This week on Crossing The Line: Since the Israeli siege on Gaza began in June 2007, 184 critical care patients have died waiting for travel permits from Israel to leave the Gaza Strip and receive urgent medical treatment. Hospitals in the Gaza Strip are facing acute shortages of medical equipment and supplies, as well as important medicines such as drugs to treat cancer patients, insulin and anesthesia. Crossing The Line contributing producer and investigative journalist Nora Barrows-Friedman speaks to host Naji Ali on the crisis facing Gaza’s hospitals.

Also this week, the Israeli army imposed a ban on West Bank residents from traveling to the Dead Sea after Israelis who manage the popular vacation site complained that mixed groups are bad for business. Melanie Takefam, International Media Coordinator of The Association for Civil Rights in Israel, speaks to Ali about the Israeli decision that discriminates against Palestinians from the occupied territories.

And as always, Crossing the Line begins with “This week in Palestine,” a service provided by The International Middle East Media Center.

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Crossing the Line is a weekly podcast dedicated to giving voice to the voiceless in occupied Palestine. Through investigative news, arts, eyewitness accounts, and music, Crossing the Line does its best to present the lives of people on the ground.

Crossing the Line’s host, Naji Ali, is an independent journalist currently living in San Francisco. Ali’s South African roots and desire for social change are the reason for his strong solidarity with the Palestinian people. In 1990 Ali was arrested in South Africa where he was detained and tortured for nearly two years by the South African secret police. Ali also lived and worked in the Old City of Hebron in the occupied West Bank.