Across the street at the Rose Flower Shop, two young women, one dressed in a black Islamic robe and head scarf, bought a bouquet of roses, a rare sight in Gaza. The shop had managed to bring in 500 roses from Israel, using Gaza medical patients treated in the Jewish state as "mules," and had about 50 roses left.To think that a single flower shop knows enough medical patients to bring back 500 flowers in the days before Valentine's Day indicates a brisk underground economy in Gaza based only on daily patients going to Israeli hospitals, a story that is ignored in the world media as they talk about the "siege."
But today, once again, Palestinian Arabs have blamed Israel for the death of a child. And once again, the story is a lie.
From IMEMC:
Palestinian medical sources announced on Tuesday evening that one child died at a Gaza hospital after the Israeli Authorities barred his transfer to a hospital abroad for further medical treatment as the siege on Gaza continued to cripple all hospitals in the coastal region.So why did Ayidy die? Let's see that PCHR has to say:
The child was identified as Sa’id Al Ayidy, 2, from Rafah in the southern part of the Gaza Strip. He suffered from a kidney infection. His death raised the number of Palestinian patient who died due to the siege to 98, including 17 children.
On 19 February 2008, Sa’id Mohammed Sa’id al-‘Aaidi, 1.5, from al-Junaina neighborhood in Rafah, died as his health condition deteriorated. He had not been able to travel to an Egyptian hospital to continue medical treatment. The child had received medical treatment in December 2006 at Nasser Institute Hospital and Abu al-Reesh Hospital in Egypt. He was suffering from an inborn failure in his liver, and the lack of testicles in the scrotum, inflation in the abdomen and delayed growth. He came back to the Gaza Strip at the end of the first stage of medical treatment, and he was supposed to start the second stage in 6 months. However, he had not been able to travel to Egypt due to the closure of Rafah International Crossing Point. His health condition had deteriorated since 7 July 2007. He was repeatedly admitted into the Gaza European Hospital.So he was already a patient in an Egyptian hospital and he expected to return there for treatment - and was stopped by the Egyptian authorities, not Israel.
But that doesn't stop Palestinian Arabs, who value the life of Ayidy far more for its propaganda value in his death than in his actual life, from using him to score political points against Israel - something that no reporter on the planet will bother to research or mention.