Mideast Doctors Work to Save Lives in Fragile Land
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Amid the casualties occurring daily in the Middle East, there are doctors tending to the sick and wounded. A group of Israeli physicians in a Palestinian village recently told CNN's Jerrold Kessel why they treat all patients.</s>JERROLD KESSEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Dr. Ralph Guggenheim from Tel Aviv examines Ana (ph), a Palestinian baby. Her mother is worried because she's been suffering from stomach pains. Dr. Guggenheim is a member of Israeli Physicians for Human Rights. Deir Istiya is a Palestinian village of 3,000 people. The Israeli doctors, Jews and Arabs, are here to conduct a morning of clinics in the village that's been cordoned off for weeks by the Israeli army amid the unrelieved Palestinian Intifada uprising against Israel. There's a small clinic, but health facilities are rudimentary. During the prolonged crisis, they've become entirely inadequate, difficult for doctors to come here, or for the villagers to get out to hospital in nearby Palestinian towns. Grovail Jaffa (ph) looks totally content, but she was born after a nightmare nighttime journey. Trying to avoid army roadblocks, it took her parents three hours to reach hospital -- normally, they point out, a 15-minute drive away. "I was in very bad shape," says Jaffa's mother. "I could not wait to get there. We made it just in time."</s>DR. HAN GAL, ISRAELI PHYSICIANS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS: I don't have to tell you what is the meaning of home delivery, or actually road delivery in her case, for the welfare of the baby.</s>KESSEL: In anticipation of the visit by the Israeli doctors, the villagers had bulldozed an improvised entrance through the army roadblock. Their welcome is very warm.</s>GAL: As a physician, we can't let ourselves to live in a place that human rights, that children rights, are abused.</s>DR. AHMED MASARAWA: It's very important for us that every man and woman can get the medicine, medical care, even in the worst situation.</s>KESSEL: Basic medicine is distributed on request or when prescribed by one of their colleagues. The drugs are mostly samples or donations the doctors have personally managed to collect.</s>MASARAWA: We haven't enough, no, we can't give everyone.</s>KESSEL: They also know their treatment is but a drop in the ocean, says one top surgeon.</s>DR. RAFI WALDEN, ISRAELI PHYSICIAN: From the American point of view, it may not be a very critical contribution, but I think it's a moral contribution to the understanding and peace among the two people.</s>KESSEL: The problem runs deeper, says Dr. Walden.</s>WALDEN: The French say, A la guerre, come a la guerre, which means, in time of war, it's time of war. I don't think it is true to say it now, even in these times. I think the Israeli government must make the necessary arrangement to provide medical treatment. Whatever the political condition might be, whatever the security condition might be, medical treatment is something which should not be prevented, in no way.</s>DR. EPHRAIM SNEH, ISRAELI DEPUTY DEFENSE MINISTER: I accept what the Israeli doctors say, and I encourage them to let us know where and when something is wrong, because we have to rectify it. But have to look -- why, why we cut off those (inaudible)? Why we make those checkpoints on the roads of the West Bank and Gaza? Because we have to protect ourselves against the guerrilla war.</s>KESSEL (on camera): Although one of the things that has brought them here, say the Israeli doctors, is the wish to fulfill the Hippocratic oath to serve people everywhere, they also say they know politics is not far away. In fact, for many of them, it's the heart of the matter. (on camera): What's it about? This is about medicine, human rights, politics.</s>DR. RUHMA MARTON, ISRAELI PHYSICIANS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS: It's human rights, politics, and then medicine.</s>KESSEL (on camera): Health matters are not Deir Istiya's only problem. Sporadic clashes on the edge of the village between Jews and Israeli soldiers and people from nearby Jewish settlements have led to many olive trees being uprooted. The olive orchards, a central factor in the village economy, are being used, Israel says, as cover for attack on passing cars.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I saw both of them. The settlers used their hands to break the branches, and the Israeli bulldozers to, to, to, to, to, to, to get it up from the roots.</s>KESSEL: The village mayor talks of the attitude towards the visiting doctors.</s>MAYOR NAFEZ MANSOUR, DEIR ISTIYA: We see (inaudible) between political and medical treatments. This is the human hearts (ph)because we are not -- we are not against the Israeli (inaudible), we are against the (inaudible), the occupation. If the occupation is finished, I think that two people can be live together in this holy land.</s>KESSEL: Mutaha Mansour is a teacher. During the clinics, he's helping to translate between doctor and patient.</s>MUTAHA MANSOUR, PALESTINIAN TEACHER: This is hopeless (inaudible). Hopeless (inaudible).</s>KESSEL: Han Gal is the chairman of this Israeli physicians' association.</s>GAL: We are softening the people heart. By coming here I reduce the friction, I believe that I reduce the friction between the two nations. Just yesterday she had no example of a good (inaudible) Israeli. And today, by meeting with us, I think that (inaudible) she would say to her family, You can negotiate with some of the Israelis.</s>MANSOUR: I agree with him. We can negotiate with some of them. But we need (inaudible) situation (inaudible), not for a short period (inaudible) political situation. (inaudible) our life (inaudible) as you see now.</s>KESSEL: Their effort, the Israeli doctors say, is directed as much at fellow Israelis, a challenge to the collective national conscience.</s>MARTON: In spite of our education, like doctors, to fight all kinds of diseases, what we really have to fight is what people are doing to people.</s>KESSEL: A warm thank you as they depart. But what remains here when they leave is not only nascent hopes for coexistence but the current somber reality of Israeli-Palestinian confrontation. Jerrold Kessel, CNN, Deir Istiya, on the West Bank.