West Bank woman said denied ambulance dies

By Muin Shadid

TULKARM, West Bank (Reuters) - A Palestinian woman who was refused access to a waiting ambulance at an Israeli military checkpoint died in her village in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, a Palestinian doctor and relatives said.

Local witnesses said the husband of Fawziya Qabb pleaded with soldiers at the Jarushiya checkpoint near the town of Tulkarm to let his wife get to an ambulance waiting to take her to a Palestinian hospital but they ignored him.

An Israeli army spokesman said he was unaware of the incident but the military was continuing to check the report.

Radio reports said the army had sealed off the area on Thursday, fearing an attack.

Qabb's relatives from the village of Deir al-Ghosoon close to Tulkarm said they called the ambulance, but they said soldiers did not allow it through the checkpoint to pick up the 67-year-old.

"I asked the officer to let us cross but he refused," husband Mahmoud Yousef Qabb said.

Mahmoud said that after failing to persuade the soldiers for 20 minutes, he took his ailing wife back to the village doctor who failed in his efforts to save her life.

"She had suffered a stroke and needed urgent hospital attention. She might have lived if she had reached hospital," village doctor Abdel-Fattah al-Darak said.