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Gaza

UK medics go on hunger strike after being refused entry into Gaza

• Hammersmith team stuck in Egypt at
Rafa crossing since 4 May
• Group on humanitarian mission to set up cardiac
hospital unit

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Haroon
Siddique

guardian.co.uk,
Tuesday 19 May 2009 10.59 BST

Three British medics began a hunger strike in Egypt today to protest against
being refused entry into Gaza
for a humanitarian mission.

Their aim is to establish a cardiac surgery unit at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza
City, which currently has no such facility, and to help train medical students
and junior doctors there. But the British medics have been denied access to the
Palestinian territory at the Rafah crossing since the beginning of May.

Omar Mangoush, a cardiac surgeon at Hammersmith hospital, in London, told
guardian.co.uk he had been to the crossing with his colleagues every day since
arriving in Egypt on 4 May, only to be told they did not have permission to
enter.

"We are on hunger strike until they let us through," he said. "We'll stay [at
the crossing] until they let us in. We want to put pressure on the British
embassy. We believe if the British embassy wanted us to do this they could exert
pressure [on the Egyptian authorities]."

Mangoush said he had been told by the British embassy that it had received a
letter from the Egyptian foreign ministry saying the medics' request for access
to Gaza had been "postponed".

But he claimed American aid workers had gained entry to Gaza at their first
attempt with the support of the US embassy.

Mangoush named the other British medics on hunger strike as Christopher
Burns-Cox, a retired consultant, and Kirsty Wong, a nurse at Hammersmith
hospital. Another six people are on hunger strike, including three Belgians, he
said.

The cardiac surgeon took a month's holiday from work to take part in the
mission for the Manchester-based charity Palestine International Medical Aid
(PIMA)

"This is very important for us," he said. "There are loads of people with
heart disease [in Gaza]. They can't get here [to Egypt], they can't get to
Israel. If it's this hard for us to get to, how difficult is it for the
Palestinians to get out?"

PIMA's director, Dr Ahmed Almari, said: "It's unbelievable. They're a group
of doctors, they went for education and teaching, to set up a cardiac unit. It's
unfair and sad that it is only as a result of a hunger strike that anybody pays
attention. There's no reason to stop them from crossing."

Egypt has kept the Rafah crossing largely closed since Hamas won the Gaza
elections three years ago. One of the main demands of Hamas has been that all
crossings into Gaza should be allowed to reopen permanently. A number of aid
groups have said the closure of the crossings is contributing to a humanitarian
crisis in Gaza. Palestinian medical sources reported today that a one-year-old
infant died yesterday at a local hospital in Rafah owing to several
complications, including pneumonia, as his transfer to a hospital outside of the
Gaza Strip was not possible due to the ongoing Israeli siege.

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UK medics go on hunger strike after being refused entry into Gaza
This
article was first published on guardian.co.uk
at 10.59 BST on Tuesday 19 May 2009. It was last updated at 10.59 BST on Tuesday
19 May 2009.

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