Communicated by COGAT (Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories)

The Civil Administration has opened a health operations room, which will be available 24 hours a day to coordinate  various medical and humanitarian cases. It will provide rapid, real-time responses regarding the transit of ambulances and patients from Judea and Samaria to Israel and Jordan, as well as the transfer of bodies, and will coordinate and monitor the medical situations of patients evacuated to Israel.

The health operations room, which was opened on 17 May 2011, will be staffed by IDF soldiers who have completed a coordination and liaison course, and who have been trained in providing the responses mentioned above.  It will operate under the supervision of Civil Administration Health Coordinator Dalia Basa and will be in contact with the security forces, Civil Administration representatives in the various districts, hospitals in Israel, Magen David Adom and the Red Crescent.

Health Coordinator Basa said, "This is an additional step designed to save lives and provide proper treatment, issues which are at the top of the Civil Administration's list of priorities.  In 2010, over 180,000 patients and their escorts left for treatment in Israeli hospitals, and there were over 3,600 ambulance evacuations from Judea and Samaria into Israel."

Israeli hospitals, the Palestinian Authority, medical services in Judea and Samaria and various Palestinian medical professionals have been notified regarding the opening of the health operations room.