My name is Feroze Sidhwa, I'm a twenty-seven-year-old fourth year medical student in Texas, taking a one-year leave of absence to get a Master of Public Health degree in Boston. As part of a "Health and Human Rights Field Experience" winter session course I'll be traveling to the Gaza Strip to work with the Mezan Center for Human Rights. The Mezan Center is a highly respected, non-governmental politically neutral organization whose mission is to document human rights abuses regardless of who the perpetrators and the victims happen to be, to expose these human rights abuses to the public, and to work to prevent their future recurrence (www.mezan.org; if like me your only language is English, go to www.mezan.org/en). They're based in Gaza, as far as I understand in Jabalia refugee camp. Most of their reports, appeals and letters can be found on their website, and I think all of them are available in English.
My other goal in Gaza is to obtain access to the Gazan Ministry of Health vital statistics registry (a database that records births and deaths). I need access to this data for a project I am working on as part of my M.P.H., in which I plan to analyze trends in all-cause mortality in Gaza since August 2005 (when Israel withdrew its settlements from Gaza and redeployed to Gaza's periphery, the "convergence/disengagement" program).
From 2004 to 2005 I lived and worked in Haifa, Israel; in the summer of 2007 I lived and worked in two hospitals and on a mobile clinic in and around Hebron in the southern West Bank. Somehow in all that time I've managed not to learn Arabic or Hebrew. I've also lived and worked in southern Zimbabwe for about five weeks. I've never been to Gaza, and honestly I am not looking forward to the experience; Cyprus sounds much more enjoyable. But there's no other way to get this data, and the Mezan Center is a wonderful organization striving to do its mission some justice under the most impossible conditions (one might describe all of Gaza that way). Besides, as an American I have an obligation (and an interest) in going to see the victims of our crimes, and we are deeply implicated in what's being done to the Palestinians generally.
If somehow you came across this blog without knowing anything about Gaza and would like a brief (relatively) report, this one by sixteen of the most respected human rights and humanitarian NGOs in the world came out just a few days ago.
http://www.amnesty.org.uk/uploads/documents/doc_20012.pdf
Pages 3 and 4 are sort of an executive summary of the report's 20 pages.
I have found many wonderful people to help me in this venture, and I anticipate finding many more. I won't name people since a list is necessarily incomplete, and since most of them live in Gaza I would hate to expose them to anyone's wrath. I will say, though, that my contacts have almost exclusively been American Jews and Palestinian Muslims in Gaza, and that gives me hope for the future.
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Why does Al-Mezan consistently refer to the Israeli army as the Israel Occupation Forces (IOF), erasing the context of Palestinian terror and delegitimizing Israeli self-defense?
ReplyDeleteDuring the Gaza conflict, Al Mezan publicized allegations of “Israeli massacres,” “slaughtering civilians,” “scandalous war crimes,” and “despicable disregard to civilian life.” Hamas’ use of human shields and illegal rocket attacks against Israeli civilians were not condemned.
This NGO’s highly unreliable statistics on civilian casualties and building demolitions were cited in the Goldstone report. Al Mezan’s director has also “testified” before UN committees, “especially [about] the willful killing of civilians committed by the IOF [sic].
A "highly respected...politically neutral organization" indeed.
Feroze. Please.