Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees (UPMRC) 21 August 2003
At 3.30 am on Thursday the 21st of August, the Israeli occupying forces once again invaded the Palestine Medical Relief Emergency Clinic, in the old city in Nablus. Upon entering the clinic, the soldiers ordered all the staff to leave. Fortunately on this occasion, no one was injured and no equipment was destroyed. However, the soldiers did not allow Palestine Medical Relief staff to reenter the clinic until 9.30am, so for 6 hours, medical personnel were prevented from carrying out their essential humanitarian work.
During the same night, ten Palestine Medical Relief First Aid volunteers were detained by the Israeli occupying forces, who confiscated their Identification Cards, keeping them for five hours. This prevented the volunteers from also carrying out their vital work of seeing to the wounded.
Palestine Medical Relief calls on all humanitarian, human rights and health organizations to condemn the Israeli occupying army’s recent actions because they violate the principals of medical neutrality and constitute a gross violation of International Law. At a time when there were many Palestinian civilians needing urgent medical attention, the Israeli army prevented help from reaching them. This is a clear provocation by the Israeli occupying army who have now attacked the Palestine Medical Relief Emergency Clinic in Nablus five times. Clinics in Ramallah, Gaza and Jenin have also previously
been subjected to Israeli army attacks.
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