Malaysia evacuated 127 Palestinians on August 16, last year, including 41 injured in Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip. The injured were sent to Tuanku Mizan Military Hospital in Malaysia’s capital, Kuala Lumpur, while their families were housed at the Kuala Lumpur Transit House (WTKL).
The evacuees have been protesting their lack of freedom of movement and lack of access to complex medical treatment and calling on the government to repatriate them.
Â鶹´«Ã½â€™s Khaled Ghannam visited the WTKL complex to speak with the evacuees.
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The WTKL Complex is a closed military hostel. Entry is prohibited except with a special security permit, and no inmate can leave. When inmates are transferred to military hospitals for treatment, they are transported with a military escort.
Due to my relationship with some university professors, I was able to enter the outer gate of the complex and conduct interviews with some of the wounded Palestinians.
To clarify the reasons for their anger at the Malaysian government and their insistence on returning to Egyptian hospitals, I spoke to sources close to some of the families housed in the military hostel.
First, it is important to know that the wounded Palestinians who were transferred from the Egyptian city of Cairo to Kuala Lumpur were chosen by the Egyptian side according to their injuries, and the Malaysians were not consulted in this regard.
A number of wounded people confirmed to me that all the injured Palestinians have incurable conditions and need complex surgical operations such as nerve surgery, artificial joints and skull restoration, etc.
The Malaysian doctors informed them from the first day that they needed specialised surgical operations, and these operations were not available in Malaysian hospitals. Some of these operations require expensive prosthetic limbs that are not available in the country.
There is also great difficulty for wounded Palestinians to deal with the Malaysian doctors, as only graduates of the country’s Al-Azhar University are permitted to be used as translators. This language barrier has hindered the communication process.
Members of the local Palestinian community and Malaysian activists volunteered to improve the translation process. However, the Malaysian military authorities refused this on security grounds.
The wounded Palestinians have demanded to receive Palestinian or Arab meals, especially for their children, who contracted intestinal diseases.
The Palestinians accompanying the wounded have also demanded that fresh vegetables and food supplies be brought in and that they be allowed to cook culturally appropriate meals; but their requests have been repeatedly rejected.
In light of their continued detention inside the WTKL complex, the wounded Palestinians feel that they are in a prison from where they cannot leave, and this has caused them psychological illnesses. As a result, many children refuse to play and sometimes to eat.
Young people also spend long hours sleeping because of their psychological state, where they feel neglected and that no one outside knows anything about their situation.
While the Malaysian government is one of the Asian governments most supportive of Palestine and has good relations with the Palestinian leadership, it has not explicitly declared that it does not have the full capacity to treat the wounded Palestinians with serious injuries to their nerves, joints, bones, etc.
Also, the wounded Palestinians object to being kept in a military hostel where they are not allowed to leave, nor be visited or brought food supplies — as if they were soldiers whose security must be strictly maintained.
These conditions have prompted the wounded Palestinians to protest and collectively to demand to return to the Gaza Strip — despite knowing that it is impossible to treat them there — or to another country capable of treating them, such as Egypt.
According to , the government is discussing their , in light of the recent ceasefire announcement.