Palestinians: Treatment Being Denied
It was just after noon, and the maternity clinic in the suburbs of this West Bank town was quiet except for the occasional squalling of a hungry newborn. Doctors say that was when the Israeli troops burst in.

The soldiers handcuffed obstetricians, turned mothers and babies out of their rooms to wait in a chilly entryway, waved off an ambulance arriving with a woman in labor, and searched ``every room, every cupboard, every toilet, every locker,'' said the clinic's director, Dr. Odeh Abu Nehleh.

Palestinians say Thursday's raid at the maternity clinic in El Bireh, a crowded village on the outskirts of Ramallah, was only the latest instance of Palestinian medical personnel being harassed, detained and prevented from tending to the sick and injured during Israel's biggest military offensive in a generation.

Across the West Bank, where Israeli troops have seized control of nearly all the principal population centers in the past week, Palestinians say ambulances are routinely being blocked when they try to reach wounded civilians, and that other people in need of urgent medical care -- kidney dialysis patients, asthma sufferers, heart patients, pregnant women -- are in peril because they cannot get to hospitals.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Palestinians-Medical-Siege.html