Israeli online daily, Haaretz, reported that a 14-year-old Palestinian child was shot by the soldiers in the leg on Friday, and has been held in arm and leg restrains since he was injured in spite that he is guarded at hospital 24 hours a day by two military police officers.
Haaretz stated that the staff and management of Schneider Children’s Medical Center of Israel, in Petah Tikva, have failed to convince the soldiers to remove the restraints.
An Israeli military spokesperson claimed that the boy was shot while he was attempting to throw an inflaming device near his home village on Madama, south of the wets Bank city of Nablus.
The child, Taher Quda, and his father said that he was delivering a gas canister to a home in the outskirts of the village. The father is licensed to deliver domestic cooking-gas canisters.
Taher was shot and injured approximately at 6:00 P.M on Wednesday evening the residents of the building were the gas canister was to be delivered informed the father of the incident.
The father took his child for first aid in the village, and notified a Red Crescent ambulance from Nablus.
“Soldiers at the Huwwara checkpoint stopped the ambulance from picking up Taher, instead transferring him to a military ambulance where he again received first aid”, Haaretz reported, “That ambulance waited at the checkpoint for two hours for a military escort, during which time the father noticed that Taher had lost consciousness”.
The father was not allowed to accompany his son to the hospital.
A medical source at Schneider medical center reported that Taher was shot in two places, above and below the knee, and underwent surgery on Wednesday night. His injured leg was placed in a plaster cast, and he cannot leave his bed without assistance.
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) tried all day Thursday to obtain a permit that would allow one of Taher’s relatives to stay with him in the hospital.
Later on, the Civil Administration Office, which belongs to the Israeli army, issued a two-day permit, which did not include an overnight stay.
The uncle of the child arrived from the West Bank on Friday afternoon to discover that the child is in a single room, guarded by two military policemen, and chained to his bed with steel arm and leg restraints.
The uncle informed PHR, which began negotiating with the Israeli army.
PHR board member Dr. Zvi Bentwich told the duty manager of Schneider, Dr. Dan Ben-Amitai, about the restraint on Friday evening.
Amitai went up the Military Police chain of command for the next day and a half, finally reaching a lieutenant colonel, but he could not convince him to allow the soldiers remove the chains.
The uncle of the child was allowed to be with him during the visiting hours.
“In all other respects, his conditions are the same as anyone else who has been arrested”, army source said.
Bentwich told Haaretz that Shackling violates all principles of treating a patient who does not pose a flight risk because he is injured and his leg is in a cast, adding that according to the Israeli Health Ministry orders, the doctor treating the patient has a significant input on the use of chains, “but it seems the opinion of the doctor in this case was not considered”, Bentwich added.
Also, the hospital’s spokeswoman told Haaretz that the Schneider Children’s Medical Center opposes the restraint of all patients, regardless of race, religion or sex. She added that there was no reason to chain the injured child, and that the duty managed instructed the soldiers to remove the chains but they rejected.
