Man had jumped from window of bus transporting 17 Palestinian patients from Gaza Strip to Egypt.
By YAAKOV KATZ, JPOST.COM STAFFIDF Kerem Shalom 224.88(photo credit: AP)
Security forces on Thursday afternoon caught a Palestinian man who had jumped from the window of a bus transporting 17 Palestinian patients from Gaza to Egypt for medical treatment. The man was detained for interrogation.
The Palestinian, Mubarak Yaakoub, boarded the bus at Erez Crossing, on the Israel-Gaza border, and jumped out of the window near Kerem Shalom Crossing, as the vehicle was making its way through Israeli territory. An IDF soldier guarding the bus saw the man getting into a waiting car which sped away from the scene.
The transfer of Gazans for medical treatment has not been uncommon since Israel imposed a full closure on border crossings into the Gaza Strip following Hamas's bloody takeover of the territory last June.
Security sources stressed that despite Thursday's escape and ongoing terror alerts, Israel would continue to allow transfers of this nature.
On Wednesday, Israeli and Palestinian heart surgeons teamed up at an Israeli hospital to operate on three young Palestinian girls from Gaza.
Doctors said the lives of the children - aged 7, 4, and 8 months - would have been in jeopardy without the surgery.
The older children were treated to close holes in their hearts and the baby underwent open heart surgery to correct a congenital heart defect.
"The operations were successful and the girls are doing well," said Dr. Akiva Tamir, head of cardiology at Wolfson Hospital near Tel Aviv.
"We ignore all the politics and we are on great terms with the doctors in Gaza, despite violence and wars," said Tamir, who performed the operations with Dr. Rula Awwad, a Palestinian surgeon from the West Bank.
AP contributed to this report
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