Gaza Herald– The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights has warned that around 20,000 patients in the Gaza Strip are facing a serious threat to their lives after being denied access to life-saving medical treatment outside the territory.
In a statement issued on Saturday, the organization said that preventing patients from traveling for treatment subjects them to living conditions that endanger their survival. It argued that these measures form part of actions that constitute an element of the genocide being carried out against Palestinian civilians in Gaza for more than two and a half years.
The center explained that the denial of medical travel comes alongside the near-total collapse of Gaza’s healthcare system, with the few remaining hospitals unable to provide the specialized medical services required by many patients.
It stressed that patients’ suffering is worsening day by day, as their health conditions continue to deteriorate rapidly due to the lack of access to adequate medical care, a right protected under international humanitarian law and international human rights law.
The organization added that it is closely monitoring the situation of thousands of patients deprived of life-saving treatment, emphasizing that these practices cannot be separated from the broader context of the systematic destruction of the foundations of life in the Gaza Strip.
The center stated: “When patients are denied specialized treatment, hospitals are destroyed, medical supplies are blocked, and people are left to face a slow death despite the foreseeable consequences, these actions demonstrate an intent to subject the Palestinian population to living conditions that threaten their physical survival.”
It further noted that such acts are prohibited under the Genocide Convention, citing Article II, which states that “deliberately inflicting on a group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part” constitutes one of the fundamental elements of the crime of genocide.
