Khaled 'Arar, age 32 , ambulance driver
I work as an ambulance driver for the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees in Ramallah.
On Saturday, 11 October 2003, I was at work, in Ramallah. At about 8:45 A.M., one of the other employees, Mu'amar 'Urabi, age 35, called me and asked me to go to the Surda checkpoint, which is about five kilometers north of Ramallah. He said he was near the checkpoint and that the Israeli army had blocked the road in both directions - to and from Ramallah. He couldn't get through and wanted me to take him to the headquarters in Ramallah.
I got to the checkpoint at about 9:00 A.M. I saw an army jeep standing on a hill which overlooks the area. The soldiers who were standing near it detained a few young men who had tried to walk through the hills. They were about a hundred meters away from the road I was driving on. I kept going until I got to the entrance to Surda. There were four soldiers there and an army jeep. I saw dozens of people waiting on the other side of the checkpoint. The soldiers wouldn't let them get through to go to Ramallah.
I stood about ten meters away from the soldiers. I saw that two of them were not letting a woman and her son through. I think one of them was the commander because he was giving instructions. He was short, dark skinned and of medium build. He was shaven and he looked about 27 years old. The other soldier was tall, light skinned, thin and had blond hair. He looked about 22 years old. The woman looked about forty and the child looked about a year and a half old. The woman was arguing with the soldiers in Arabic. She was asking them to let her through because her child was sick. One of the soldiers shouted at her and said in Arabic: "Go away. Ramallah in under closure today." I can't remember what the other soldiers looked like. They were getting the people who tried to get to the checkpoint away from the area.
I was outside the ambulance. I went up to the two soldiers and asked them to let me get my colleague through. I speak Hebrew well. I told the commander: "There's a doctor here and he needs to get the hospital in Ramallah." The commander told me in Hebrew: "Wait a minute." I walked off and stood at a distance of two or three meters away from him. The four soldiers were shouting at the people to get away from the checkpoint. After about five minutes I went up to the commander again and asked him to let me take my colleague. He said: "I told you to wait a minute."
I went back to the ambulance and waited inside. After about ten minutes, the commander told me to call Mu'amar, who was standing about ten meters away from the checkpoint. He told me to tell him to come closer. The commander checked our IDs and told us to go to the ambulance. He told me in Hebrew: "Ask the people here if any of them are sick. If they are, take them with you." I asked if anyone needed to get to hospital. A woman who looked about forty years old who was at the checkpoint with her husband and son told me they needed to get to hospital. Her son looked about three years old.
She came up to me and the soldiers. The commander asked her what she wanted. She told him in Arabic that her son had fallen from the roof and was injured. Her husband translated what she said into Hebrew. His Hebrew wasn't very good. A man came up, said he was a dentist and asked to be let through. The commander stopped talking to the woman and here husband and shouted at the man to go back. He then told the woman and her husband to get back too. I told the commander, in Hebrew, that the boy was injured. I said that he urgently needed to receive medical attention and to get x-rayed, otherwise his condition might deteriorate.
The commander shouted at me and said: "Get out of here. You're not going through. Stand there with the other people." I said: "What have I done? I came to take the doctor and you told me to talk to the people here and ask if anyone needed medical attention." The commander shouted at me and told me to stand with the rest of the people at the checkpoint. I told him in Hebrew: "I am an ambulance driver. You can't prevent me from going through." He grabbed me by the neck and pushed me in the direction of the crowd. When I freed myself from his grasp, he hit me with the butt of his gun on my waist. I yelled at him: "What are you doing? You can't do that."
The other three soldiers came up and surrounded me. The blond soldier said politely: "We don't want to cause you trouble. Do us a favor and just stand there for a few minutes." I went over and stood with the rest of the people. I called the Union of Medical Relief Committees headquarters to tell them what had happened. While I was waiting, a white jeep arrived and two soldiers stepped out of it. One of them was tall, light skinned, full bodied and looked about thirty years old. I think they were commanders because they spoke to the soldiers who were at the checkpoint. I couldn't hear what they were talking about, because I was 25 to 30 meters away. The commander who was at the checkpoint called me over and said: "Get out of here." I left the checkpoint at about 9:35 A.M., and went back to Ramallah with Mu'amar 'Urabi.
Khaled 'Omar Mustafa 'Arar, age 32, is married and the father of three. He works as an ambulance driver and is a resident of Qarawat Bani Zeid, Ramallah District. The testimony was taken by yad Hadad at the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees headquarters in Ramallah, on 14 October, 2003.