West Bank woman denied ambulance said to be dead

TULKARM, West Bank (Reuters) - A Palestinian woman who wasrefused access to an ambulance at an Israeli militarycheckpoint died in her village in the occupied West Bank onThursday, a Palestinian doctor and relatives said.

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

A military source said the soldiers at the checkpoint wereunaware of the woman's circumstances because her family did notinform the local military coordination office for humanitariancases of the ambulance's arrival.

"If we had been made aware of the situation a path couldhave been cleared for the ambulance through heavy traffic inthe area which was caused by a high alert around Tulkarm," thesource, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters.

The source said that troops had sealed off the area in thenorthern West Bank as they feared a possible attack bymilitants.

Local witnesses and Palestinian security sources said theIsraeli heightened state of alert had forced thousands ofresidents to wait at checkpoints in the pouring rain.

Qabb's relatives from the village of Deir al-Ghosoon closeto Tulkarm said they called the ambulance but soldiers did notallow 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 soldiersfor 20 minutes, he took his ailing wife back to the villagedoctor who failed in his efforts to save her life.

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

Qabb said his wife, a heart patient, was in good conditionafter being discharged from hospital in Tulkarm earlier onThursday.

Human rights groups say they have recorded several cases ofPalestinian patients who have died because of delays at Israelimilitary checkpoints since the start of the Palestinianuprising in 2000.

Israel says it allows humanitarian cases through thecheckpoints.

Palestinians and rights groups say the checkpoints arecollective punishment. Israel says they are needed to protectits citizens against Palestinian suicide bombers.

(Additional reporting by Mohammed Assadi in Ramallah andOri Lewis in Jerusalem; Writing by Mohammed Assadi; Editing byOri Lewis)