Don’t Fire on Gaza Medics
Six Attacks on Palestinian Ambulances, Paramedics

Israeli security forces launched attacks that harmed Palestinian medical emergency personnel and damaged ambulances on at least six different occasions in the Gaza Strip between May 30 and July 20, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch called on the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to ensure that its troops scrupulously respect the protected status of medical emergency personnel and facilities at all times as it conducts military operations in the Gaza Strip.

Five of the incidents occurred during Israel’s military operations in Gaza that began on June 28, and three of them during the IDF military operation around the Maghazi Refugee Camp that began on July 18. In all of the incidents, the emergency medical personnel said they were responding to Palestinian casualties caused by earlier military activity but had waited for IDF shooting or shelling to stop before attempting to recover casualties. Four of the incidents occurred in daylight hours, and two of them in open areas. In at least two cases, the attack came from unmanned surveillance drone aircraft used by the Israeli Air Force to target wanted persons and armed individuals, and capable of precision targeting. 
 
“Attacks against clearly identified medical providers are an extremely serious matter,” said Joe Stork, deputy director of the Middle East division of Human Rights Watch. “Israel should conduct an impartial and transparent investigation of these incidents to determine why medical personnel were endangered, and it should remind its forces that attacks against medical and religious personnel and objects displaying the emblems of the Geneva Conventions are prohibited.” 
 
As of September 12, Israeli authorities had not responded to an August 21 request from Human Rights Watch for information about these incidents. Medical personnel and transports lose their protection if they commit or are used to commit acts harmful to the enemy. However, there is no evidence and there has been no allegation that ambulances have been used for any purpose in the current fighting in Gaza other than providing emergency medical assistance and transporting the dead and wounded to hospitals. 
 
Even assuming that in some of these cases medical personnel or ambulances were hit during renewed IDF attacks on military targets, all of the cases merit investigation because the IDF has an obligation not to prevent clearly marked medical personnel and ambulances unnecessarily from discharging their proper functions, Human Rights Watch said. 
 
Human Rights Watch researchers in the Gaza Strip spoke individually with six paramedics, one ambulance driver, and one volunteer with the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS). The drivers came from various parts of the Gaza Strip and recounted six separate incidents in which they came under fire while responding to emergency calls. Dr. Mu’awiya Hassanain, the head of Ambulance and Emergency Management for the West Bank and Gaza under the Ministry of Health, told Human Rights Watch that there had been 23 instances of medical emergency teams coming under fire in Gaza in July 2006, although Human Rights Watch investigated only the six incidents described here. 

Israel should conduct an impartial and transparent investigation of these incidents to determine why medical personnel were endangered, and it should remind its forces that attacks against medical and religious personnel and objects displaying the emblems of the Geneva Conventions are prohibited.
Joe Stork, deputy director of the Middle East division of Human Rights Watch

On May 30, around 1 a.m., Israeli artillery fired on paramedics in the northern town of Bait Lahiya as they were collecting casualties. One paramedic was injured. Video footage of this incident recorded the sound and detonation of an incoming shell that wounded the paramedic. The footage did not include any audio or video indication of ongoing fighting between Israeli forces and these or other armed Palestinians. 

On July 12, ambulance paramedics came under Israeli gunfire as they collected casualties in al-Qarrara, southern Gaza Strip, in the early afternoon. 

On July 19, around 1 a.m. Israeli forces opened fire at the location where a paramedic had just stepped down from an ambulance to collect a casualty in Maghazi Refugee Camp. 

In a second incident on the morning of July 19, a drone-fired missile landed close to and gravely wounded a driver who was part of a convoy of three ambulances in Maghazi Refugee Camp that was collecting injured persons from an Israeli strike a short while earlier. The bomb also wounded another paramedic less seriously. 

On July 20, shortly after noontime, a shell that was apparently launched from a ship hit an ambulance en route to collect a casualty on the Sea Road south of Gaza City. 

In a second incident on July 20, in the evening, a drone-fired missile struck a building near two clearly marked ambulances on the southern edge of Maghazi Refugee Camp, wounding to a driver and paramedic.