Action Re: Siege of Gaza [EJJP to WHO] Signatures by 11/01/07
The attached letter is addressed to the heads of the World Health
Organisation. [Pasted below - BR] We will also be sending copies of the
letter to the International Committee of the Red Cross, Medecins Sans
Frontieres, Doctors Without Borders and Medico International asking them to
join this call. A copy will also go to the Israeli Medical Association. We
would like you to do two specific things:
Sign the letter yourselves, as a group.
Seek the signatures of health professionals to add to the letter
Once we have the signatures, we will send the letter and release it to the
press. We want this to be a global initiative. If you can support this,
please let us know. First by adding the name of your group to the letter,
together with the name of someone who could speak on behalf of your group.
Secondly, can you collect signatures of health professionals in your
country? It will make it a much easier task logistically if that is the
case. Once you have done that, please despatch them to us. If you cannot,
please let us know and we will give you an email address for individual
health professionals to send their signature.
They should be in the format:
Name
Institution or organisation
Town (country)
Eg: Dr Paola Canarutto - Hospital S. Giovanni Bosco - Turin (Italy)
The deadline is an urgent one: 8pm Central European Time, Friday 11th
January 2008.
This is not about terrorism, not about territory, it is not even about the
peace process. It is simply that we are not prepared to suspend our
commitment to human rights stand by and see people die of starvation and
preventable disease. We do not want to see television footage of starving
families or rotting corpses and an appeal for assistance, we want to prevent
that happening in the first place. We hope you will feel the same.
Yours sincerely,
Dan Judelson
Secretary, European Jews for a Just Peace
============ ========
European Jews for a just Peace
P.O. Box 59506 1040 LA Amsterdam The Netherlands
+31 20 6795850 contact@ejjp.org
http://www.ejjp.org
Dr Margaret Chan
Director-General
World Health Organization
Avenue Appia 20
1211 Geneva 27
Switzerland
2nd January 2008
Dear Dr. Chan,
At the end of October, the Government of Israel ordered that the supply of
fuel to the Gaza Strip, of utmost necessity for the production of
electricity, should be drastically reduced.
Energy is essential for the purification and pumping of water as well as for
the treatment of sewage. Due to lack of fuel, electricity and spare parts
for equipment (the Israeli Government controls all imports) inhabitants of
the Gaza Strip do not have sufficient clean drinking water. Without clean
water and without efficient treatment of sewage, people are likely to be
affected by dangerous, and entirely preventable, diseases. Other
consequences include lack of sufficient energy in critical facilities such
as hospitals, pharmacies, clinics and ambulances, as well as in schools and
ordinary homes. Refrigerators cannot work and food decays.
The prolonged siege of the Gaza Strip has resulted in a severe shortage of
medicine and medical supplies. According to your own WHO data, 85 essential
medicines were out of stock by the end of November 2007. Because of the
insufficient supply of spare parts, medical equipment cannot be repaired.
Machines for dialysis, ventilators, laboratories and cardiology equipment
are not functioning properly and there are no test tubes. The Government of
Israel has stopped the supply of other essential goods, such as cleaning
materials, toilet paper, sheets, winter bedclothes, paper, etc., claiming
that they are "unnecessary". This makes it impossible for hospitals to
function properly and is a claim unsupportable by any health professional.
All of these measures constitute collective punishment, which is forbidden
by international law, as well as being inhuman treatment of a civilian
population, half of which are children.
Added to this, a very vulnerable population has been hit: two-thirds of the
population of the Gaza Strip already lives in abject poverty. One must not
long deliberate to realize that this situation will certainly lead to
epidemics.
European Jews for a Just Peace, a federation of Jewish groups from ten
countries, requests that the World Health Organization insists that Israel
lifts what effectively amounts to a threat of biological and medical warfare
against population of Gaza. We are joined in this request by other Jewish
organisations and by health professionals across the globe whose signatures
are appended below.
Yours sincerely,
Dr Paola Canarutto - Hospital S. Giovanni Bosco - Turin (Italy)
On behalf of European Jews for a Just Peace
Organisation. [Pasted below - BR] We will also be sending copies of the
letter to the International Committee of the Red Cross, Medecins Sans
Frontieres, Doctors Without Borders and Medico International asking them to
join this call. A copy will also go to the Israeli Medical Association. We
would like you to do two specific things:
Sign the letter yourselves, as a group.
Seek the signatures of health professionals to add to the letter
Once we have the signatures, we will send the letter and release it to the
press. We want this to be a global initiative. If you can support this,
please let us know. First by adding the name of your group to the letter,
together with the name of someone who could speak on behalf of your group.
Secondly, can you collect signatures of health professionals in your
country? It will make it a much easier task logistically if that is the
case. Once you have done that, please despatch them to us. If you cannot,
please let us know and we will give you an email address for individual
health professionals to send their signature.
They should be in the format:
Name
Institution or organisation
Town (country)
Eg: Dr Paola Canarutto - Hospital S. Giovanni Bosco - Turin (Italy)
The deadline is an urgent one: 8pm Central European Time, Friday 11th
January 2008.
This is not about terrorism, not about territory, it is not even about the
peace process. It is simply that we are not prepared to suspend our
commitment to human rights stand by and see people die of starvation and
preventable disease. We do not want to see television footage of starving
families or rotting corpses and an appeal for assistance, we want to prevent
that happening in the first place. We hope you will feel the same.
Yours sincerely,
Dan Judelson
Secretary, European Jews for a Just Peace
============ ========
European Jews for a just Peace
P.O. Box 59506 1040 LA Amsterdam The Netherlands
+31 20 6795850 contact@ejjp.org
http://www.ejjp.org
Dr Margaret Chan
Director-General
World Health Organization
Avenue Appia 20
1211 Geneva 27
Switzerland
2nd January 2008
Dear Dr. Chan,
At the end of October, the Government of Israel ordered that the supply of
fuel to the Gaza Strip, of utmost necessity for the production of
electricity, should be drastically reduced.
Energy is essential for the purification and pumping of water as well as for
the treatment of sewage. Due to lack of fuel, electricity and spare parts
for equipment (the Israeli Government controls all imports) inhabitants of
the Gaza Strip do not have sufficient clean drinking water. Without clean
water and without efficient treatment of sewage, people are likely to be
affected by dangerous, and entirely preventable, diseases. Other
consequences include lack of sufficient energy in critical facilities such
as hospitals, pharmacies, clinics and ambulances, as well as in schools and
ordinary homes. Refrigerators cannot work and food decays.
The prolonged siege of the Gaza Strip has resulted in a severe shortage of
medicine and medical supplies. According to your own WHO data, 85 essential
medicines were out of stock by the end of November 2007. Because of the
insufficient supply of spare parts, medical equipment cannot be repaired.
Machines for dialysis, ventilators, laboratories and cardiology equipment
are not functioning properly and there are no test tubes. The Government of
Israel has stopped the supply of other essential goods, such as cleaning
materials, toilet paper, sheets, winter bedclothes, paper, etc., claiming
that they are "unnecessary". This makes it impossible for hospitals to
function properly and is a claim unsupportable by any health professional.
All of these measures constitute collective punishment, which is forbidden
by international law, as well as being inhuman treatment of a civilian
population, half of which are children.
Added to this, a very vulnerable population has been hit: two-thirds of the
population of the Gaza Strip already lives in abject poverty. One must not
long deliberate to realize that this situation will certainly lead to
epidemics.
European Jews for a Just Peace, a federation of Jewish groups from ten
countries, requests that the World Health Organization insists that Israel
lifts what effectively amounts to a threat of biological and medical warfare
against population of Gaza. We are joined in this request by other Jewish
organisations and by health professionals across the globe whose signatures
are appended below.
Yours sincerely,
Dr Paola Canarutto - Hospital S. Giovanni Bosco - Turin (Italy)
On behalf of European Jews for a Just Peace
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