Occupation soldiers search a Palestinian ambulance while performing its work in Jenin (Al Jazeera)

Jenin -

The driver of the Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance, Anwar Ataya, was subjected to a direct attack about two weeks ago while he was on his way to transport a wounded person in the town of Ya`bad, southwest of the city of Jenin, which was witnessing confrontations between its youth and the Israeli occupation forces.

The occupation soldiers forced Ataya (52 years old) to get out of the vehicle and turn off its lights, before they took the keys from him, destroyed her wireless device, and ordered him to get out and stand in a “ghost” state for more than half an hour in the street.

Ataya told Al Jazeera Net, "More than 10 Israeli soldiers attacked me, insulted me and my colleague, insulted me, prevented us from contacting our work center, threw away the car keys, and ordered me to move an injured person 10 meters away from me without providing first aid to her."

Occupation forces intercept a Palestinian ambulance during its storming of the city of Jenin (Al Jazeera)

Investigation and obstruction

The ambulance officer added, "I refused to transport the injured person before treating him in the field. An Israeli soldier told me that I had one minute to treat him. After I transferred him into the ambulance, three other soldiers entered next to the injured person and ordered me to take him to his home, not to the hospital."

In the ambulance driven by Ataya, the occupation soldiers conducted an intensive investigation with the injured young man, and forced the paramedic crew to go to his house, and after several attempts, they allowed them to transfer him to the hospital.

He confirms that obstructing ambulance vehicles has become a major target for the occupation forces during any incursion they carry out in the city of Jenin and its villages, as they are stopped daily, searched, and prevented from moving to delay their arrival to the injured in particular.

On Sunday evening, a video clip was circulated showing a number of occupation soldiers severely beating Palestinian paramedic Jamal Qandil during the storming of the city of Jenin and its camp, grabbing his head and beating him in their military vehicle while his screams grew louder in pain.

During the same raid, the occupation forces opened fire directly on the government hospital in the city of Jenin. Three bullets hit the windows of the mothers’ dorm room in the maternity ward, and another bullet completely disabled the dialysis machine, according to hospital director Wissam Bakr.

It is noted that the occupation forces deliberately obstruct the work of Palestinian ambulance crews in every incursion into the city of Jenin and its villages, in addition to bulldozing its main and secondary streets and inside its camp.

Repeated attacks

The Palestinian Red Crescent Center in Jenin Governorate records repeated cases of its crews being attacked by the occupation forces, including an attack documented this week in the village of Fahma, where a paramedic from the Red Crescent was beaten by the occupation soldiers while he was in the vicinity of confrontations between the townspeople and the forces invading it.

Ambulance officer Anwar Ataya confirms that all of the Crescent’s crew were, at least once, assaulted or beaten while performing their work. He says, “About a week ago, I was prevented from transporting an injured person in the town of Arraba, south of Jenin, and the occupation soldiers opened fire on us directly to prevent us from reaching the injured person.” Which led to his martyrdom.”

Field medics working in Jenin believe that Israeli attacks on medical personnel and ambulance crews increased significantly after the aggression on the Gaza Strip. What is happening is very similar to the deliberate targeting of the health sector in Gaza, and that it poses a threat to this sector in the West Bank and Jenin in particular.

In turn, paramedic Salah Mansour (28 years old) told Al Jazeera Net that Israeli bulldozers deliberately block the roads leading to hospitals to put them out of service, as happens in Gaza, making it almost impossible for the injured and sick to reach them.

Mansour works as a paramedic in a field center established inside the Jenin refugee camp to provide first aid to the camp residents during Israeli incursions. He says that the state of siege imposed by the occupation forces on the camp with every incursion makes it difficult for ambulances to move to and from it, and thus to reach the injuries that occur inside it.

The occupation military vehicles have been bulldozing the streets surrounding hospitals in the city of Jenin, and destroying the streets of the nearby camp continuously for nearly 5 months. Mansour explains, "A month ago, the occupation forces surrounded 3 main hospitals in Jenin and close to the camp, forcing the ambulance to take detours to reach the only hospital that was receiving casualties from that raid."

He continues, "Despite our commitment to wearing ambulance uniforms and our presence in places far from confrontations, the occupation soldiers do not differentiate between an ambulance crew and others, especially after they used drones to bomb gatherings in the streets of the camp, which doubles the danger to our lives as paramedics."

Mansour added, "A colleague of ours was injured by a bullet in the chest fired at him by an Israeli sniper, while he was trying to injure himself, several months ago, and the bullet is still lodged in his chest to this day after it was not possible to remove it."

A field medic was also injured by fragments of a missile fired from an Israeli drone during the storming of the Jenin camp last July.

Fears

According to field ambulance workers in Jenin camp, the attacks by the occupation forces increased after the seventh of last October (Operation Al-Aqsa Flood), which led to a doubling of fear among ambulance volunteers and their families, as their number decreased from 23 to approximately only 5 volunteers in the camp. The recent raids on the camp.

To this day, Sabreen Al-Kilani, who works as a nurse in the Palestinian Red Crescent, is still suffering from the effects of an injury she suffered two months ago while trying to transport an injured young man from Al-Damj neighborhood inside Jenin camp.

Al-Kilani was injured by an explosive bullet fired directly at her by an Israeli sniper. She was hit in the abdomen and in the back. She was also hit by shrapnel from a bullet fired at the ambulance in which she was traveling.

She told Al Jazeera Net, "To this day I cannot walk. The sciatic nerve in my back has been damaged, and it has been decided to perform surgery on me in the coming months if there is no improvement with the physical therapy I am currently undergoing."

Al-Kilani added, "I was performing my work normally, and with a sniper's bullet, I became unable to walk normally, even though I work with the Red Crescent, and this was very clear to the occupation soldiers when they opened fire on us."

Source: Al Jazeera