Egypt keeps doctors from entering Gaza

06 Jan 2009

Egypt bars local and foreign doctors from crossing into the Gaza Strip to help the rising number of civilians wounded in Israeli assaults.

Anesthesiologist Dimitrios Mognie from Greece told the Associated Press that he had been idling his time for the past four days near the Gaza-Egypt border, unable to access the people he came to rescue.

"This is a shame…That in 2009 they have people in need of help from a doctor and we can go to help and they won't let us; this is crazy," said Mognie.

Every day Mognie and a colleague, both part of the Greek organization Doctors for Peace, go to the Egyptian border with instruments and medical supplies, only to get turned away.

Mognie said he had managed to survive conflict zones such as Iraq, Angola and Somalia, adding he understood security concerns but was was willing to take the risk.

Another physician at Rafah, obstetrician Jemilah Mahmood from Mercy Malaysia, a group working with the Egyptian Red Crescent, expressed her exasperation at fact that only equipment had eventually gotten through.

"Can you imagine how many women are hurt and how few women doctors there are?" she asked, adding, "All of us are sitting at the border."

Egypt is yet to reply to an Iranian request for establishing a desert hospital on Egyptian territory. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hasan Qashqavi said Monday that Tehran submitted a formal request to Cairo to set up the triage center to receive wounded Gazans.

Meanwhile, Israeli tanks, gunships and artillery shells continued to rain fire on Gaza. The military assaults have killed at least 635 Palestinians, and wounded another 3,040.

Gaza's few hospitals, not large enough or equipped to deal with the mounting number of wounded, have flagged under the surge of patients since Israel began its military campaign on December 27.

Egypt has kept the border with Gaza closed, allowing in a number of wounded Palestinians through the bottleneck border.