No Way Out - Medical Implications of the Siege

B'Tselem publishes new report: "No Way Out -
Medical Implications of Israel's Siege Policy

"The IDF has procedures intended to ensure that emergency medical cases will be able to pass through the roadblocks, to process applications of residents of the areas to receive medical treatments in hospitals..." (From the IDF's Spokesperson's response to B'Tselem's report, "Civilians Under Siege")


Solider: Want to go to the hospital? No chance. No chance.

B'Tselem: No chance?

Soldier: Get in, turn around, and go back.

B'Tselem: No chance at all?

Soldier: What blabberers. Get in and turn around.

(B'Tselem fieldworker Hashem Abu Hassan, trying to enable Lutfiya Jaludi, 41, to cross a checkpoint to get dialysis treatment, 7 June 2001. Tape recording on file at B'Tselem)

B'Tselem publishes today a report on the detrimental affects on medical treatment of Israel's seige in the Occupied Territories. The report presents seven representative cases from the past few months, including soldiers who delayed ambulances transporting patients and an elderly woman from Jenin who was harassed in what became a two-day trip to reach the hospital in Ramallah to undergo brain surgery. These cases, which are not uncommon, are an inevitable result of the nature of the siege and the manner in which it is implemented.

Despite Israel's previous statements in the High Court of Justice and IDF declarations since the siege began, the sick are prevented from obtaining medical treatment - even in emergencies - both by the unstaffed roadblocks (concrete blocks and piles of dirt) and by soldiers at checkpoints. Procedures that are supposed to regulate crossing at checkpoints for persons who need medical treatment are not implemented, and, in many instances, the sick are forced to make their way along long, unpaved roads to bypass the checkpoints and reach clinics and medical centers.

Route of Lutfyia Jaludi, Kidney Patient, From her Home in Faqqu'a to the Hospital in Nablus

B'Tselem's report illustrates the consequences of the restrictions that Israel imposes in the Occupied Territories. These restrictions constitute collective punishment and directly harm the civilian population that is not involved in the violence. If urgent humanitarian cases face such serious problems on the way to hospitals, it is easy to imagine the fate of persons who "only" want to get to work or school. In the report's conclusions, B'Tselem urges the government of Israel to:

• cease using collective punishment against Palestinian civilians;

• enable free movement of the sick and of ambulances, remove the unstaffed roadblocks, and implement the procedures for passing at checkpoints;

• investigate cases in which IDF soldiers delayed the movement of the sick, and prosecute those responsible.