing damage to 66 vehicles and injuring 14 emergency technicians, including volunteers. Four of these were doctors and one an emergency technician. Additionally, the Society's headquarters in Ramallah/al-Bireh were struck four times by Israeli artillery and other fire.

Israeli roadblocks, closures and checkpoints have lengthened medical response time to "inhumane levels," according to a Society news release. As a result of the delays, increasing numbers of Palestinian women are giving birth under adverse conditions at home, and some, inredibily, at roadblocks.

Repeatedly, the Society said, Israeli soldiers have "tortured and detained" emergency workers attempting to render humanitarian services. Yet requests for investigations have gone nowhere.

Reporting to the United Palestinian Appeal, Dr. Sami Rida, general director of the Women's Union Hospital in Nablus, said theclosures have drastically reduced the number of treated patients at al-Ittihad Hospital there. "Most of the injured needed several days of treatment after their surgeries," he said. "Some had to be re-admitted for secondary surgeries."

The most common injuries were caused by rifle fire to the extremities. There were also many head and chest injuries, however, he reported. During the past year the hospital has spent over a quarter-million dollars on medicines and medical supplies alone.

Dr. Ghazi Hanania, chairman of the board of the K. Abu Raya Rehabilitation Center in Ramallah, noted injuries similar to those treated elsewhere but added to the list of injuries "exposed to gasses."

"Violations of the Geneva Human Rights Convention are documented every day," Dr. Hanania stated. "Many incidents involved deliberate breakage of ambulance windshields as well as shelling the vehicles..

"Humiliation and acts of agression against medical staff and medical centers are incessant," Dr. Hanania pointed out, citing as one example the shelling and bombardment of Jericho Hospital. "The number of disabilities among the Palestinian population is dramatically rising," he continued. "Over 156 deceased and over 6,000 injured were younger than 18. All that places a burden on the health community to deal with in the years to come."

K. Abu Raya Center in Ramallah critically needs mobile and travel clinics, "but they are difficult to acquire" given the current financial crisis. Instead, first aid courses are being implemented in a number of schools and organizations.

Dr. Hanania issued a plea for international and human rights organizations to intervene to prevent future Israeli assaults on medical volunteers and doctors and to protest patients from reprisals.
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Michell Kaidy is a Rochester, NY-based journalist. He won a Project Censored award in 1993.
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Note: The injury and death count has grown considerably since the writing of this article, as magazines require articles to be published at least a month in advance of the publication date.