Husni Nadim / Anadolu

A Palestinian infant died Sunday evening after Israeli forces prevented his family from taking him to a hospital west of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank for more than an hour.

Laila Ghannam, governor of Ramallah and Al-Bireh, said in a Facebook post that 'doctors at the Arab Consultative Hospital announced the death of infant Ahmed Ma'rouf Zaid (4 months old) after Israeli forces prevented his relatives from transporting him for treatment, despite his critical health condition.'

Ghannam added that Israeli soldiers prevented the family from crossing the checkpoint, while firing tear gas canisters at Palestinians and vehicles, preventing the infant from reaching the hospital in time, and he later died.

The Israeli side had not commented on the incident as of 17:55 GMT.

Ghannam considered what happened to the child, who was the only male child in his family and was born after years of waiting, 'a stain of shame on the forehead of humanity.'

She said this comes in the context of 'a policy pursued by Israel through military checkpoints, gates, and closures to obstruct the movement of Palestinians, patients, and ambulances, in violation of the right to life, movement, and mobility.'

Ghannam added that targeting children, whether 'through settler attacks, direct killing, or depriving them of treatment and leaving them to face death at checkpoints, reveals the reality of the occupation's practices against Palestinians.'

Israel imposes in the occupied West Bank a network of checkpoints, military gates, and road closures that restrict Palestinian movement between cities and towns, including the access of patients and ambulances to medical facilities.

The United Nations documented in April 2026 the existence of 925 movement obstacles in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, with road checkpoints and gates accounting for about 60 percent of them.