ISRAEL: Palestinian youths who lost limbs due to Israeli attacks on Gaza recieve treatment in Tel Aviv

Record ID: 396816

  • Title: ISRAEL: Palestinian youths who lost limbs due to Israeli attacks on Gaza recieve treatment in Tel Aviv
  • Date: 24th May 2007
  • Summary: ISRAELI NURSES AND DOCTORS AT HOSPITAL
  • Embargoed: 8th June 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Israel
  • Country: Israel
  • Topics: International Relations,Health
  • Reuters ID: LVADX5GDUATHA1YXVECOOVE3J3OH
  • Story Text: Imad Yousef, Issa Ramadan, and Ibrahim Fateh, who were badly injured by Israeli shelling in southern Gaza in January 2005 and lost their legs as a result, are receiving treatment at an Israeli hospital at the expense of the Israeli ministry of defence after Physicians for Human Rights pressured the ministry into taking responsibility for their injuries.
    "Because of the shelling they were wounded severely and they lost both low limbs, both low limbs were ambulated and the challenge for rehabilitation is to cause them to walk again and to be ambulate, it is a real challenge its not easy for anybody in any age in every age," says , Avi Ohry, Professor of Rehabilitation medicine at the Reuth Medical Centre, where the three youths are being treated.
    Ibrahim Fateh, who is 16 years old and still appears to be psychologically traumatised by his injury, recalls how he was injured.
    "We were at the strawberry farm, and we were planting them with our friends and our neighbours, we were helping them work when the Jews fired two shells and we fled. We then gathered together and then they fired another missile at us," he says.
    On January 04, 2005, an Israeli missile was fired on the border of southern Gaza, in Beit Lahia, at 12 youths who were planting Strawberries. The Shelling killed nine and injured three of them. The three youths injured lost their legs.
    The boys were housebound and unable to move for more that eighteen months, as their families were unable to fund medical care.
    Yousef, Ramadan and Fateh, who have undergone leg amputations, were referred to the Reuth medical centre for the treatment.
    The Reuth medical centre, located in Tel-Aviv, was founded in 1961. Dr. Nissim Ohana, director general of the hospital described the treatment as 'A bridge between people and nations'.
    "We have a special section in the hospital for chronic ventilation, patients who need weaning from mechanical ventilation then threw another period of time in the hospital can be released and go home back to the society, to their families," said Ohana.
    Responding to a demands from the PHR, the Israeli Minister of Defence Amir Peretz decided to use ministry funds to finance the costs of the treatment for the three youth injured youths.
    "We started to help them by sending letters to the Israeli defence ministry, demanding the responsibility and to pay for the children's treatment, by paying for the limbs and the treatment that they need. It took a long time, but finally we were successful in getting them to pay for the treatment," said Ibrahim Habib, field work co-ordinator at Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) Organization.
    The PHR organisation in Israel was founded in 1988 with the goal of campaigning for human rights in Israel and the Occupied Territories, in particular the human right to health. The organisation says that Israeli army attacks on populated areas in Gaza have left many of Gaza's children traumatised.
    Issa Ramadan, the youngest of the boys injured, called Gaza 'hell between Fatah and Hamas, and under Israeli attacks'.
    Seventeen year old Imad Yousef is in the process of studying for his year 12 exams and hopes to achieve high grades in order to apply to University.
    Ibrahim Fateh once dreamed of being a journalist, but says that his injuries have put an end to that.
    "No, after the injury I don't have any more dreams," he said.
    According to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, approximately 764 Palestinian children have been killed since the September 2000 Uprising began -- 23 percent of total Palestinian deaths -- 463 of whom were in Gaza.
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