Officials of the Israeli army and the Health Ministry say that Arabs living in the PA autonomous areas are suffering due to PA Health Minister Riyad Za\'anoun\'s \"political decision\" not to permit cooperation with Israel\'s health experts. Dr. Yaakov Sever, a Health Ministry expert on PA health matters who spoke with reporters at the Foreign Ministry\'s Jerusalem press center yesterday, said that Israeli health experts have been and are willing to offer help to the PA regarding medicines, infectious disease, and other public health matters, but were turned down by Za\'anoun because the PA \"regards Israel as an enemy.\" Despite this, such help is sometimes accepted in individual cases, one of the dozens of which was when an Israeli helicopter flew an 18-month-old who fell off a Tul Karem roof to a hospital in Haifa.



Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Gideon Meir, responding to UN envoy Terje Larsen\'s condemnation of Israel for the \"horrific\" conditions he found in Jenin, said that the PA refused offers of Israeli blood donations to treat the wounded in the city. \"Do you hear this? They refused to use Jewish blood!\" he said, adding that Israel was forced to fly in blood donated from Jordan instead.