Israeli Press
Ben Gvir barred Palestinian officials from al-Makassed's new maternity wing opening
Graphic: Times of Palestine
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East Jerusalem's main Palestinian hospital opened the first phase of a new women's and maternity surgery wing. The Palestinian Authority officials invited to see it were told, shortly beforehand, that they could not come.
Itamar Ben Gvir, Israel's national security minister, signed an order against the ceremony at al-Makassed as it had been planned, because Authority representatives were due to attend, the Israeli daily Maariv reported on Thursday in an account of the argument inside the Israeli government. His office put the reasoning bluntly: there is no place for what it called terrorist PLO members in Jerusalem.
Netanyahu's office pushed the other way, and not on Palestinian grounds. Its concern, in the paper's telling, was the Emirati diplomats on the guest list — and the scene of Israeli police physically separating them from Palestinian officials at a hospital door. Officials there called a cancellation an unnecessary mess with the Emirates.
A senior official at the Emirati embassy called Ben Gvir's office, then the minister himself. He did not move.
The ceremony went ahead. Emirati diplomats attended, and the Palestinians who had been invited were informed their invitations were void.
The wing itself is delivered work, and its record is precise: the Sheikha Fatima bint Mubarak women's and maternity surgery wing, built with an Emirati grant inside a hospital the UAE has also backed with $64.5 million for operations and upgrades.
Al-Makassed, on the Mount of Olives, is the referral hospital for Palestinians from Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza who need specialist care.
