The Palestinian Red Crescent Society confirmed that although all its crews and vehicles clearly bear the emblem of the Red Crescent and perform its emergency medical tasks, the violations of the Israeli occupation against it have become almost daily in various areas of the occupied Palestinian territory.
The association added, in a statement issued by it, today, Sunday, that it views with great seriousness the attacks by the Israeli occupation forces and settlers, who beat and assaulted two of its crews while performing their humanitarian work this morning at the military checkpoint established at the entrance to the town of Beit Furik, east of Nablus. They are volunteers Muhammad Baara and Firas Al-Baz. The occupation soldiers took out weapons in their faces and beat them with their hands and feet, and with a rifle on the head of one of them, which led to severe injuries.
She stressed that international humanitarian law prohibits targeting medical missions, including individuals, vehicles, and facilities, which perform humanitarian missions, and stresses the necessity of protecting them and not interfering with them in any way, or interfering in their work.
The association indicated that the number of violations committed last year (2021) against the Palestinian Red Crescent Society´s crews and vehicles in the occupied Palestinian territory amounted to 103 violations, distributed as follows: 32 violations against the Society´s ambulances, and 20 cases of obstruction of ambulances and preventing them from reaching their destination. 11 cases of obstruction of the tasks of the association’s staff, 35 violations against the association’s employees and volunteers, 5 violations against the association’s facilities and buildings, and one arrest case.
It affirmed, in this regard, the prohibition of assaulting the wounded and sick, medical personnel, facilities and medical vehicles, stressing that it is not permissible to prevent sick and wounded people from benefiting from health and medical services or restrict their access to them, or to confuse, threaten or punish the work of medical staff because of their performance of tasks and activities in line with With medical ethics.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society called on all states party to the Geneva Conventions to ensure that Israel, as the occupying power, respects all relevant provisions contained in these agreements, and respects and protects the medical missions of the Society in the occupied Palestinian territory.
