Movement restrictions imposed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank on the morning of 27 July 2026 delayed an ambulance carrying a Palestinian woman in critical condition. Her fetus did not survive an emergency delivery, according to documentation by an international human rights organisation.
The woman was six months pregnant, in early labour and bleeding heavily, drifting in and out of consciousness. A paramedic and a midwife, helped by her husband, carried her to the ambulance, put her on oxygen and set out for Rafidia Hospital in Nablus, a main city in the northern West Bank. On the way, soldiers ordered the crew to switch off the medical equipment inside the vehicle for about 20 minutes, further endangering her life.
It was her second attempt in two days to reach a hospital. On 26 July she had been bleeding and travelled instead to a hospital in Ramallah, after the Israeli military closed the roads leading to the nearest hospital in Nablus. She returned home around midnight, delayed at a checkpoint.
Why the delay was not exceptional
Palestinian communities in the West Bank live under Israeli military control of movement: travel between villages and the towns where hospitals are concentrated runs through checkpoints, gates and road barriers whose status changes from day to day. Emergency transport is subject to the same restrictions as any other traffic.
The World Health Organization documented 50 incidents of delayed medical care for Palestinians in the West Bank between January and June.
Israeli forces imposed wider closures at checkpoints and road blocks in the Nablus governorate after an attack by settlers on 24 July in which two Israelis, one of them a soldier, and four Palestinians were killed. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs found that those closures severely disrupted access to health care, including through the delay of ambulances.
Minutes that are counted
In obstetric emergencies such as early labour with heavy bleeding, the interval between the point of departure and the emergency room is measured in minutes. In this case that interval was interrupted twice within two days: once by the closure of the road to Nablus, and once by the shutdown of the ambulance’s medical equipment.
This report was produced by the HuMedia newsroom.
