Twice turned away at Israeli border, Palestinian heart attack patient dies

Date: 25 / 10 / 2007 Time: 16:33

Gaza – Ma'an –

A Palestinian man suffering from a heart attack died Tuesday after Israeli occupation forces twice refused to allow his ambulance to enter Israel where he was to be treated.

A Palestinian human rights group is saying Israeli soldiers fired on the ambulance.

According to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), Seventy-seven-year-old Nemer Mohammed Salim Shuhaiber from Gaza City was admitted to the intensive care unit at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on Sunday suffering an acute heart attack. The Palestinian Ministry of Health ordered Shuhaiber to be transferred to an Israeli hospital for further treatment.

By Monday, the Health Ministry had secured Israeli approval for the transfer. When the ambulance carrying Shuhaiber and his two sons arrived at Erez border crossing, PHCR said, Israeli soldiers fired on the vehicle, forcing it to return Gaza City.

Medical officials made a second attempt to transfer the patient on Tuesday. This time, PHCR said, the ambulance was delayed for five hours at the border while Israeli soldiers inspected the ambulance. Shuhaiber, still in serious condition, was laid on the ground in direct sunlight for over an hour. At the end of the inspection, the border guards order the ambulance back to Gaza, where Shuhaiber died.

Shuhaiber also reportedly suffered from diabetes and hypertension.

According to PHCR, this is the fifth death in six months resulting from the obstruction of ambulances at Erez crossing.

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