Testimonies

Hashem Khalil, ambulance driver

Thursday, 14 February, I was at work at Red Crescent headquarters. I received a notice from the traffic officer about a patient with heart failure from Deir al-Ghuson, a village about eight kilometers north of Tulkarm.   At 1:45 pm, I left with the ambulance driver, Muid To'ameh, from Red Crescent headquarters, to Deir al-Ghuson. At the entrance to Shweikeh, on the northern outskirts of Tulkarm, we encountered a flying checkpoint. The soldiers ordered us to stop about 30-40 meters from them and didn't let us proceed. With the ambulance's loudspeaker, I told them there was an emergency involving a woman in Deir al-Ghuson who had a heart problem. One of the two soldiers standing by the army jeep motioned me to go back.

I remained there and called the Red Crescent traffic officer to tell him they won't let us pass. He asked the Red Cross to contact the Civil Administration and arrange our passage. We stayed where we were, opposite the soldiers, for about half an hour and waited for instructions. At 2:20, the Red Crescent traffic officer called me and told me to return to ambulance headquarters in Tulkarm. Around 2:35, the traffic officer told me that the Red Cross informed him that the passage of the ambulance had been coordinated, and that I could go to Deir al-Ghuson.

At 2:40, I reached the Shweikeh checkpoint again. The siren was on so the soldiers would let us pass without delaying us. The soldiers ignored the ambulance and did not let us proceed forward. We stood about thirty meters from them.

About five minutes later, an army vehicle transporting soldiers pulled up. The number 409 was written on the vehicle. Somebody in the vehicle called out by loudspeaker for us to “get out of here.” I repeated, in Hebrew, what I had said the first time: “We have an emergency heart patient in Deir al-Ghuson.” The soldiers didn't care. The ambulance driver and I waited there until 3:07, when the traffic officer ordered us to return given that the Red Cross's coordination didn't help. We couldn't take the patient to hospital. Later, we learned that she died the same day.

Hashem Ahmad As'ad Khalil, 37, married with three children, is a Red Crescent ambulance officer and a resident of ‘Atil, Tulkarm District. The testimony was given to ‘Abd al-Karim Sa'adi at the Palestinian Red Crescent offices in Tulkarm on 16 February 2008.