Pattern of Israel Blocking Medical Aid Long Enough to Confirm the Death of Victims
A most shameful trend observed by the Israeli forces is in restraining medical supplies to the Palestinian children who are injured in the aerial bombardments, which long only for their deaths. Human rights watchdogs have evidence that this practice paints a picture of a well-orchestrated technique of ensuring that paramedics and ambulances are prevented from getting to the injured. The Israeli forces have more frequently used air strikes in the West Bank since summer, and the Palestinian children were the first victims being either deliberately killed or used as human shields.
A real-life story that displayed the tragedy was on 28th August when the two brothers, Murad, 13 years old and Mohammad Na’ja, 17 years old, were blown up by an Israeli drone-fired missile in the al-Far’a refugee camp. They sat on the roof of their home, and the missile immediately exterminated them in an instant. Israeli forces then fired at ambulances and paramedics and prevented them from aiding the boys and their wounded relatives, a phenomenon that has recently become more and more frequent. The medical teams were held for a few minutes, just long enough to establish that the victims had haemorrhaged to death.
This is not the first time delaying medical treatment has been fused; rather, it is a continuation of a long string of similar situations. According to DCIP, in close to 43% of documented cases, it was established that the Israeli forces deliberately hindered the children from accessing medical assistance when injured by soldiers. Massing or aiming firearms, including live ones, at rescuers, including paramedics, was a way to guarantee the elimination of as many of these children as possible before they could be given any aid due to serious injuries sustained in the course of the Israeli attacks.
Children have been targeted while medical assistance has been withheld, this makes the lives of Palestinian families in the occupied West Bank dreary. More often than not, paramedics are helpless and cannot attend to the victims as the soldiers shoot in the air or block access to the crime scenes where children are shot. Holding off medical help only contributes to the grief of losing a child, thus serving as a reminder of how the carelessness of Palestinian families and the medical staff.
The main source used to compile the DCIP’s report ‘Targeting Childhood’ includes direct field investigation, which investigates the smallest detail of these calamities and interviews parents, eye-witnesses, and doctors. The report, therefore, calls for the depersonalisation of these victims, and instead, the world should mourn each of these people who were killed, not as mere statistics.
The continued Israeli policy of withholding necessary treatment from sick Palestinian kids is the best evidence of the remembrance of the occupation’s existence. Apart from the loss of human lives, these acts have left several worrying questions about non-compliance with the International humanitarian laws that stipulate the protection of the innocent and the wounded. Yet, the pattern continues, and it is for this reason the people of the world must demand the international community pay attention and stop this practice that causes death.
As the Israeli military carries out its deepest push into the West Bank in over fifteen years, the world cannot ignore the price in human lives, especially that of children. Essentials are denied purposely, and this clears a path for the stabbing that leaves the children in Palestine dead.
