Israel’s high court orders the state to explain its system for medical evacuations from Gaza.

Israel’s high court orders the state to explain its system for medical evacuations from Gaza.

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By Ephrat Livni and Johnatan Reiss

Israel’s Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the Israeli government to explain why there appears to be no comprehensive system in place to facilitate evacuations of sick Gazans who are not involved in the Hamas-Israel war to other countries for needed treatment.

The order stems from a petition filed by three Israeli human rights groups in early June, following the closure of the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt after the Israeli military began assaulting the area in May.

About 50 patients were able to evacuate daily before the closure, said Adi Lustigman, a lawyer for Physicians for Human Rights Israel, one of the groups that filed the petition. Even that level was just a drop in the bucket, she said, but the medical evacuations trickled to a halt after Israel closed the border crossing. The petition demands that Israel create a transparent process for applications for medical evacuations.

“People don’t know where to turn,” Ms. Lustigman said. Even when people apply for evacuations, there does not appear to be a reasoned approach to when permission is granted, with some critically ill patients still waiting while less sick individuals who applied later are allowed out, she said.

“We didn’t ask Israel to treat people, just to move them in a humane tempo,” Ms. Lustigman said. The petition did not specifically seek that patients be transferred abroad, only that they not be blocked from access to medical care, but Israel prefers for “security reasons” that they travel to a third country, she said.

An unstated reason might be Israeli public opinion, she added. “There is a very strong public objection to the petition as it is,” she said.

Nonetheless, Ms. Lustigman argued, Israel has a responsibility for civilians because it controls Gaza and its borders. “The state is subject to fundamental principles of Israeli law, the principles of administrative law, the Basic Laws, and the rules of natural justice,” Ms. Lustigman noted, and it has obligations under international treaties.

The Supreme Court set urgent hearings about the matter over the summer. Lawyers for Israel expressed agreement on the need for medical evacuations but sought more time in court to show the state was complying. And some permits were granted in the interim. At least 19 sick children, most of them cancer patients, were permitted to leave Gaza for treatment in late June.

But the court’s order on Tuesday puts the focus on the state, the defense minister and the authority responsible for humanitarian coordination in Gaza, known as COGAT, to clarify how the process works. The state has argued at hearings that there is a system, Ms. Lustigman said, but it has yet to convincingly show it.

Israel has until Nov. 11 to provide a response, based on the court’s order. The justice ministry declined to comment on the order. The defense ministry did not respond to a query.

COGAT on Wednesday said in a statement responding to a query about the order that the Israeli military “remains committed to continuing its efforts, in coordination with the international community, to facilitate further exits of patients for continued treatment outside the Gaza Strip, subject to their acceptance by those countries and security screenings.”

The agency noted that the Supreme Court had recognized “that the state is indeed taking actions to allow the exit of patients” but at the same time it “requested the state to explain why it has not published a written procedure on the matter.” COGAT said it was still reviewing the decision.

“Every day that passes with sick and injured individuals in Gaza left without medical treatment means human lives, children and infants are in jeopardy,” Ms. Lustigman and her colleague, Tamir Blank, a lawyer for Physicians for Human Rights Israel who worked on the petition, said in a statement on Tuesday. “The state is obligated to allow access to medical treatment so that those who can still be saved may be saved.”

For many patients, it is already too late. After months of waiting, Fida Ghanem, 42, was granted a permit by Israel and Egypt to leave Gaza for urgent lymphoma treatment in the spring, just before Israeli forces seized the Rafah crossing. With the crossing closed, she died in Gaza in June. The border crossing is still shut.

Aaron Boxerman contributed reporting.

Our Coverage of the Middle East Crisis

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• Strikes in Lebanon: Israel bombed the densely populated southern outskirts of Beirut for the first time in days and also struck a southern Lebanese city where local officials were meeting, killing at least 16 people, including the mayor.
• Lebanon’s Hospitals Buckle: The U.N. says “the targeting of health and relief operations is broadening” in Lebanon. Hospitals say they have been forced to close or are struggling to operate.