JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel will file a protest with the International Committee of the Red Cross after accusing a Palestinian Red Crescent Society ambulance of not stopping to help Jewish victims of a terror attack.
Also, on Sunday evening, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu instructed Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, to lodge a formal complaint against the Red Crescent with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, The Jerusalem Post reported.
Netanyahu had directed his foreign ministry to file the protest with the Red Cross, which oversees the Red Crescent.
Netanyahu said Saturday night in a phone conversation with Noa Litman, wife and mother of the two men slain late Friday afternoon in an attack on a car carrying seven members of a family to the Shabbat pre-wedding celebrations of their daughter and sister.
Litman told Netanyahu during the call that the Red Crescent ambulance did not stop to assist the victims, according to a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office.
In a recording of the call made to emergency services by Litman’s 16-year-old son broadcast Friday night on Israeli television, the teen says, “There are two wounded here, but we have the Red Crescent with us.” Then he says, “The Red Crescent ambulance drove away from us, I don’t know why.”
In a statement issued late Friday evening by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, the organization denied allegations that its paramedics did not stop to assist the victims.
“A PRCS’ team arrived at the scene and started providing First Aid to the wounded. A few minutes later, two Israeli ambulances, one belonging to the Israeli army and another from Magen David Adom, arrived at the scene,” the statement said. “The ambulances’ teams headed towards the wounded persons, brandishing their weapons. Given that Israeli paramedics had arrived and were providing medical care to casualties, PRCS’ team left the scene which they felt had become unsafe.”
The driver of the Israeli ambulance that arrived at the scene told Israel’s Channel 10 that Red Crescent paramedics did not alight from their vehicle before driving away.
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