Posted on 04/17/2002 8:26:01 AM PDT by RCW2001
NABLUS, West Bank, April 16 (AFP) - Mohammad Oudeh watched his 18-month-old niece die as he waited in vain to get her through an Israeli army checkpoint on the outskirts of Nablus for urgent treatment in hospital.
"Leila died at the checkpoint. We went back to the village to bury her," he said, her name joining a swelling list of Palestinians paying with their lives because Israel's occupation of the West Bank denied them access to ambulances and hospitals.
The victims include children unable to receive treatment for bullet wounds and kidney patients prevented from receiving access to dialysis, they said.
The problem has become critical since Israel invaded the West Bank on March 29, with the army shutting down whole cities and imposing strict curfews.
Leila underwent open-heart surgery six months ago and needed regular hospital treatment.
"We are suffering a humanitarian disaster. Dozens of people are dying each day from the closure of the villages," Mustafa Barghuti, head of Palestinian medical relief, told AFP.
"Even if a person has appendicitis he will die," Barghuti said. "The health system in the Palestinian territories is paralysed because the residents cannot get to clinics and hospitals in the cities."
Since the Israeli army launched its vast offensive in the West Bank, the movement of ambulances and Red Crescent and Red Cross workers has been restricted.
Ahmad Mahmud Abu Seif died in Jalbun, a village about 12 kilometres (nine miles) from Jenin in the northern West Bank, on April 12 because he could not get to hospital for dialysis.
"My father was going three times (a week) to have dialysis in Al-Watani hospital in Nablus. We tried to ask for ambulances, for the Red Crescent, but the army did not allow us to move," his son Rafid told AFP.
"We tried ourselves on the fourth of the month, the second day of the Nablus occupation. My father has medical documents explaining his case to allow him to move for treatment but the army refused to acknowledge them and made us go back to our village.
"We did that almost every day from every entrance to the city until my father became sallow and his colour changed gradually until we almost didn't know him.
"We were watching him die before our very eyes and we were unable to help him."
Omar Abu Rub said that when his brother Mohammad, 40, complained of chest pains the original diagnosis was a mild stroke but within a matter of days he was dead because they were unable to get him medical care.
"After the first stroke the doctor said he needed to go to hospital but there was no way to get there.
"My brother got another stroke on April 14. We tried to take him to hospital but he died with us as we were crossing the checkpoint in our car.
The head of hospitals in the West Bank, Mussa Abu Hmeid, said complete statistics of the number of people to have died because they could not get medical treatment had not been compiled, but the victims included a 12-year-old boy who was hit by a bullet in the Askar refugee camp near Nablus.
In Jalbun village, Fakhri Abu Al Rub said he tried all the emergency services when his mother had a stroke on April 12 but it was impossible to get assistance.
"We called everyone but they were forbidden to move," he said. "No one could move my mother to hospital and she became paralysed and her health situation is bad."
Although Jalbun, in a cluster of villages housing about 25,000 people, was under curfew, "we cannot move to any city where there is a hospiyal like Jenin or Nablus," he said.
Hopefully, once the wall goes up, there will only be a triple-barrier of concertina and landmines facing the Palis, with no passages through the fence.
Next time, choose your leadership more carefully."
At least that's what the 9/11 bombers said.
I suppose your post makes sense if you have no concept of right and wrong.
Last I checked, we haven't sent men, women and children on murderous suicide missions.
When your argument isn't moral relativism, please post again.
Which are more numerous, the deaths of this type, or of those caused by the homicide bombers getting into Israel when access was more free?
If they hate the Israelis, why are they so desperate to get to their hospitals? They keep saying they want to die for their beliefs, so let them. Israel really needs a wall right away.
Go for it. We need more lunkheads.
Statistics studies the difficulty of deciding on the basis of incomplete information--"What do we know, and how surely do we know it?"If your information is incomplete--and yours is, and mine is--then there is some chance that you will be wrong, whatever decision you make. That means you can decide that scrutinizing the 4th and subsequent ambulances for bombs is cruel or you can decide it is lifesaving--but you can be wrong either way.
If you understand that assassins are at work who recruit children to carry bombs into crowds and kill as many people as possible, and if you understand that the Palistinians define themselves as supporting that, then you conclude that they have arranged things so that the decisions of the Israelis will be based on reduced trust. The assassins consider any loss of Palistinian life due to that reduced trust to be at worst "collateral damage"--and perhaps even a propaganda victory.
This would be quite impossible to pull off if democracies were fully sane--but as it is, democracies are swayed by journalists who claim to be objective truthtellers--yet live to report bad news. This makes democracies prone to paranoid delusions.
Delusions such as the conceit that Rodney King was an innocent bystander set upon by cops intent on abusing him because of his color. And that the Israelis intend to conquer the middle east.
If wishes were horses then beggars would ride, sir. As it is, there is actually indication that AP has retracted the story.But if the story had been true, I would believe it precisely because it fits the circumstances. I put it to you that if you were a doctor and people had been sending ambulance carbombs to hospitals, you would desire--nay, demand--the thorough screening of such vehicles before they put you and your coworkers in mortal peril.
So I would be ready to believe the story, it's plausible, assuming good faith on the part of all the immediate participants. The secuity personnel just following orders, the orders cut to protect the hospital--and the lives of any who might be in critical need of hospital care. But you seem to expect me to impute ill faith to the Israelis. You probably expected me to believe that the children never lie when they have been brainwashed by unscrupulous prosecutors, too.
Uhm, if the story is true, and you know that
and refuse to believe it, you, sir, are a lunkhead.
BTW, what part of 'if' do you not understand?
God bless you for digging up and posting the TRUTH.
This article had my blood boiling for a few seconds..........until I ran across your #20. I thought that my fellow FReepers were being overly callous about this.............but they were right. The Palestinians have, yet again, proven to be liars.
Now..............let's talk about the AP's willingness to publish this c**p before checking out the story, shall we??????
If the Palestinians put the blame for these deaths where it belongs, on the terrorists then both sides would be better off and peace would be possible. Somehow though the Arabs think its justified to punch Israel in the face repeatedly, then accuse Israel of wrongdoing when they finally put up their hands to block the brutal assault.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.