Schneider Children’s Hospital in Petah Tikva, which treats 200 Palestinian children each year, has had to take security precautions against rocket attacks
November 19, 2013, 6:37
Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh visits his granddaughter Aamal at a hospital in Gaza (photo credit: Facebook image)
At the very moment the baby
granddaughter of Hamas’s Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh was being
treated for a critical illness at Schneider Children’s Hospital near Tel
Aviv Monday, a Hamas official boasted that his movement’s rockets could
hit targets in Israel “past Tel Aviv.”
Speaking
to Hamas daily Al-Resalah, Gaza-based official Salah Bardawil said that
Hamas has improved its rocket capabilities since Operation Pillar of
Defense last year, and is now able to hit targets beyond Israel’s
commercial and cultural hub.
“The resistance now has various military
surprises in addition to newly acquired expertise,” Bardawil said.
“[Hamas] has improved its performance.”
During Operation Cast Lead in November 2012,
Israel destroyed most of Hamas’s Fajr-5 rockets, obtained from Iran and
able to reach a distance of 75 kilometers (46 miles), covering the
greater Tel Aviv area. However, Hamas has been developing locally made M-75 rockets with a similar range,
one of which landed south of Jerusalem on the third day of the military
operation. Over 1,500 projectiles were launched into Israel from Gaza
over the course of the eight-day military operation.
Like other Israeli hospitals in the greater Tel Aviv area, Schneider Children’s Hospital, where Aamal Haniyeh was admitted on
Sunday with severe inflammation of the gastrointestinal system, has
been forced to take precautions against rocket attacks emanating from
Gaza.
Over the past few years, the hospital has
reinforced its glass windows against shattering and secured an oxygen
supply to the basement in case of emergency patient evacuation, hospital
spokeswoman Riva Shaked told The Times of Israel Tuesday.
Ghadeer
El Hessee from Gaza is accompanied by her mother to a heart operation
at Wolfson Medical Center, near Tel Aviv, December 2011 (photo credit:
David Silverman/Flash90)
Two hundred Palestinian children are treated
at Schneider Hospital every year on average, and 70 percent of them
reside in Gaza, Shaked added.
“The Palestinian Authority pays the bill for their treatment,” she said.
Following the
news of the treatment in Israel of Aamal Haniyeh, an Israeli government
spokesman on Tuesday pointed out Hamas’s cynicism.
“Ismail Haniyeh did not hesitate to send his
granddaughter to an Israeli hospital to save her life, all the while
expressing his commitment to killing Israelis,” tweeted Ofir Gendelman, a
spokesman to the Arab media for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“This hypocrisy indicates [Hamas's] savagery.”
Israel has increasingly been serving as an outlet for patients from Gaza since
Egypt tightened its closure of the Rafah Border Crossing in July. Egypt
now opens the border to civilian traffic only rarely and arbitrarily.
According to Physicians for Human
Rights-Israel, 395 Palestinian patients were admitted to Israeli
hospitals from Gaza for medical treatment in September, the highest
number allowed in since January 2011. An additional 593 patients from
Gaza were admitted to Palestinian hospitals is east Jerusalem. No data
exists yet for October or November.
Fadel Al-Mzaini, a medical researcher at
Gaza’s Palestinian Center for Human Rights, said the number of patients
Israel allows to enter is still far lower than the need of the Strip’s
population of 1.7 million.
“They [Israel] have indeed made it easier at
the Erez Crossing [between Gaza and Israel], but they only allow in
patients who are very seriously ill,” Al-Mzaini told The Times of
Israel. “They only allow in 20-25 patients a day and close the crossing
on weekends and Jewish holidays.”
On Sunday, the Israeli Coordinator of
Government Activities in the Territories, known as COGAT, received a
phone call from the Palestinian Authority’s liaison office in Gaza
requesting to admit Aamal Haniyeh, 1, to an Israeli hospital, after her
medical condition deteriorated. The baby was immediately transferred to
Israel, accompanied by her maternal grandmother, and admitted to
Schneider Children’s Hospital.
“She was brought into Israel, but returned to
Gaza after her condition could not be stabilized. She is in critical
condition,” Major Guy Inbar, a spokesman for COGAT, told The Times of
Israel.
Last month, Prime Minister Haniyeh called for a popular uprising in the West Bank and
lauded recent terror attacks on the second anniversary of the release
of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who was kidnapped by Hamas in 2006.
No mention of the hospitalization was made on Hamas’s official media outlets.
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