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On Tuesday [18 June
2002], around 12:45 P.M., I was in my house, which is located on 'Ein
al-Hamam Street, Bir
Zeit. Suddenly, my mother called to me. She shouted, "Come, come,
your father fell." I
immediately ran to my father and saw him lying on the floor in the
living
room. My mother and I
turned him onto his back. I saw that he had a cut on his forehead.
He stammered, "My chest,
my chest." I called the village physician, Dr. Nasser al-Mualam,
and he arrived within
ten minutes. He examined my father and gave him a medication that,
the doctor explained,
would make it easier for him to breathe. Then he told us to move my
father and call for an
ambulance to take him to the hospital.
My cousin Maher al-Warda summoned an ambulance from Ramallah. After
thirty minutes
passed, the Red Crescent
ambulance driver, Maher al-Qaddi, told us that the soldiers at
the Surda checkpoint
would not let him pass. So we summoned an ambulance from Bir
Zeit that did not have
any medical equipment, only a stretcher. The ambulance arrived
within fifteen minutes.
We put my father inside the ambulance, and my mother, my uncle's
wife Maha Andraus, my
sister Nancy, my cousin Tamer Faiq 'Odeh, my brother Samer, and
I also got into the
ambulance. The driver, Kamel Mahane, took the direct route to the
hospital in Ramallah.
On the road between Surda and Ramallah, we came across soldiers who
were at a
roadblock manned by
soldiers. The roadblock was composed of dirt piles that made it
impossible to cross by
auto in either direction. About eight to ten soldiers were there.
Some of them were
standing in front of the roadblock, and others were located on the
nearby hill. When we got
to the roadblock, we removed my father from the ambulance, put
him into a wheelchair,
and began to walk. When the soldiers saw us, one of them ordered
us to turn around and go
back. They shouted at us and mocked us. I spoke to them in
Arabic, asking them to
take into account my father's condition and let us cross the
roadblock. They ignored
my request and ordered us to go back. They were aiming their
weapons at us. My cousin
Tamer intervened and spoke to the soldiers in English. He told
them that they had to
let a sick person cross because he might die at the roadblock if
they
didn't. The soldier
mocked him, too. Another person - a doctor I later realized – who
was at
the site and also wanted
to pass spoke with the soldiers, but it didn't help. They refused.
My cousin and the doctor
continued to try and persuade the soldiers and demanded that
they let my father pass.
The doctor showed the soldiers his physician's card, but the soldier
still refused. The
soldier was average height, light-skinned, had a moderate build, and
was
about twenty-four years
old. He told the doctor, "Doctor or not, go back!"
After arguing with them for about forty-five minutes, we decided to
cross the roadblock even
though the soldiers said
it was forbidden. The soldiers tried to stop us. They aimed their
rifles at us and cocked
the triggers. We were not deterred and continued to walk. When the
soldiers saw that we
were adamant, they did nothing and let us go. We crossed to the
other
side of the checkpoint
and walked toward the dirt piles, which were about seven hundred
meters from the
checkpoint. After walking around two hundred meters, we saw mucus
exiting from my father's
mouth. The doctor wasn't there at that moment because the
soldiers had delayed
him. We continued until we crossed the second piles of dirt, which
were at the entrance to
el-Bireh. We got into a taxi, which took us straight to the hospital
in
Ramallah.
They examined my father in the emergency room. The doctors told us
that he was dead on
arrival. We had reached
the hospital at 2:45 P.M. Around 7:30 that evening, my father's
body was brought to the
village following coordination with the Israelis.
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