Through a difficult and bumpy agricultural road passing through cultivated lands in the eastern area of the besieged al-Fawwar refugee camp south of the West Bank a horse-drawn cart was carrying 74-year-old Hasna al-Ballasi a local woman who suffers from renal failure and receives dialysis treatment three days a week in a hospital in al-Khalil city.
This primitive transportation means (cart) took the elderly lady as far as the main entrance of al-Fawwar camp where an ambulance was waiting there to get her to the hospital. Vehicles including ambulances are not allowed by the Israeli occupation army to enter or leave the camp which has been under tight siege for nearly nine days.
About ten thousand people are now under siege and only allowed to exit and enter the camp on foot after the Israeli army has closed its entrances to all vehicular traffic as a punitive measure against the local residents whose children are accused of attacking Israeli cars on nearby roads.
The Israeli army accuses al-Fawwar young men who resist the presence of occupation on their land of throwing stones empty bottles and Molotov cocktails at Israeli vehicles especially those carrying Jewish settlers and sabotaging security cameras fixed to utility poles found at the main entrance to the camp.
Afif Ghattasha head of al-Fawwar Popular Committee told the Palestinian Information Center (PIC) that the Israeli military closure on the camp obstructed the movement of citizens and made their lives unbearable.
“There are thousands of government employees teachers university and school students kindergarten children workmen merchants and patients especially those with chronic health problems such as kidney failure and cancer who cannot move aboard cars from and to the camp due to the closure” Ghattasha said.
“Ambulances are also not allowed to enter the camp to take them to hospitals while transferring people with different health problems pregnant women and kidney patients through agricultural roads has become a major problem after the occupation shut the metal gates of the camp” he added.
The local official has appealed to the UNRWA the Red Cross human rights groups and the Palestinian Authority to swiftly intervene to pressure Israel to end its mass punishment against al-Fawwar camp residents.
