Sick Gazans trapped, denied treatment in latest round of Hamas-Fatah power struggle

By DIAA HADID and IBRAHIM BARZAK

Associated Press Writers

¶ GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) _ Hundreds of Palestinian patients have been trapped in the Gaza Strip, unable to travel abroad for crucial treatment for cancer and other diseases, because of political infighting between Gaza's militant Hamas rulers and their Palestinian rivals.

¶ Eight Gazans who were waiting to travel abroad have died since the crisis began in March, when the dispute shut down a medical referral committee that helps sick residents find treatment outside of Gaza, according to the World Health Organization.

¶ Others are hanging on, waiting. Ten-year-old Ribhi Jindiyeh, a lymphoma patient, lies in bed at home, skinny and jaundiced, too weak to move. He underwent chemotherapy last year in an Israeli hospital, and when he returned home in January, he seemed better. But in March, he began urinating blood.

¶ Gaza doctors can't find the problem and give him infusions every two days to keep him alive.

¶ "Nobody here knows why he is losing so much blood, but nobody can refer us to a hospital abroad, either," his mother, Nevine, 38, said.

¶ Another son, 4-year-old Yehia, was diagnosed with lymphoma in March.

¶ "I want everybody to help my son _ Israel, Fatah, Hamas, whoever," Nevine said. "If they can't help a sick child, who can they help? They should all pack up their bags and go home."

¶ On Monday, there was hope for a resolution. Hamas health minister Basim Naim announced the restoration of the referral committee, which Hamas' rival, Fatah, had controlled but Hamas shut down in March.

¶ The committee would resume coordinating medical treatment abroad. But Hamas has reservations and has asked mediating independent health workers to find new committee members both sides can agree on, said senior health official Yousef Mudalal.

¶ That raises the possibility of a new dispute.

¶ The split between Hamas and the Fatah movement of U.S.-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, which controls the West Bank, can have a devastating impact on Gazans' lives.

¶ Hamas seized control of Gaza in June 2007 after routing forces loyal to Fatah and systematically started taking over government agencies in the tiny Mediterranean territory.

¶ On March 22, Hamas officials took control of the Fatah-run medical committee, which referred about 1,000 patients a month with life-threatening illnesses to Israel and Egypt. Hamas officials said the committee was rife with corruption and needed reform.

¶ In response, the West Bank government, which funds medical treatment for Palestinians abroad, froze most patient transfers.

¶ Gaza patients cannot travel abroad without committee coordination because of a border blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt since the Hamas takeover. The two countries only recognize the West Bank administration as the legitimate Palestinian government.

¶ Rights activists say the political differences are jeopardizing people's lives.

¶ "They are playing with the lives of people and their pain. There's a complete absence of responsibility," said Khalil Shaheen of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights.

¶ The Israeli branch of Physicians for Human Rights, working with the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, has managed to get 35 patients out of Gaza for treatment since the committee collapsed, said Ran Yarom of PHR. But the groups say they don't have the resources to do the committee's job.

¶ The crisis compounds the challenges facing Gaza's medical system. Hospitals use aging equipment and suffer from low medicine supplies.

¶ And in late January, the West Bank government halted payments for medical care in Israel, saying the treatment was too expensive. Fatah health officials said they would only pay for Gaza residents to obtain cheaper medical care in Egypt.

¶ In Gaza City, 12-year-old Mohammed Zibdeh, a brain cancer patient, waits for a permit to travel, breathing with the assistance of a ventilator device in his throat. Last year, doctors in an Israeli hospital worked to shrink his brain tumor with chemotherapy. Now Zibdeh has constant headaches, and his father, Riyad, 48, fears the tumor is growing back.

¶ "I can't help him, and he might be dying before my own eyes," he said.

Hamas bank opening in Gaza to serve militant ruling group's employees in blow to boycott

Hamas bank opening in Gaza to serve militant ruling group's employees in blow to boycott

By DIAA HADID

Associated Press Writer

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) _ The militant Palestinian group Hamas that rules Gaza is establishing its first bank to serve thousands of its employees, the bank's director said Wednesday, a blow against an international boycott.

Israel, the United States and the European Union list Hamas as a terror group and boycott it from using banks linked to international financial systems.

The new bank, which is scheduled to open next month, is expected to partially resolve banking problems facing Hamas in governing the Gaza Strip.

The establishment of the bank also highlights the extent of Hamas' power in Gaza. The group overran the impoverished coastal territory in 2007, expelling forces loyal to Western-baked Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

The board of the National Islamic Bank is raising $20 million in capital by selling shares valued at one dollar each. They have raised one-third of the total so far and will have about 6,000 customers when their first branch opens, said Alaa al-Deen Rafati, the director of the bank's board.

The bank's first customers will be Hamas government employees, who will receive their May salaries through the bank, Rafati said.

Christians hope pope will help them to return to their destroyed village in Israel

By DIAA HADID

Associated Press Writer

¶ BIRAM, Israel (AP) _ Displaced during war decades ago, the Christians of Biram have never given up their dream of returning to this destroyed village in the hills of northern Israel. They still hold Easter rites, weddings and funerals in a stone church, the only building left standing.

¶ Now, they are pinning their hopes on Pope Benedict XVI, who is visiting the Holy Land in May.

¶ Biram's former residents and their descendants, some 3,000 Catholics altogether, are asking their spiritual leader to speak for them. They were driven out of during the 1948 Mideast war that surrounded Israel's creation. Most Israeli leaders who dealt with Biram's case refused their repatriation, fearing it would set a precedent for millions of Palestinian refugees seeking to return to former properties.

¶ But the villagers argue their case is different because their hamlet was bombed years after the war ended, and that a 1952 court case paved the way for them to return.

¶ "This pope must say the truth," said parishioner Edmond Rawis, 79, pointing toward where his house once stood.

¶ The villagers say they have written to the Vatican's ambassador in Jerusalem, Archbishop Antonio Franco. The ambassador said he is aware of the issue, but has not received a letter and does not know whether the pope will discuss Biram with his Israeli hosts.

¶ Only Biram's church, the cemetery and the ruins of an ancient synagogue are still standing. Descendants return here to worship, marry, baptize their children and bury their dead in crypts that eerily resemble homes.

¶ On April 5, Palm Sunday, dozens of people holding candles and flowers sang and walked around the church before gathering inside. Women clambered up cobblestone stairs in high-heeled shoes and pantsuits. Giggling girls in white dresses tried to pull the heavy church bell rope as boys ran around, shrieking.

¶ Inside the small church, they sang hymns in Arabic and Aramaic, a language spoken at the time of Jesus. Biram's Christians belong to the Maronite church, which prays in Aramaic but follows the pope in Rome.

¶ During the 1948 war, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes, and their villages were either destroyed or left to deteriorate. Most fled to neighboring Arab countries, but some, like those of Biram, remained within Israel's borders and became citizens.

¶ Israeli forces expelled Biram's 1,000 villagers during the fighting, according to Adoram Schneidleder, an Israeli postdoctoral student studying the area's history. Some left for nearby Lebanon, but most stayed within Israel's newly created borders, mostly in the nearby Arab-Israeli village of Jish.

¶ For decades, the villagers have lobbied successive Israeli governments to return, meeting only rejection _ except for a short-lived effort in the 1990s. Then, the Israeli government headed by Yitzhak Rabin offered restitution to a few of Biram's descendants on a small chunk of their ancestral lands.

¶ As they tried to negotiate a better deal, Rabin was assassinated in 1995 by a Jewish ultranationalist. Discussions were frozen, said Ran Cohen, a left-wing parliamentarian involved in government discussions.

¶ They have largely shelved their attempts in recent years as Israel lurched toward right-wing governments unsympathetic to their cause. But they say there's a chance to revive their issue if the pope leans his significant diplomatic weight on officials here.

¶ In 2000, the pope's predecessor, John Paul II, asked then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak to resettle them in Biram, villagers say they were told by local Catholic officials at the time.

¶ An Israeli Foreign Ministry official, Yigal Palmor, said the issue should be pursued in the country's courts, and not through political lobbying.

¶ In 1952, the high court ruled that the eviction from Biram was not "entirely legal," but military authorities then retroactively issued eviction notices, according to historians. Biram residents argue that the ruling opens the door for their return.

¶ In 1953, Israeli warplanes bombed Biram in an attempt to discourage the villagers from returning. Surviving residents said they wept and wailed as they watched bombs smash their homes from a nearby hilltop.

¶ Biram's church and the 3rd-century synagogue's ruins are now part of a national park that is a popular hiking destination. A sign at the park's entrance provides information on the synagogue but makes no mention of the Christian village or the area's modern history.

¶ In the nearby graveyard, Biram's dead are buried in crypts, fenced off from nearby grazing cows. Some are built like homes, with red-tile roofs overlooking blue-green hills. Israeli authorities have not objected to their quiet repossession of the cemetery, said a villager, Kamel Yakoub.

¶ "It's the liveliest place in Biram," Yakoub said.