In an Emergency, Palestinian Jerusalemites Call Iman

Iman Abu Sbitan, 32, is an ambulance driver and paramedic who has taken it upon herself to cater to the emergency needs of Jerusalem’s Palestinian community.

Iman identifies herself as “a Jerusalemite ambulance driver.”1 Born and raised in al-Tur, she has a particular passion for serving her beloved community.

After graduating from high school in 2008, Iman seems to have (briefly) considered a “socially appropriate” career path. She studied accounting for two years at Al-Quds University’s Faculty of Science and Technology. However, it did not take her long to realize that she was not cut for a desk job: “It was boring to be in an office. I like action . . . I needed to study something that would ensure my life would have action, and that I would deal with people from different parts of society.”

Providing first aid was the answer.

Between 2008 and 2009, Iman took a six-month course in first aid and immediately loved it. She decided to go further in the field and became certified as a paramedic. She soon started to volunteer to offer training in first aid with her local community. “It was easy for me to retain information, and I felt compelled to share what I learned with people around me.”

Initially, she’d ask her cousin (a young skilled artist) to provide drawings of cases and injuries and then to draw images of how to take care of people in such situations. Her idea was to lead a qualified group and build a capable team to provide emergency services for her community. She would realize that Palestinians needed first aid services in various important activities, including football games and hiking trips—and she persevered to teach what she knew.

She gave first aid courses (mostly for free) for a little over three years (2009 to 2012). And then she developed a plan to get a license in truck driving, which would enable her to drive an ambulance. The idea was to help those in need of urgent care.

“People tried to discourage me,” Iman admits, as she describes the period when she was working on getting her truck-driving license. Her father was worried about her taking on a job that would have her driving late at night. However, she had a plan in mind and wouldn’t let anyone derail her. (He eventually supported her unconventional career path.)

In 2012, she used her own money to buy an ambulance. She had not told people her plans when she started to take truck-driving lessons, but they found out after she went ahead and got the vehicle. “Never tell people your plans, until after you accomplish them!” she advises.

She started her ambulance service, which proved to be quite important for Jerusalem’s Palestinian community, and she named it Iman. Thanks to the success of her emergency and ambulance driving courses, which she integrated for the first time in the Arabic language, she achieved much success in the field. Today, Iman has three ambulances. “Inshallah more on the way,” she says.

When residents in Palestinian neighborhoods call for emergency help, Israeli ambulances are escorted by Israeli army vehicles. The ambulance-army coordination takes time, delaying reaching patients, which could cost lives.

Almost 10 years ago, a Haaretz newspaper article reported that the Israeli police admitted that in Jerusalem, they don’t escort ambulances to Palestinian neighborhoods beyond the Separation Wall, even though these neighborhoods fall within the official city boundaries (see The Separation Wall and Neighborhoods beyond the Wall).2 This means that the patients must somehow find transport from their homes to and then through the checkpoint to reach and board the waiting ambulance. The logistical obstacles are compounded by language barriers: Magen David Adom (Israel’s National Emergency Pre-Hospital Medical and Blood Services Organization) does not share essential public health updates or services to the Arabic-speaking public, thus disregarding the lives of millions of Palestinian citizens and residents.3

“It’s difficult for people to express themselves in Hebrew, especially when they have just fallen from a height or had an accident,” Iman explains. “Providing this service in Arabic makes it so much easier for the people. We speak to them in Arabic, and—since we comply with the Israeli security rules and regulations—we are allowed to access the roads and go through military checkpoints. Of course, this requires much coordination and takes time. It is required for the ambulance, regardless of how critical the condition, to stop at the checkpoint and wait for the police officers to check all IDs and grant entry. We then take the patients to nearby hospitals such as Makassed Hospital, the Augusta Victoria Hospital, and the French Hospital. Our speedy intervention can literally save lives.”

Iman lives at the end of a street in al-Tur neighborhood, which is perched atop of Jabal al-Zaytun (the Mount of Olives). The road to Iman’s neighborhood can be quite treacherous for anyone not familiar with the area.

“It takes special skills to drive here,” she notes, “between the dust, the fume, the bumps, and garbage. Imagine if you have in the ambulance a bleeding person who needs special care.” The roads are narrow, bumpy, and poorly maintained. “The infrastructure is not great in Jerusalem, but this area is especially bad,” she says. “They work on the roads all the time—there are barriers, and it’s difficult to reach the patients. This slows down emergency driving.”

The roads are not the only bumps that Iman and her team encounter on the way to driving patients. Palestinians throughout the Jerusalem area and the rest of the West Bank have different legal statuses and corresponding identity documents (see Precarious Status); their allowed mobility depends on their IDs (see Closure and Access to Jerusalem), and there are hierarchies within the system.

Iman shares how she has had to pick up Palestinians from the West Bank (beyond East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip—who would be required to carry special medical entry permits to receive critical health treatment in Jerusalem—and often get derailed on the way by security coordination, ID checks, and labyrinthine bureaucratic requirements. The Bedouin community, too, encounter many issues, as many of them lack any type of medical insurance. People without any legal status who are stateless present a whole other set of complex challenges.

Iman states that Palestinians have been encountering more problems in health care services. For example, hospitals and ambulances are required to immediately report to the police if a patient has a gunshot injury. Failing to do so would lead to serious repercussions for everyone involved in that patient’s care. Israeli police and soldiers have been known to invade Makassed Hospital and to interrogate and arrest patients in their hospital beds.4

There are about 250 people in Iman’s paramedics team now, she says. “Since 2012, about 1,800 to 2,000 persons have taken the basic course; around 120 of them are paramedics who often volunteer their services in times of need. There are many people that I can count on when the situation calls for it.”

In addition to her work as a first aid trainer and ambulance driver, Iman is a cycling and rappelling guide; the latter is a type of sport using ropes for climbing down mountains. She was the first Palestinian woman to work as a guide in this sport. These sports-related activities, popular among school kids and adults, require qualified assistants including paramedics.

By and large, Iman shares that the Palestinian community in Jerusalem relies very much on community networks: “People recognize me by name. They know that ‘Iman’ is the person to reach out to in case of an emergency—so they reach out to me and find me.”

Her work often calls for backup support. One of her main trusted assistants is Noor Alian from al-‘Isawiyya, a trained paramedic who is also the talented goalkeeper of the national female Palestinian football team.

“I used to travel a lot as part of my football tournaments,” Noor shares, “but sometime in 2018, things got a little less hectic. So, I decided to take Iman’s paramedic course. I learned a lot from the course and decided to join her in the ambulance for an emergency case that same year. This experience turned out to be difficult, as the patient didn’t make it alive. Honestly, it was horrifying at first. We did our best, yet the situation was out of our control. Still, our role was crucial, and I couldn’t stop thinking about that. I started to join school trips as a paramedic, and soon enough I got hooked. I find myself spending more time on emergency care than on football. Having worked alongside Iman since 2018, I have collected enough evidence to demonstrate that the help we offer can alter human lives. It’s beyond meaningful to know that we make a difference.”5

Iman was pleasantly surprised to learn that being a woman is an asset in her work: She believes that both men and women feel comfortable and more willing to describe their physical ailments than they would if she had been a man. “They don’t hold back from sharing vulnerabilities,” she explains. She thinks they might feel safer around her. “People know me now,” she grins confidently.

Iman and Noor are both good at dealing with problems head-on and are not at all queasy at the sight of cuts and blood. Iman in particular comes across as unfazed by whatever happens around her. But it does not take long to realize she is actually soft-hearted and has trained herself to be strong because she needs to be to do this work.

“I often need to cover my emotions,” Iman shares. “But there are stories that will stay with me for life.” She has in fact written 150 stories (more like short diary notes) to document the difficult cases she saw.

She relates one of the stories to Jerusalem Story. In 2020, she went to Erez Crossing (the border where Israel controls access into the Gaza Strip) to pick up a mother and daughter. The infant, less than a month old, had a heart condition.

Iman says she has “tons and tons of stories.” Noor, too, recalls a few patient stories that she cannot stop thinking about, one of which also involves an infant from Gaza who died soon after transport.

Although they are full of tragic stories, the two paramedics project confident positivity, a demeanor one senses is essential for the job. Iman reflects on the beauty of the people she’s met in her work, people she would never have come across had it not been for her unconventional job.

“I once met a man from an area so marginalized that he was in total shock to see regular-looking people in the city. Every day, I meet new people and encounter other outlooks on life,” She shares. She has some inspirational stories, too, about strangers who would cover the expenses of sick people who had no health insurance or could not pay for treatment.

The work has aged her, she says. By the time she turned 30, she felt that she was more like 80 years old.

Perhaps it’s not surprising, seeing how many people she’s come across whose health conditions and physical injuries are made so much more difficult by poverty and discrimination. “I can read people easily now. Horrid cases of poverty—people who have deep financial problems.” She seems to be disinterested in the materialistic things of life that a woman her age might typically be drawn to. “I love animals—sheep, birds, pigeons, you name it.”

The more one talks to Iman, the more it appears that that she is not merely a competent ambulance driver with first aid expertise but someone who is confident she is fulfilling her mission in life.