Dr Bassam Abu Libdeh, al-Makassed Medical Director, said that since the protests and ensuing clashes broke out, the hospital had received a stream of patients suffering from tear gas inhalation, beatings or who had been injured by rubber bullets. He described how on 17 July soldiers had chased a 19-year-old young man from Silwan, who had been shot in the thigh wounding an artery and was bleeding severely, through the hospital like “hungry dogs after their prey”.
“They had long weapons and stun grenades and aggressively pushed and shoved through. They chased the injured youth, who’d been brought into the operating room, when a few of us doctors intervened to stop them… Others then began to roam the hospital and to harass anyone they found, staff, nurses, doctors, patients. There are kids in the hospital, old people. This is not acceptable…Why did they want to arrest the kid? He was bleeding to death and in critical shape, he wasn’t going anywhere,” he said.
Israeli forces carry out violent hospital raids in ruthless display of force
Killing a wounded person is a war crime