Danon: Red Crescent staff who ignored attack victims aided terror

Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon told UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday that the Palestinian ambulance that allegedly drove on and left the victims of a deadly West Bank terror attack had aided terrorists.

“When medical personnel fail to provide assistance to victims of terror, they are, ultimately, assisting the terrorists to carry out their murderous campaign,” Danon said.

Danon called on the UN chief to publicly condemn the Palestinian Red Crescent for declining to treat members of the Litman family on Friday afternoon.

“By leaving the scene without assisting the Litman family, the ambulance staff disregarded the most basic obligations of all medical personnel and of basic human decency,” he said.

He also said that the “abhorrent conduct by the Palestinian Red Crescent crew is in contradiction to the core purposes and the principles of The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. These principles mandate that all medical personnel act to bring assistance without discrimination to the wounded and to prevent and alleviate human suffering wherever it may be found.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday demanded an explanation from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) as to why a Palestinian ambulance allegedly ignored wounded Israelis left for dead by terrorists who opened fire on the Litman family on Friday afternoon.

The prime minister said Israel was prepared to take sanctions against the Red Crescent Society, a member of the Geneva-based umbrella humanitarian aid organization, for abandoning the ICRC mandate to assist all victims of armed conflicts, the Ynet news site reported.

After the shooting attack on Friday that killed Rabbi Ya’akov Litman and his 18-year-old son Netanel, the family’s 16-year-old son called Israel’s emergency service to report the attack, and told the Magen David Adom operator that a Red Crescent ambulance happened to be driving by and saw the injured family, but declined to stop and help them.

“There are two wounded here, but we have the Red Crescent with us,” the boy can be heard saying in a recording of the phone call. Then he adds: “The Red Crescent ambulance drove away from us, I don’t know why.”

A statement released by the Red Crescent Friday evening said its paramedics got out of the vehicle to offer aid to the wounded, but then an IDF ambulance arrived and soldiers emerged with guns drawn. The Red Crescent paramedics then left the scene, the statement said.

Erab Fuqaha, a spokeswoman for the organization, told Army Radio Sunday morning that allegations against the Red Crescent were a “false accusation.”

“Our medics got out, examined the deceased, and helped the wounded. They remained there until the Israeli military ambulance,” she said.

A statement on their website said the Palestinian Red Crescent Society “categorically denies allegations made by an Israeli Government spokesperson, on his Facebook account, in which he claims that PRCS’ teams refused to discharge their humanitarian duty and to assist several wounded Israelis near Al Samou.”