French NGO says Hamas seized equipment, medical files

[oberliner]

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories — French aid group Help Doctors accused the Palestinian Hamas organisation on Wednesday of seizing equipment and files from one of its Gaza clinics which it closed in June.

"Four men from the (Hamas) interior ministry entered the clinic on Tuesday morning and seized computer equipment, telephones, chairs, office equipment and medical files," the organisation said in a statement.

The men left the premises without saying why the equipment was being confiscated, it said.

On June 16 the clinic in the southern Gaza town of Khan Yunis was closed on the orders of the Islamist Hamas rulers of the coastal enclave, the statement said.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jAHAgQN6_CmFoLTe3Px1I2TpnrbQ

[azurnoir]

1. this begs a couple of questions first why did Hamas close the clinic

and second why was the equipment left there for 2 months?

[oberliner]

3. Here is another article with a little more info

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=308958

And if you speak French, it looks like the group has a detailed statement on their website:

http://www.helpdoctors.org/index.php?post/2010/08/17/Gaza-%3A-Help-Doctors-d%C3%A9nonce-et-condamne-fermement-la-fermeture-de-son-dispensaire-m%C3%A9dical-de-Khan-Younes-ainsi-que-la-saisie-de-son-mat%C3%A9riel

[shira]

2. I wonder why pro-Palestinian advocates and NGO's have been so quiet about Hamas closing down...

....this clinic? In June. 2 months ago.

:shrug:

I'm pretty certain that had it been Israel closing down a clinic treating thousands of Palestinian patients who need it, there would be plenty of exposure.

Hardly a word about Hamas, however.

What gives?

:eyes:

[aranthus]

4. I'm no mind reader, but I can think of some possible reasons.

1. They still have people in Hamas controlled areas, and they are concerned for their safety if the parent organization publicly criticizes Hamas.
2. They recognize that Hamas isn't going to be shamed into re-opening the clinic by openly condemning the closure, and that quiet negotiating and pressure may be the only way to get results.
3. It doesn't fit with their agenda to criticize Hamas.

There may be others.

[shira]

5. Khaled Abu Toameh just wrote on this...

http://www.hudson-ny.org/1481/middle-east-western-media

The arrest last week of seven Palestinian university lecturers at the hands of Palestinian Authority security services in the West Bank is yet another example of how the international media functions in this part of the world.

Some Palestinian stringers and reporters offered the story about the arrest of the academics to at least a dozen foreign correspondents and newspaper editors in North America and Europe.

Only one foreign journalist agreed to write about the story. His colleagues gave different excuses for turning their backs on the story.

Some said they were concerned about their personal safety should they report a news item that was likely to anger the Western-funded PA security forces in the West Bank.

Others simply blamed their editors in New York, Paris, London and Toronto for turning down the story as "insignificant."

Earlier this week, a disenchanted Ramallah-based Palestinian journalist decided to put her Western colleagues to the test. She contacted the same group of newsmen and editors who had been offered the story on the academics' arrest with a "new idea" for a news item.

The Palestinian journalist proposed that the foreign press write about a Palestinian university professor who complained that Israeli authorities had turned down his request to visit Israel together with his wife and three children.

The response from the international journalists came almost instantly. All but two said it was a "great story" and expressed readiness to start working on it immediately.

[azurnoir]

6. The Palestinian Authority on Wednesday ordered the release of seven university lecturers

and an administrative worker who were arrested last week for allegedly being affiliated with Hamas and trying to establish a new university in the West Bank.

Attempt by detainees to establish new university in West Bank seen as part of effort to expand Hamas’s influence beyond Gaza.

http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=184485

published with this by-line a day before abu tomeh's article you linked to
By KHALED ABU TOAMEH
08/12/2010 05:06
eta abu tomeh seems to play for audience

[shira]

7. Yep, it demonstrates the hypocrisy and double-standards Toameh wrote about.

He's about the only journalist covering what would have been a huge story if the Israelis were involved.

[azurnoir]

8. LOL well that's one of putting it n/t