Israeli troops raid West Bank hospitals (1 Viewer)

[steve albino]

Israeli troops raid West Bank hospitals


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[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]By Ali Daraghmeh[/font]

[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Oct. 25, 2003 | [/font] [font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]NABLUS, West Bank (AP) -- [/font][font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Dozens of Israeli troops wearing black ski masks and armed with assault rifles raided two West Bank hospitals before dawn Saturday, arresting two suspected Palestinian militants, including a critically injured patient, witnesses and the military said.



Around 3 a.m., troops pulled up in jeeps and swept into the two hospitals in the city of Nablus, confining doctors and other staff to rooms for more than an hour as they kicked open doors in room-to-room searches, witnesses said.





The operation followed several similar raids in recent weeks, including cases where soldiers arrested militants hiding in hospitals. It raised fears among doctors and human rights groups that, after three years of fighting, hospitals were no longer neutral ground.



In Nablus' Anglican Hospital Saturday, soldiers entered the intensive care unit and snatched Khaled Hamed, a 25-year-old member of the militant Hamas group who was badly injured Wednesday when explosives inside a car he was riding in went off accidentally. One man was killed in the blast and another injured.






Dr. Annan Abdel Hak said Hamed lost two fingers in the blast and suffered bleeding in his brain and light burns on his body.



"I explained to the soldiers how critical his condition is," said the doctor said. "Then they removed the machines from his body."



Hamed had planned suicide bombing attacks, a military source said, adding that troops took him in a military ambulance to an Israeli hospital where he was in stable condition.



Elsewhere in the city, troops stormed Rafidiyeh Hospital and arrested an armed member of the violent Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a group of militants with links to Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction. The military said troops found the man, whom Palestinians identified as Jawad Ishtayeh, 27, hiding in the hospital's cellar and armed with a pistol.



Palestinian security sources said the man was not a patient and was apparently using the hospital as a hide-out.



An American peace activist witnessed the arrest raid in the hospital, where he was recovering from light gunshot wounds to his leg. He said he was hurt along with a fellow activist from Australia by Israeli army gunfire after dark Friday during clashes in the city's Balata refugee camp.



"Around 3 a.m. I was woken up with a flashlight shining in my face. I opened my eyes and had an M-16 pointed in my face," said Mark Turner, 24, from Boulder, Colo.



He said soldiers in black ski masks and bulletproof vests stood at the foot of hospital beds for more than an hour, pointing guns at staff and patients and warning people not to make a sound.



Phone lines were cut, and soldiers made some doctors and nurses to lie on the ground and told patients to put their hands in the air, Turner said. Another soldier filmed patients with a hand-held video recorder.



As they left, Turner looked from a hospital window and saw one man being arrested.



Saturday's raids were the third and fourth Israeli military sweeps of Palestinian hospitals in the last two months.



Israeli army spokeswoman Maj. Sharon Feingold said Palestinian militants were making a new strategy of hiding out in hospitals to avoid arrest, and that troops would continue to search for them.



"Hospitals should not be used to harbor terrorists," Feingold said.



Palestinian Cabinet minister Saeb Erekat accused the Israelis of violating international human rights laws with the raids.



"This is a very grave measure by the Israeli army," Erekat said. "This is the most flagrant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention when hospitals are not safe anymore from Israeli atrocities."



Noam Hoffstater, a spokesman for the Israeli human rights group B'tselem, worried that such raids could become routine. "Hospitals are not supposed to be subjected to military actions," he said. "A hospital is not supposed to be a refuge or a hiding place (for militants) on the one hand, but it can't be invaded every other day."



In August, troops patrolling Nablus fired at three Palestinian fugitives hiding on the roof of Rafidiyeh Hospital, killing one and seriously wounding two. The men had sought refuge in the hospital during an Israeli arrest sweep and ignored pleas from doctors to leave.



Four days later, troops snatched the two injured men, carrying them out of the hospital on stretchers.



On Sept. 24, about 50 Israeli troops surrounded and stormed a hospital in the northern West Bank town of Qalqiliya, searching for Mikdam Jaber, a militant from the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, who had a bullet wound in the stomach from a clash with troops earlier in the day.



Fellow militants carried him out a back door and escaped before troops could arrest him, witnesses said.



The director of Rafidiyeh Hospital, Husam al-Johari, expressed outrage that soldiers were searching hospitals for militants among patients but also anger that militants were using hospitals as hide-outs. Yet he said he and his staff are powerless to force the militants out.



"We are not police, we are doctors first," said al-Johari. "We don't have the ability to stop people from coming in, to check ID's, to act as a policing force in the hospital."



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[xclarax]

and your point is?

if one of the omagh bombers had been injured itn the attack wouldnt yo uwant them arrested?

hamas aren't exactly campaigning lefties are they?

 

[W.]

and your point is?

if one of the omagh bombers had been injured itn the attack wouldnt yo uwant them arrested?

hamas aren't exactly campaigning lefties are they?

soldiers in black ski masks and bulletproof vests stood at the foot of hospital beds for more than an hour, pointing guns at staff and patients and warning people not to make a sound.

two wrongs don't make a right.

 

[steve albino]

and your point is?

if one of the omagh bombers had been injured itn the attack wouldnt yo uwant them arrested?

hamas aren't exactly campaigning lefties are they?

The operation followed several similar raids in recent weeks, including cases where soldiers arrested militants hiding in hospitals. It raised fears among doctors and human rights groups that, after three years of fighting, hospitals were no longer neutral ground.


"This is a very grave measure by the Israeli army," Erekat said. "This is the most flagrant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention when hospitals are not safe anymore from Israeli atrocities."
Noam Hoffstater, a spokesman for the Israeli human rights group B'tselem, worried that such raids could become routine. "Hospitals are not supposed to be subjected to military actions," he said. "A hospital is not supposed to be a refuge or a hiding place (for militants) on the one hand, but it can't be invaded every other day."

 

[steve albino]

To put this particular attack in a wider context. Some other actions carried out by the Israeli army:

Attacks on Hospitals

Shelling of French hospital (Bethlehem), damages estimated at $25,000,Al Hussein hospital (Bethlehem).
Live ammunition fired at Beit Jala, A-Dibs, French Hospitals in Bethlehem.
Al Alia Hospital (Hebron) on 3 occasions,
Al Yamama (Bethlehem), PRCS Maternity Hospital (Ramallah) and Ramallah General Hospital shelled;access denied to Khalid hospital (Ramallah) for several daysSettlers attacked Augusta Victoria Hospital (Jerusalem), shot security officer (automatic gun).During the long invasion in March/April 2002 a large number of hospitals and medical clinics were attacked throughout the West Bank.

Attacks on Emergency Medical Personnel and Services
15(1 German physicians/nurses/ambulance drivers killed while on duty (opening fire on ambulances/shelling of residential areas).10
180 PRCS Emergency Medical Technicians injured.
95 Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees (UPMRC) first aid workers injured (including 2 physicians).
25 PRCS ambulances destroyed.
197 attacks onPRCS ambulances by live ammunition, rubber bullets, and/or stones thrown by Israeli settlers.
432 incidents of denial of access to PRCS ambulances at roadblocks were reported.
70 emergency personnel and volunteers arrested since the long invasion on 29 March11During the long invasion in March/April 2002, UPMRC staff were stopped, detained and denied access up to 3 times daily, since April 2002 the mobile clinics severely obstructed.
81 people have died due to prevention of access to medical treatment.

 

[steve albino]

This from back in 2000 from the International Federation of Human Rights :

Lethal Use of Force Often Targeting Innocent Civilians and Children
Private houses and civilians have been attacked indiscriminately particularly at night . As reported, such attacks have involved the use of snipers with high velocity weapons. This is despite the fact that no demonstrations have been noted taking place within the vicinity. The increasing involvement of settlers in such attacks also gives cause for concern.
The majority of Palestinian casualties have received injuries to the upper part of their body with the apparent intention of inflicting the maximum harm. This includes a high number of eye injuries often sustained through the firing of 'rubber' bullets at close range. The result is not just the loss of an eye, but often severe brain damage or death. Several of these cases involve children.
Indeed, the number of children casualties is disturbingly high (22 killed by 10 October). There appears to be no attempt to distinguish between them and adults and to afford them special protection in accordance with Israel's commitments under both the Fourth Geneva Convention and the Convention of the Rights of the Child.
Attacks on and Intimidation of Medical Personnel
Despite ambulances being clearly marked in accordance with international conventions they have been repeatedly targeted with live ammunition with resulting loss of life and injuries to medical personnel.
In addition there is evidence of deliberate hindrance of the work of medical personnel thereby endangering the lives of they are seeking to help. In some instances this has resulted in delays of hours before ambulances have been able to transfer the wounded to hospitals.

On the basis of the findings of its mission to Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories from 4-8 October, 2000, the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network (EMHRN), the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) and the International Committee of Jurists (ICJ)-Sweden strongly urge :
....To respect the inviolability and safety of medical personnel as required under international law and to ensure they are not hindered in their work...

 

[xclarax]

This from back in 2000 from the International Federation of Human Rights :

Lethal Use of Force Often Targeting Innocent Civilians and Children
Private houses and civilians have been attacked indiscriminately particularly at night . As reported, such attacks have involved the use of snipers with high velocity weapons. This is despite the fact that no demonstrations have been noted taking place within the vicinity. The increasing involvement of settlers in such attacks also gives cause for concern.
The majority of Palestinian casualties have received injuries to the upper part of their body with the apparent intention of inflicting the maximum harm. This includes a high number of eye injuries often sustained through the firing of 'rubber' bullets at close range. The result is not just the loss of an eye, but often severe brain damage or death. Several of these cases involve children.
Indeed, the number of children casualties is disturbingly high (22 killed by 10 October). There appears to be no attempt to distinguish between them and adults and to afford them special protection in accordance with Israel's commitments under both the Fourth Geneva Convention and the Convention of the Rights of the Child.
Attacks on and Intimidation of Medical Personnel
Despite ambulances being clearly marked in accordance with international conventions they have been repeatedly targeted with live ammunition with resulting loss of life and injuries to medical personnel.
In addition there is evidence of deliberate hindrance of the work of medical personnel thereby endangering the lives of they are seeking to help. In some instances this has resulted in delays of hours before ambulances have been able to transfer the wounded to hospitals.

On the basis of the findings of its mission to Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories from 4-8 October, 2000, the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network (EMHRN), the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) and the International Committee of Jurists (ICJ)-Sweden strongly urge :
....To respect the inviolability and safety of medical personnel as required under international law and to ensure they are not hindered in their work...

ok so i now know you can cut and paste, what i was asking was what the point you were making was.

are you saying , as it seems from the cut and pastes you post, that hospitals should be places of sanctuary from military , police etc and that even when you have a situation as you outline where a man is armed in a hospital , not a patient , but using it as a hide out , they should not be arrested?

personally i think hiding in this way is a bit cowardly, what next, schools?

oh i am aware of the extreme mnature of the israeli states actions in general, just not so sure that it being in hospitals is that different.

 

[steve albino]

ok so i now know you can cut and paste, what i was asking was what the point you were making was.

are you saying , as it seems from the cut and pastes you post, that hospitals should be places of sanctuary from military , police etc and that even when you have a situation as you outline where a man is armed in a hospital , not a patient , but using it as a hide out , they should not be arrested?

personally i think hiding in this way is a bit cowardly, what next, schools?

oh i am aware of the extreme mnature of the israeli states actions in general, just not so sure that it being in hospitals is that different.

The point is not whether I think that hospitals should be places of sanction from the military in times of war, it's the fact that, according to the fourth geneva convention, they are places of sanctuary from the military during times of war. The point is that the Israeli army, are for the umpteenth time, in violation of the geneva convention, which I figure is worth a post on Thumped, and, under that convention, hospitals are considered to be different.