A three-month-old baby boy's birth and death certificates were issued on the same day after Israeli forces prevented his family from reaching an ambulance at a West Bank checkpoint.
Deir Ammar refugee camp, occupied West Bank – Sunday morning began with the kind of small milestones that families cherish in the Deir Ammar refugee camp northwest of Ramallah.
That morning, three-month-old Ahmad Zaid drank more milk than usual as his father, Maarouf Zaid, collected his birth certificate in Ramallah. The family was preparing for Ahmad’s first trip: a day trip to Jericho with his sisters and cousins the next day.
By afternoon, these everyday moments had become a race against time for Ahmad's life.
His mother, Yasmine Zaid, found Ahmad unconscious and rushed him to a nearby medical center, where staff began CPR while an ambulance was called to transfer him to a hospital in Ramallah.
However, a closed Israeli gate on the road between Deir Ammar and Ramallah blocked the ambulance's path. The plan was to drive Ahmad to the gate, where medical staff wearing oxygen masks would carry him on foot and transfer him to the ambulance waiting a few steps away.
However, the plan collapsed when they found Israeli soldiers stationed there. Maarouf, who had returned from Ramallah, begged them to let her critically ill baby pass, but they refused to open the gate and the family was forbidden to cross on foot.
„"They were shouting at us to go back," Maarouf's sister-in-law, Fatima al-Abd Khalil, told Al Jazeera. "They were angry and said they were going to shoot us. When they saw the boy, they stopped for a moment. Then they became even more violent."”
In a desperate attempt to save his son, Maarouf ran towards the soldiers with Ahmad – whose oxygen mask had slipped off – and begged them to let him pass.
„"My son is going to die. Shoot him, just let my son pass," Khalil Maarouf was quoted as saying.
The soldiers responded with tear gas and stun grenades, forcing the family to retreat to their car. They were forced to turn around and drive down long, winding dirt roads to reach the ambulance.
By the time Ahmad was taken to the ambulance at 3:20 p.m., it was too late. He was pronounced dead on the way to the hospital.
On the same day that Maarouf collected Ahmad's birth certificate, he also went to Ramallah to collect his son's death certificate.
„"This is not the first case, and it won't be the last"”
Residents say the Deir Ammar military gate was closed indefinitely after Israel's war with Iran began in late February, cutting off about 18,000 people in three villages from services in Ramallah. For the families living there, the closure has become a part of daily life.
„At least they open the gate when someone is sick, when someone is dying,” Yasmine said.
Khalil said Ahmad's death is part of the larger reality facing Palestinians living under Israeli occupation. "This is not the first time this has happened, and it won't be the last," he said. "Every day there is a patient who has to go to the hospital. This is our life."„
The World Health Organization (WHO) documented 233 incidents involving health facilities, workers, and ambulances in the occupied West Bank in 2025 alone; most of these were not direct attacks, but rather obstruction and denial of passage.
According to UN data, there are at least 925 Israeli barriers restricting movement across the West Bank, affecting 3.4 million Palestinians: permanent checkpoints, temporary cordons, gates at the entrances to Palestinian communities, and physical obstacles such as earthworks and roadblocks.
Most barriers operate without a fixed schedule: at a checkpoint, passage depends on which soldiers are there and for how long; at a locked gate, it depends on whether anyone comes to open it at all.
„"A soldier can decide at any moment to close the entrance to a village, cutting off entire communities from the surrounding areas," Salah al-Khawaja, director of the Palestinian Anti-Settlers and Anti-Wall Committee in the central West Bank, told Al Jazeera.
The problem goes beyond individual roadblocks; it is a broader system of movement restrictions built around the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements.
„The gates are part of a whole system,” al-Khawaja explains. He explains that bypass roads were built to connect expanding Israeli settlements in such a way that they completely enclose Palestinian towns. Thus, the same roads that expand the space for settlers also cut off Palestinian communities from each other.
Al-Khawaja argues that the network's primary goal is not security, but rather the isolation and fragmentation of Palestinian towns and villages. For families living behind these barriers, the consequences can be most severe during medical emergencies, when delays in care can be life-threatening.
Funeral amid restrictions
In Ahmad’s case, Israeli restrictions continued even after his death. His family said that Israeli military authorities later contacted them by phone and gave them instructions regarding the funeral. They banned political slogans, martyr posters, and public demonstrations, warning them of consequences if they did not follow the orders.
The only flag at the funeral was the one in which his coffin was draped.
Ahmad was his parents' only son; he was born after three daughters (ages 11, 10, and 3) after years of trying to have a son. Ahmad's mother, Yasmine, had undergone three unsuccessful fertility treatments before his birth.
„The boy came nine years after the girls were born,” said the mother.
Maarouf had not eaten or drunk water since his son's death and was struggling to accept the loss of Ahmad.
„We’re all going crazy now,” his aunt, Senyora Zaid, said from beside Ahmad’s grave. „She tells me, ”I want to go get my son. I want to bring him back from the grave.’”
Written by: Leila Warah
