Palestinian medics in firing line

Palestinian ambulance workers carry a dead colleague

By Caroline Hawley BBC correspondent in Jerusalem

Among the dozens of injured being treated at Gaza City's Shifa Hospital is Muhammad al-Eessy, a 25-year old paramedic who is now fighting for his life.

He was in an ambulance rushing to the scene of an Israeli missile strike last week when it was hit by fire from an Israeli gunboat off the Gaza coast.

"We're just trying to do our job and help, but it's very frightening

Yassin M'ter,
ambulance worker

The driver died - one of at least five medics killed in the past few days alone.

Dr Fayez Jibril, head of emergency services for the Palestine Red Crescent, worries about the safety of his ambulance workers.

"The risk is to be shelled, shot, killed and injured," he says.

As Israel continues its rolling military operations across the West Bank and Gaza, the International Committee of the Red Cross has appealed to it to ensure medical workers are protected.

Red Cross criticism

The offensive is being conducted from the air with F-16s and helicopter gunships and with tanks on the ground.

Some ambulance workers want international protection

Last week, an Israeli tank was captured by television cameras in the West Bank town of Tulkarm crushing the side of one ambulance and then swerving into another.

In nearby Jenin, the local head of the Palestine Red Crescent was killed when Israeli troops fired at the ambulance he was in.

The Israeli army said the soldiers had acted out of self-defence when the ambulance charged towards them at high speed.

But the Red Cross has been unusually forthright in its criticism of Israeli army actions.

Israeli suspicions

Spokeswoman Jessica Barry says targeting the Red Cross and Red Crescent is a serious breach of the Geneva Conventions.

"It is absolutely contrary to all the rules of international humanitarian law that these symbols, these emblems and the people wearing them be targeted," she says.

We stop ambulances to check they're not carrying weaponry but we have no policy of denying them access

Israeli army spokesman

"The ambulances the other day that were going into Tulkarm and Jenin when the medics were killed had already received the green light from the Israeli authorities to go into those areas to evacuate the wounded and still the people were shot."

The Israeli army says it has suspicions - though no proof - that the Palestinians are using ambulances to carry militants and explosives.

"We stop ambulances to check they're not carrying weaponry but we have no policy of denying them access," said an army spokesman, recalling that Wafa Idriss, who set off a bomb in Jerusalem in January, was a paramedic with the Palestine Red Crescent.

"We have reason to believe she may have travelled to Jerusalem in an ambulance."

He added: "We have no policy whatsoever of hitting ambulances and medical personnel. When there's a lot of firing from both sides, these things happen, and it's terrible."

Gazan ambulance worker, Yassin M'ter, vehemently denies that ambulances are used to carry militants and weapons.

Yassin says that even when he treats wounded Palestinian security men, he does not carry them in his ambulance with their weapons.

"We're just trying to do our job and help. But it's very frightening.

"We need to keep ourselves safe so that we can do our work, and right now I think we need international protection."

Unsung heroes

Palestinian medics say Israeli troops frequently prevent ambulances from getting to the scene of clashes to pick up the injured, and delay them at checkpoints.

Since the beginning of the conflict, Dr Jibril says dozens of the organisation's ambulances have also been damaged and 130 medics wounded.

His ambulance workers know the risks they're taking when they go out.

"In this situation, they are thinking about their colleagues who were killed and injured. That's natural.

"But they think first about the injured people who they will give them their medical services to," says Dr Jibril.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has recently given the Palestine Red Crescent bullet-proofed vests, while the Red Crescent itself has just begun a programme of psychological counselling for traumatised medics.

They are the unsung heroes - and victims - on the frontline of an increasingly brutal conflict.