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According to the ambulance drivers, patients reported there was no treatment, medicalprocedure or dressing change administered, and the health professionals of thehospital were in military uniform. The drivers could not stay with their patients. Thedrivers said they thought it was a ‘kind of interrogation.’ According to the drivers, somepatients also reported that they had been asked about where the rockets had comefrom during an attack, and the location of the resistance. An ambulance driver fromEast Jerusalem contracted to transport in-coming patients from Gaza complained onone occasion to Israeli soldiers because he had waited 5-6 hours and then 2 hours moreuntil the patient came out of the field hospital, and this was a ‘burnt, fractured andambu-bagged [manually resuscitated-Ed.]’ patient. The next day someone from theIsraeli army replied that he should not complain since they could ‘make him receive nomore referrals from Erez in the future’. However, possibly as a result of this complaint,this field hospital was then discontinued. It was early in the war.Three patients interviewed by the FFM teams reported that photos were taken ofthem at the crossing. In one case a photo was taken despite the patient’s objection;the other two cases were of minors (both girls, aged 7 and 15).On 14 August 2014, PHR-Israel wrote to the Israeli coordinator of operations in theOccupied Territories requesting information about allegations regarding the fieldhospital, and details about its function. On 21 October 2014 Captain Elad Rahamimfrom the office of the Coordinator of Government Operations in the [occupied]Territories in the Israeli Ministry of Defence responded. The following are translatedextracts from his letter:• ‘…A total of 51 residents of the Gaza Strip arrived at the temporary [field] hospital;of these, 34 were then referred to continued care in Israeli hospitals (includingEast Jerusalem and the West Bank [sic]). [The letter does not specify whetherthe remaining 17 patients were required to return to Gaza-Ed.]• The main purpose of the treatment offered at the hospital was provisionof preliminary medical response, such as changing of dressings and certainmedications, because of the length of the journey from Gaza to Israel or to theWest Bank;• [Regarding the nature of the form patients were required to sign-Ed.], the formmentioned in your letter is an informed consent form for treatment [languagenot specified-Ed.], whose aim was to ascertain consent of all patients toreceiving treatment. Signing the form was part of the admittance procedure forall patients at the hospital;• [Regarding whether photographs were taken of patients, and for what purpose-Ed.], most of the photographs taken at the hospital were taken for internaldocumentation purposes (sic). In all cases in which any use was made of thephotographs, such as distribution by the IDF, their faces [misspelt as ‘sons’ inHebrew-Ed.] were blurred…’ 131131Original letter in Hebrew retained at PHR-Israel’s office.62