Scores of people protested in the North Sinai town of Al-Qassima Sunday after a local hospital, citing "limited medical resources," refused to admit a member of the Al-Tayaha Bedouin tribe. The hospital also reportedly lacked an ambulance to take the man, Soliman Nafea, to a hospital in the nearby city of Arish.
In a related development, the leftist Tagamu Party’s office in Arish recently held a symposium on the lack of security in North Sinai, where theft has become commonplace in the absence of regular police patrols. "There are 2769 outstanding cases of theft, the perpetrators of which have never been caught," said Samir Taher of the local prosecutor’s office.
Meanwhile, a local popular committee issued a statement in which it declared that police "suspect everyone walking in the street and are yet unable to protect the people." The committee urged the government to step up development activity in Sinai, to allow citizens to own land on the peninsula, and to utilize Sinai’s natural gas resources for local development rather than for export to Israel.
Translated from the Arabic edition.
