Magen David Adom pledges to leave West Bank, Haaretz learns

[Scurrilous]

According to the pledge, local authorities in the West Bank will run an ambulance service with different uniforms distinguishing them from their colleagues in Israel proper.

<snip>

"Magen David Adom says it will implement a 2005 agreement to stop funding and operating ambulances in the West Bank, according to a document on the undertaking obtained by Haaretz.

According to the pledge, the local authorities in the West Bank will run the ambulance service, whose staff will wear different uniforms to distinguish them from their MDA colleagues in Israel proper.

These steps had been agreed on in 2005, when Magen David Adom joined the International Federation of the Red Cross, but had not been implemented. MDA would also remove the Star of David from its ambulances in the West Bank, replacing it with a red diamond shape.

For its part, Magen David Adom said in a statement on Thursday that it is "not familiar with the document in question. We denounce the attempt to use fragmental information, most of it distorted, and present it as facts. Magen David Adom is operating as usual with no change in the entire West Bank, with the organization's emblem as it has been until now."

In June this year, Magen David Adom agreed to implement the 2005 measures at a meeting with former IFRC general secretary Per Stenbeck and the Palestinian Red Crescent chairman in Finland.

Magen David Adom signed understandings with the Palestinian Red Crescent in 2005 to stop operating ambulances in the West Bank, which falls under the PRC's jurisdiction. A senior Red Cross source said that then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon personally authorized the agreement."

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/magen-david-adom-pledges-to-leave-west-bank-haaretz-learns-1.399066

[Ken Burch]

1. So now, the IDF needs to do the decent thing

And let the ambulances get people to hospitals before they die.

Or, if they won't do that, at least keep clot-busting drugs at the checkpoint so that somebody's grandmother with chest pains doesn't pass away in front of her desperate husband's eyes in the name of "security". The IDF could do that without risking anything.

[bemildred]

2. Now I'm so confused.

I don't know when I've seen that many contradictory statements in one news story.


"Magen David Adom says it will implement a 2005 agreement to stop funding and operating ambulances in the West Bank, according to a document on the undertaking obtained by Haaretz.

For its part, Magen David Adom said in a statement on Thursday that it is "not familiar with the document in question. We denounce the attempt to use fragmental information, most of it distorted, and present it as facts. Magen David Adom is operating as usual with no change in the entire West Bank, with the organization's emblem as it has been until now."

[Scurrilous]

3. West Bank communities refuse blood drives over MDA deal

<snip>

"Two communities in the West Bank refused to allow Magen David Adom to hold blood drives in their jurisdiction to protest MDA's promise to the Red Cross to pull back operations in the West Bank.

Peduel and Tapuach, part of the Shomron Regional Council, instead organized a blood drive this week to send donations directly to a hospital blood bank in central Israel.

Under a 2005 memorandum of understanding signed by MDA and the Palestine Red Crescent Society with the International Committee of the Red Cross, MDA agreed not to operate in the West Bank as it does in pre-1948 borders Israel, and to remove the Star of David emblem from ambulances used in the area.

The memorandum has come to light in recent days."

<snip>

"In the memorandum, Israel is called an "occupier" and agrees that its ambulances can only be protected in Israel's "internationally recognized borders." The memorandum also calls on MDA to "ensure that it has no chapters outside the internationally recognized border of the state of Israel."

http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/11/28/3090482/west-bank-communities-refuse-blood-drives-over-mda-deal