Deaths of moms, babies documented

IN RESPONSE to Allan Wolman: “Journalists have a bias against Israeli atrocities”.

In a report from a Lancet researcher at the UK medical journal, Halla Shuaibi from the university of Michigan in Ann Arbor in the US says in the period she studied (2000- 2007), Palestinian women were delayed at checkpoints while travelling to hospital to give birth, resulting in a dramatic increase in the number of home births.

Shoaibi says 69 babies were born at checkpoints in these seven years, of which 35 babies and nine mothers died, which she considered a crime against humanity. These facts matched the Palestinian minister of health’s report.

In 2007 there were 528 checkpoints in the West Bank and Gaza. UNFPA outgoing executive director Thoraya Ahmed Obaid reported that “it is urgent to facilitate access by pregnant women to life-saving services as stipulated by international humanitarian law.”

Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political rights states “every human being has the inherent right to life”. More specifically the importance of protecting access to health care is clearly stated. Article 25 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights says pregnant women enjoy special and specific protection under international treaties such as article 10 (2) of the International Covenant of Economic, Social and Cultural rights, protection accorded to mothers before and after birth. Article 12(2) on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women ensures appropriate services in connection with pregnancy, confinement and post-natal care.

The Convention against Torture or other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatments on Palestinians speaks directly to the checkpoint crisis and specifically mentions Israel’s abuse at checkpoints in its May 2009 report. Ref Abeer Hashayka LLM, a 2012 candidate from the University of Pittsburgh school of Law. “Notwithstanding the state party’s legitimate security concerns, the committee is seriously concerned at the many allegations provided to the committee from NGOs on degrading treatment at checkpoints, undue delays and denial of entry to persons with urgent health needs.”

In August 2015, Judge Yale Yitav, in a Jerusalem magistrate’s court, ruled in favour of Hasan Wakam from Alnasaria in the Nablus district on the death in her arms of her nine-day-old baby son as a result of delays at a checkpoint. She was awarded 30 000 shekels, and also for disability due to psychological damages. AL GAFOOR Retreat