A United Hatzalah ambulance that was responding to an emergency near the town of Jatt in the Arab Triangle early Saturday morning was shot at by unidentified assailants. It is unclear whether the ambulance was the intended target.
Baqa el Gharbiya Chapter head of United Hatzalah Muhammed Abu Tuama said, “The ambulance sustained a hit in the rear window and the bullet penetrated the ambulance and struck the stair chair that is hung by that window.”
“Thankfully, the team of volunteers inside the ambulance was not injured,” he said. “The incident could have ended in tragedy. They were very lucky, since the bullet could also have caused an explosion of the oxygen tanks stored in the ambulance right near where it struck.”
“It’s very sad for me to see violent incidents rising across the Arab population,” Abu Tuama added. “Residents have been suffering for a long time from murders, injuries, and acts of violence perpetrated without end. Now even ambulances are being struck by this violence. If this trend is not stopped I would not be surprised to see even more dangerous incidents taking place.”
Since the beginning of 2020, 80 Arab civilians, 13 of them women, have been killed as a result of violence. As in previous years, 66% of the violent deaths that took place this year in Israel were in Arab society – more than three times the share of Arabs in the population.
More than 90% of the shootings in residential neighborhoods in 2020 took place in the Arab sector.