From Occupied Palestine

Testimony: Paramedics under siege
MAHMOUD HUSSIN BAJAWI
FromOccupiedPalestine.org, 17 October 2003

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We spoke with Mahmoud in the sleeping quarters of the Palestine Red Crescent Society station in Jenin on the afternoon of October fourth. As the old ceiling fan hummed and one of Mahmoud's colleagues slept nearby underneath a clothesline of PRCS uniforms, Mahmoud spoke with distant reflection and thoughtfulness. Biting his lip and swallowing deeply, he recalled the stories slowly between pulls on his Arabic cigarettes.

Born and raised in Jenin, Mahmoud is 35 years old and has been a PRCS paramedic for ten years. He has been arrested, beaten, humiliated and shot many times. He has 23 pieces of Israeli shrapnel embedded in his back, chest and shoulders.

Showing us pictures of his three children - six, three and one - he said, "every time I see them when I return home from work, I cry. I think of the three children of my colleague who was killed beside me. I haven't slept properly in one year, since he was killed. But what can I do? I love my job... to help our people - but there is no cover from the tanks, the Apaches..."

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Mahmoud Bajawi, EMT Paramedic, Jenin: It was the eleventh of July 2003. I was heading out to transport a wounded patient from the village of Yaban when an Israeli tank intercepted us at the entrance to Jenin. The soldiers came out of the tank, tied me up, threw me on the ground and arrested me. I waited there on the ground for about three hours before an Israeli patrol came and transported me to an Israeli jail.

I spent 12 days in the Israeli jail, during which I was interrogated and accused of carrying wounded Palestinian fighters. In a long discussion in the interrogation room I told them that it was my right as an ambulance medic to care for wounded Palestinian fighters, and indeed to care for any wounded Palestinian regardless of his or her activities. I told them that this right is codified in the Geneva Conventions, and in all basic international human rights norms - in particular those that address the transportation of the wounded, whether military of civilian, during times of conflict.

After 12 days, they released me from jail, knowing that from the very beginning they had no reason to detain me.

In the past, they have also accused us of transporting weapons in our ambulances. They search the ambulances time and time again, and find no weapons. We know the real purpose of the Israeli army's activities: to delay and to impede the work of the PRCS ambulances and paramedics. These ambulances are the only vehicles that can travel during times of curfew, and transport the wounded and the dead.

Among the many other transgressions of the Israeli army against the PRCS [to impede our work] is the holding of ambulances for several hours, and firing at ambulances on more than one occasion. This state of affairs has not stopped; it continues to this very moment. For three years, since the beginning of the al-Aqsa Intifada, these provocations by the Israeli army against our ambulances have not stopped.

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On the fourth of March 2002, there was an incursion into the city of Jenin and the Jenin refugee camp. The tanks came in on the evening of March third, and as workers of the PRCS we were prepared to receive many calls to aid the wounded and transport the martyrs [the term martyr is used to refer to anyone killed by the Israelis. People who die in conflict are considered by Islam to be "not dead", but living in paradise.]

On the morning of March fourth, there were four PRCS ambulances working in the Jenin refugee camp to transport the wounded. They worked from the morning until one in the afternoon transporting the dead, as well as dozens of wounded people. The Israeli Occupation Forces had placed the ambulances under great duress. With tanks and soldiers they impeded the ambulances from carrying the wounded out of the camp.

During that time of difficulty, one of the PRCS ambulances was bombed with high-energy incendiary grenades, resulting in the martyrdom of Dr. Khalil Suleiman [Director of the Jenin PRCS], the injury of three paramedics with very severe burns, and the complete incineration of his ambulance.

This incident happened while all of the movements of the PRCS ambulances into the Refugee Camp were supervised, authorized and coordinated by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the relevant Israeli officials.

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Three days after the martyrdom of Dr. Khalil Suleiman and the wounding of three of our colleagues - Dr. Mahmoud Saadi, Taher Samuri, and Mohammad Alaweh - the Israeli Occupation Forces began an incursion into Tulkarm. As usual, ambulances headed out to help those who had been wounded and those who had died, to try and transport them.

I headed out to Tulkarm in my ambulance with a colleague of mine from Jenin. Within an hour of our arrival, we began coordinating out efforts with the ICRC, and we made contact with the Israelis so that we could reach the many people who had been wounded, and the many dead.

After hearing that a car had been blown-up by an Israeli tank near the entrance to the refugee camp of Tulkarm, I headed toward the camp together with another ambulance from Tulkarm. We were stopped by an Israeli tank that tried to chase us away - it began firing in the air with its machine gun.

At that point, we thought that they just wanted us to stop the ambulances; they were firing warning shots so that we would stop the ambulances in front of the tank to be searched. That was their normal operating procedure, that was how it had always happened in the past.

When both ambulances stopped, the tank approached us and began firing with its heavy guns at the two ambulances. My colleague, the driver of the other ambulance, Ibrahim Assad, was killed, he was martyred, and I was seriously injured.

That same day in Tulkarm, only moments before we were shot, an Israeli tank attacked and drove over a UNRWA ambulance, killing the medic inside. This is just one of the many stories and travails that ambulance drivers have been through.

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Among the many hardships faced by PRCS ambulances in transporting the wounded and the ill is the holding of ambulances. I experienced this myself with a colleague when we were trying to transport a wounded man to a hospital in Nablus from Jenin.

After we passed through two, three, four, five checkpoints on our way to Nablus (to put it in context the trip from Jenin to Nablus is only a 50 km trip), two Israeli tanks stopped us at the western entrance to Nablus after we had dropped off our patient at one of the hospitals.

The soldiers searched the ambulance and found that there was no wounded person inside. We informed them that we had transported our wounded patient to a hospital in Nablus, and that we were on our way back to Jenin. They asked us to take our clothes off, and made us lie on the ground. They began to hit us and bring dogs about us. [In Muslim culture, dogs are considered humiliating and unclean animals that should not be close to you]. They humiliated us in this way from ten at night until six the following morning.

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Another incident occurred during clashes between Palestinian children in Nablus and the Israeli army. The children were throwing stones at the Israeli army, and a group of Israeli soldiers were firing at the Palestinian children. While we were passing through the area in our ambulance, several of the soldiers began to surround the ambulance and took it over. They made us get out of the ambulance and onto the ground. We were placed right next to their position, next to the area where the soldiers had taken cover, so that the rocks being thrown by the Palestinian children would land on us.

The Israeli soldiers took our ambulance and began driving it so that they could move around more freely in a PRCS ambulance for their own purposes. They did this for about one hour before a representative for the ICRC came and demanded that the Israeli army return the ambulance.

** Translated by Mohammed Loubani