Oli Smart

Sky News reports that a 28-year-old Palestinian woman, six months pregnant and suffering severe internal bleeding, was being transported from Qaryout in the occupied West Bank to Rafidia Surgical Hospital in Nablus when Israeli soldiers stopped her ambulance at the Awarta checkpoint. Video shows Israeli forces detained the ambulance crew for more than 30 minutes, subjected the bleeding, critically ill woman to a physical search, and ordered the driver to turn off the engine, cutting power to the vehicle’s onboard medical equipment. During the forced delay, a nurse was forced to deliver the fetus stillborn inside the stranded ambulance. The woman was eventually allowed to proceed to the hospital, where doctors performed emergency surgery and saved her life. The baby could not be saved.