RAMALLAH: Israel’s Shin Beth internal security service has increased its interrogations of people seeking to leave Hamas-run Gaza for medical treatment, a rights group said in a report yesterday.
Data collected by Physicians for Human Rights-Israel “indicates a rise in the number of Palestinian patients interrogated and forced to provide information as a precondition to exit Gaza for medical care,” it said.
“Between January 2008 and March 2009, at least 438 patients have been summoned for... interrogations... as a precondition for the review of their applications for an exit permit for the purpose of accessing medical treatment outside of the strip,” it said.
Whereas in January 2008, 1.45 percent of people who had submitted applications to Israeli authorities to leave Gaza were questioned, that number rose to 17 percent in January 2009, the group said.
It said the Shin Beth had interrogated minors, photographed patients against their will; harassed, cursed and intimidated patients during questioning; and returned Gaza patients who did not cooperate.
“In some cases, patients report threats leveled at them that if they proceed to interrogations they will be harmed,” it said.
Palestinians who head out of Erez to seek treatment in east Jerusalem, Jordan, the West Bank and Israel risked interrogations, said Hadas Ziv, who directs Physicians for Human Rights in Israel. The situation at the Rafah crossing with Egypt was different, but the procedure to leave from there was also very difficult, Ziv said.
PHR is one of at least eight NGOs that have submitted testimony to the UN Committee Against Torture, which this week is reviewing Israel’s record.
This year the UN is examining Israel as well as Chad, Chile, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Philippines as part of periodic reviews that it does of all nations.
A spokesman for the Israeli prime minister’s office, which oversees the Shin Beth, rejected the report’s accusations.
A total of “13,000 sick are treated every year in Israel,” Mark Regev said. “To suggest that all of them are required to provide information is simply ridiculous.” But he said “the authorities have a duty to proceed with security checks to assure that the people entering Israel will not take advantage of this to commit attacks, as was the case in the past.”
Physicians for Human Rights claimed that Israeli practices violated the International Treaty Against Torture and general codes of Medical Ethics, and that the situation was worsening.
— With input from agencies
