ReliefWeb

Israeli soldiers beat a medical technician employed by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society January 16, 2003 seriously injuring him.
At 6:40 PM Israeli soldiers, stationed at the Hamra military barrier on the Jericho road, intercepted a PRCS ambulance en route from Ramallah and ordered the EMS team out of the ambulance for inspection. After a provocative check of the team's identity cards the soldiers ordered them to remove all equipment from the vehicle. This resulted in damaged to several items. The soldiers then asked the team to remove the ambulance wheels and rotate them. All this was done at gunpoint.

While the medical technician, Muhammed Ali Mar'i, was changing the ambulance wheels as ordered the soldiers began using their weapons to hit him on the head, and face repeatedly and threatened to kill him. Mar'i was later hospitalized at Jenin hospital with serious injuries.

This sights a breach to articles (19,24,25), which guarantee the protection of medical personnel, and a grave breach of article (50) of the First Geneva Convention which considers torture, inhuman treatment and causing willful suffering or serious injury to body or health unjustified by military necessity. These actions were carried out unlawfully and wantonly toward a protected person and this constitutes a war crime.

For more information please contact

Press Office
phone: +972 2 240 6515/6/7
E-mail: pressoffice @palestinercs.org