Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered the Israeli Foreign Ministry to lodge a complaint with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) over the reported failure of a Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance to treat Jewish terror victims on Friday, Ha’aretz reported Sunday.
The Red Crescent ambulance reportedly passed by the Litman family after a Palestinian gunman ambushed their car near Hebron, but did not stop to offer assistance. Ya’akov Litman and his son Netanel were killed and two other members of the family were injured in the terror attack.
Netanyahu has directed Israel’s Foreign Ministry to file a protest with the International Committee of the Red Cross after accusing a Palestinian Red Crescent Society ambulance of not stopping to help Jewish victims of a terror attack.
“If things are indeed as they seem to me today, the State of Israel will take appropriate steps against the Red Crescent,” Netanyahu said Saturday night in a phone conversation with Noa Litman, wife and mother of the two men slain late Friday afternoon.
Litman told Netanyahu during the call that the Red Crescent ambulance did not stop to assist the victims, according to a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office. In a recording of the call made to emergency services by Litman’s 16-year-old son, broadcast Friday night on Israeli television, it appears that the Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance did not stop for the injured victims after realizing that they are Jewish.
While talking to the emergency dispatcher, Litman’s 16-year-old son said, “There are two wounded here, but we have the Red Crescent with us.” He then added, “The Red Crescent ambulance drove away from us, I don’t know why.”
The Red Crescent has denied the charges, claiming that the ambulance did stop and the crew had started treating the victims, but left after Israeli ambulances arrived on the scene. However, one of the Israeli ambulance drivers said that the Palestinian crew never left their vehicle.
The Times of Israel explained that the Palestinian Red Crescent Society is bound by the ICRC’s mission, which is based on the 1949 Geneva conventions and defines the ICRC as an “impartial, neutral and independent organization whose exclusively humanitarian mission is to protect the lives and dignity of victims of armed conflict and other situations of violence and to provide them with assistance.”
Ha’aretz also reported that the suspect in Friday’s terror attack, Shadi Ahmed Mataua, has been arrested by Israeli authorities after his father and brother turned him in. According to the Shin Bet, Mataua is associated with the Iranian-backed terror group Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Both the gun and the vehicle used in the attack were reportedly recovered.
[Photo: Yonatan Sindel / Flash90 ]