Palestinians report surge in Israeli assaults on West Bank medics
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Attacks by Israeli soldiers on Palestinian medics, and interference with their access to the wounded, have more than quadrupled in the first half of 2023, according to Antar’s employer, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society.
The Red Crescent said Israeli soldiers have physically assaulted medics, targeted their ambulances with live ammunition, rubber bullets and tear gas canisters, and blocked crews from accessing the injured or getting them to the hospital. The group said it recorded 193 incidents through June, up from 47 cases in the same period last year, a jump of over 300 percent and surpassing the 2022 total.
“Now, before we respond to any call, we all shake hands and hug and say goodbye,” said Antar, 39. “We don’t know if we will come back.”
Antar spoke to Washington Post reporters from his hillside ambulance base overlooking the West Bank city of Nablus. Between emergency calls, he and his teammates sat on couches sharing videos of their harrowing outings. One clip showed tear gas canisters being shot directly at Antar’s ambulance outside the Balata refugee camp in June.
Another was recorded by panicked crew members as bullets they said came from an Israeli sniper pierced their ambulance in November, barely missing an oxygen tank. A third showed two of the Nablus medics being shoved and hit by Israeli soldiers during a demonstration in October. One medic described his ambulance bursting into flames after a tear gas canister was fired into its front grill outside of Huwara last month.
Imad Abu Jaish, a volunteer physician, showed photos of a deep bruise from being shot in the arm by a rubber bullet even as he was treating an elderly man overcome by gas in January 2022. He was wearing a Red Crescent uniform jacket at the time.
“I had to leave that patient on the ground,” he said.
The level of risk harks back to two decades ago to the wave of violence known as the second intifada, when 12 medics were killed, according to the Red Crescent. When a British charity surveyed Palestinian paramedic crews earlier this month to assess their supply needs, one of the most frequent requests was body armor.
“As a humanitarian and medical charity, to hear that bulletproof vests was one of their most urgent medical supply requests was pretty shocking,” said Melanie Ward, head of Medical Aid for Palestinians, a London-based aid and advocacy group that announced Tuesday a $24,000 shipment of vests and helmets for Red Crescent teams.
The Red Crescent said it filed complaints on several of the recent incidents with Israel Defense Forces. The cases typically disappear, Palestine Red Crescent Society President Younis al-Khatib said.
“We send them to military investigators, but we don’t hear back,” said Khatib, a physician.
Asked to comment on the specific incidents recounted by the Nablus Red Crescent team, the IDF confirmed that an investigation had been completed into the alleged beating of the two medics in November, but it said those findings could not be made public until they were reviewed by the military attorney’s office. It found no records matching the other incidents as having been reported to military authorities.
“The claim that Israeli security forces prevent medical teams from providing medical treatment is untrue,” the IDF said in a statement. “The IDF allows free access to medical teams throughout Judea and Samaria [the biblical name of West Bank territories]. Moreover, during counterterrorism activities, dialogue is held with Palestinian officials, with the aim of bringing to their attention potential risks, thereby helping to prevent harm to noncombatants, among them medical teams stuck in combat areas that are subject to indiscriminate gunfire from armed terrorists.”
Tensions have been a hallmark in relations between Palestinian medics and Israeli soldiers throughout Israel’s 56-year occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Some 22 Red Crescent staff have been killed in the last two decades, Khatib said, the last two being in Gaza in 2014.
But an uneasy accord has also existed between the sides. Red Crescent ambulances regularly treat injured Israelis, many of them settlers, at the scene of West Bank car accidents, Khatib said. His agency has a good working relationship with Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service, he said. During army actions, officials with the International Committee of the Red Cross help the Palestinian operations center in Ramallah coordinate the movement of Red Crescent ambulances with Israeli authorities.
That system has become strained as violence has soared in recent months, a period on track to become the deadliest in the occupied territories in decades. More than 150 Palestinians have been killed in 2023, according to Palestinian health officials. Most of the deaths have occurred in armed clashes with IDF forces, with Israel stepping up raids in pursuit of suspected militants following a spate of deadly terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians.
With soldiers entering Nablus, Jenin and other West Bank cities almost nightly, Red Crescent dispatchers have logged mounting calls for paramedics, which they relay to bases around the region. And with them have come more reports of run-ins with Israeli soldiers.
“As there are more violent events happening, there is always an increase in violations against our medical teams,” Khatib said.
But Khatib said the surge in incidents seems also to reflect a shift in Israeli tactics. He cites several reports of IDF vehicles blocking or even pushing ambulances, including a case during Israel’s two-day incursion in Jenin in early July.
“Such tactics we have not seen before,” he said.
The Red Cross said it was concerned about the spike in incidents against medical workers this year and the subsequent risk to their lifesaving mission.
“We reiterate that medical missions, through health care workers, vehicles and facilities, must be respected and protected at all times,” Sarah Davies of the ICRC delegation of Israel and the Occupied Territories said in a statement. “If they are not, there may be life or death consequences for those who require medical treatment. This year, we have publicly shared our deep concerns about increasing levels of violence in the West Bank. This violence makes health care providers and patients’ access to health care more crucial than ever.”
The Palestinians’ tally of violations so far in 2023 do not include Israel’s two-day raid on Jenin, its biggest military operation in the West Bank in decades. The intense, block-by-block raids that killed 12 alleged Palestinian militants and one Israeli soldier engulfed the Red Crescent crews who came from across the West Bank.
Red Crescent officials said their teams were denied access to the wounded on a number of occasions, including during a call to pick up a woman who had gone into labor. In one case, they said, soldiers took the keys to an ambulance and confiscated the medic’s cellphone.
Three ambulances and crews from Nablus spent two days in Jenin during the incursion, sleeping when they could on their gurneys. Their new, bright-red body armor offered some comfort, they said, but the military-style gear also raised alarms among some in the tense camps.
“When we go in, some of the youths yell ‘Undercover! Undercover!,’ because of the vests,” said medic Ameed Ahmad, 38. “Now we are a target for everybody.”
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