Israeli Forces Carry Out Violent Hospital Raids in Ruthless Display of Force

Israeli Forces Carry Out Violent Hospital Raids in Ruthless Display of Force
Author

Amnesty International

Release Date

Tuesday, July 25, 2017

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Israeli soldiers and police stormed a Palestinian hospital twice over the past week terrifying staff and patients and in some cases preventing doctors from providing emergency medical care to critically injured patients, said Amnesty International today.

The raids on al-Makassed hospital in East Jerusalem took place as tensions escalated in Jerusalem and across the West Bank in recent days following an Israeli government decision to place metal detectors and search worshipers at the entrance of Al-Aqsa mosque after two Israeli policemen were killed at the site on 14 July. At least four Palestinian civilians have been killed and more than 1,090 injured by Israeli police and military forces over the past 10 days in the widespread Palestinian protests against the decision and ensuing clashes.

“The conduct of Israeli forces who carried out violent raids on al-Makassed hospital harassing and intimidating staff and patients is utterly deplorable. There can be no justification for preventing medical workers from caring for a critically wounded patient,” said Magdalena Mughrabi, Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International.

Eyewitnesses at al-Makassed hospital described scenes of “absolute mayhem” as armed Israeli soldiers and police stormed the premises on 17 and 21 July apparently in pursuit of critically injured patients.

Dr Rafiq Husseini, head of al-Makassed Hospital, told Amnesty International that between 20 and 30 heavily armed border guard soldiers and police raided the hospital late in the evening of 17 July.

“They harassed my staff and other patients and were acting in an aggressive manner... They acted without any legal basis, entering the hospital with machine guns and stun grenades and terrorizing the staff and other patients,” he said.

Dr Bassam Abu Libdeh, al-Makassed Medical Director, said that since the protests and subsequent clashes broke out, the hospital had received a stream of patients suffering from tear gas inhalation, beatings or who had been injured by rubber bullets. He described how on 17 July soldiers had chased a 19-year-old young man from Silwan, who had been shot in the thigh wounding an artery and was bleeding severely, through the hospital like “hungry dogs after their prey”.

“They had long weapons and stun grenades and aggressively pushed and shoved through. They chased the injured youth, who’d been brought into the operating room, when a few of us doctors intervened to stop them… Others then began to roam the hospital and to harass anyone they found, staff, nurses, doctors, patients. There are kids in the hospital, old people. This is not acceptable…Why did they want to arrest the kid?

He was bleeding to death and in critical shape, he wasn’t going anywhere,” he said.

Speaking about the second raid, the hospital’s head of reception, Talal al-Sayed, who has worked there for 10 years said the staff have become accustomed to raids by Israeli forces over the years but that the events of 21 July were “above and beyond what we’ve ever seen”. He described how, around 200 heavily armed soldiers surrounded the hospital and entered forcefully, arresting people in their path and using tear gas. They
were pursuing a young man with a major chest wound in critical condition and followed him all the way to the operating theatre.

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