An Israeli hospital in the city of Ashkelon, in southern Israel, is forcing Palestinians to get off public buses to undergo a security check before allowing the vehicles to enter on hospital grounds, while Israeli passengers continue their passage uninterrupted.
Haaretz news outlet reported that the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and Physicians for Human Rights have documented that Palestinians who take Dan Badarom’s line 18 have to get off the public bus at the entrance to the Barzilai Medical Center and undergo a security check.
After the security check, they are then picked back up when the bus exits the hospital to continue on its route.
Haaretz published a video that showed a daily bus ride on line 18, during which the bus is seen stopping at the entrance to the hospital, a female security guard entering and then a number of Palestinian passengers exiting the bus with the guard, who doesn’t check any other passengers or force them to exit the bus.
The bus driver explained to one of the passengers that the passengers who are forced to exit the bus are
“Arabs who work with a permit here, in Israel. They enter the hospital, it’s security. They are checked.”
Apartheid hospital? Israeli hospital requires #Palestinians to exit bus before it enters grounds, their colour-coded Israeli-issued ID cards are checked & they are searched https://t.co/EUGqI3o8fL
— Christine Maguire (@_ChrisMaguire) January 20, 2019
Reportedly if Palestinians do not exit the bus themselves, they will be forced by the security guard off of the bus.
Dan Badarom and the Barzilai hospital confirmed the details to be correct.
A *hospital* in southern Israel forces only the Palestinian passengers on a public bus line that goes through its premise to disembark the bus before entering the hospital. The bus picks up the Palestinians on its way out from the hospitalhttps://t.co/048YcTAVKq
— Asaf Ronel (@AsafRonel) January 18, 2019
Physicians for Human Rights warned the hospital about continuing their methods and said,
“A medical institution is first and foremost obligated to the rules of medical ethics and respecting human dignity, and therefore is supposed to prevent any racist behavior within its gates.”
Physicians for Human Rights also called on the Israeli Health Ministry to inform the hospital that “security issues cannot and will not be used as an excuse for its commitment to medical ethics and ensuring equality.”
(Ma’an, PC, Social Media)
