An IDF investigation determined that the 63-year-old Palestinian who died of dehydration and cardiac arrest on Saturday after waiting for several hours at an army checkpoint in the Jordan Valley was not delayed by soldiers manning the checkpoint.
The army claims that Muhammad Alian, from the West Bank village of Deir Abu De'if, arrived at the checkpoint without an identification card and was not forced to wait there.
According to Palestinian medical officials, Alian, who they said suffered from diabetes, died after being held up for several hours at the al-Hamra checkpoint. Witnesses said soldiers prevented Alian, who also holds French citizenship, from passing through the checkpoint on his way to Jordan. According to the officials, the soldiers claimed that a thorough background check was required in light of the man's foreign citizenship.
In November, Samir al-Nadim, a 25-year-old Palestinian heart patient from Gaza died after he arrived a day late for a scheduled heart procedure in the West Bank city of Nablus.
Al-Nadim's family and humanitarian organizations said Samir could still be alive today if he hadn't slipped between the bureaucratic cracks of the various bodies dealing with the movement of patients from the Gaza Strip to Israel or the West Bank.
Eyewitnesses said he died of cardiac arrest while waiting at the checkpoint.
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