Israeli soldiers did not bar a Palestinian woman in labor from passing an Israeli checkpoint, her relatives said Thursday, refuting initial claims by two Palestinian doctors.

The baby boy was born in a taxi at the checkpoint Tuesday, and was dead on arrival at a nearby Palestinian clinic, the family said. A doctor said the boy suffocated because the family members assisting in the birth did not know how to keep his airway open.

The Israeli army had said in an initial response that the doctors’ claims were unfounded, but that it was investigating the case. The army reiterated Thursday that soldiers did not bar the woman from passing the checkpoint.

The events began Tuesday afternoon at a remote Bedouin encampment in the hills of the northern West Bank. Firial Dais, a resident of the encampment, went into labor and her father-in-law, Ali, went to the nearest highway, about 10 minutes away, to flag down a taxi.

Ali Dais, speaking to The Associated Press on Thursday, said it took him about 30 minutes to find a taxi. He said he, his wife and daughter-in-law got into the taxi and drove toward the village of Tubas which has a medical clinic.

En route, they came upon an Israeli army checkpoint, which was closed, to Palestinian traffic at the time. Dais, 50, said he did not alert soldiers at the checkpoint to the fact that his daughter-in-law was in labor, and when pressed, had no explanation.

Dais also said he did not remember how many cars, if any, were waiting at the checkpoint, adding that he was flustered by the situation.

The taxi had been waiting for about 15 minutes at the checkpoint when the woman gave birth, said Dais, who was herding his flock of sheep Thursday close to the village of Bardala, several kilometers (miles) from his encampment.

After the birth, the taxi driver walked up to the soldiers and explained the situation to them. They (the soldiers) asked whether it was a boy or a girl. They allowed us to pass, and we did, Dais said. The shepherd said that by the time they reached the Tubas clinic, the boy was dead.

The director of the clinic, Dr. Abdel Hassan Daraghmeh, told the AP on Wednesday that the taxi had been held up at the roadblock for an hour.

Asked to explain the discrepancy, Dr. Daraghmeh said Thursday that it was the driver, not the woman’s relatives, who informed him there had been a considerable delay at the checkpoint.

The family’s physician, Dr. Ghassan Hamdan, said initially that he delivered the baby at the checkpoint after soldiers prevented the mother from traveling to a hospital. But he later said he was not present for the birth and only heard of the case second-hand.

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