Muhammad 'Abu Rayan, paramedic

I have been working as a paramedic for the Palestinian Red Crescent in Bethlehem for nine years.

Last Friday [29 June], I was working the night shift. Around 9:00 P.M., we received a call from a resident of Za'tara, who informed us a person had been seriously injured in a car accident in the village. The paramedic Ibrahim Nawabteh immediately left for the site in an ambulance; I stayed at the Red Crescent office. A colleague of mine, Muhammad Abu Ajamiyeh, was working that same night as the liaison officer.

At 9:10 P.M., Ibrahim Nawabteh informed us that he had arrived at the site and that a military ambulance was already there. He later informed us that a MDA ambulance was also at the site and that the victim was inside that ambulance. He said the victim was in critical condition and should be taken to the trauma unit of Hadassah Hospital , Ein Kerem.

Around 10:00 P.M., Muhammad Abu Ajamiyeh told me that somebody named Dalia called from the Civil Administration liaison office and ordered him to dispatch an ambulance to the tunnels checkpoint and take the injured person from the MDA ambulance. She said the injured person was forbidden entry into Israel for security reasons.

At 10:02 P.M., I went with my Red Crescent team to the tunnels checkpoint, arriving there around 10:10 P.M. I saw the MDA ambulance parked on the right side of the checkpoint. I parked my ambulance next to it and got out. Immediately, several Border Police officers came over to me. One of them spoke fluent Arabic; I think he was an Arab. He had light skin and blonde hair and heavyset. The policeman told me that the injured person was forbidden entrance to Israel and that I had to remove him from the MDA ambulance. I told the policeman that I needed to see the patient before moving him into the Red Crescent ambulance. I approached the Israeli ambulance and opened its side door. I saw the unconscious victim lying on a stretcher and bleeding from the head. The paramedics had inserted a tube to his lung. This kind of tube is only used in extremely difficult and critical cases. There were two paramedics in the ambulance treating the victim and a third one was standing outside.

I went back to the border policeman who told me that I had to transfer the patient to the Red Crescent ambulance. I told him that the patient's condition made it impossible to transfer him, and that it was absolutely necessary that the patient be taken to the trauma unit at Hadassah Hospital , Ein Kerem. The policeman said that was not an option because the patient was denied access on grounds that he was a security risk.

I went to the MDA official standing outside the ambulance and told him that the patient was in very critical condition. I asked him, in Arabic, why they don't take him to Hadassah, and he told me that the Border Police officers won't let the ambulance pass. He added that the MDA team had asked the Border Police officers to coordinate moving the patient by helicopter, but the police said it would take too long to coordinate.

In a conversation with one of the MDA staff members, the blonde policeman came and pulled the MDA man away from me and started a side conversation with him. I think he was telling him that he was not allowed to pass information on to me.

About fifteen minutes after I arrived at the checkpoint, around 10:25 P.M., MDA paramedics informed me that the young man (Radi al-Wahsh) had died.

I stayed at the checkpoint until we finished transferring the body from the MDA ambulance to the Red Crescent ambulance. That was at 11:05 P.M. I then transported the body to the hospital in Beit Jala.

Muhammad 'Abd al-Qader Abd al-Jaleel Abu Rayan, 37, married with three children, is a Red Crescent paramedic, and a resident of Halhul, Hebron District. His testimony was given to Kareem Jubran at the Red Crescent Center in Bethlehem on 2 July 2007.