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Palestinian
women scuffle with Israeli soldier harassing a Palestinian
female during a protest against Israel's separation wall.
(Reuters)
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CAIRO,
March 31, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – Palestinian women bear the brunt
of the Israeli occupation forces’ intimidation practices, with some
being forced to deliver at Israeli checkpoints after being denied
passage to reach hospital, a worldwide human rights watchdog has said.
In
a report titled “Conflict, Occupation and Patriarchy: Women Carry
the Burden,” Amnesty International said Israeli military
checkpoints, house demolitions and imprisonment have had a severe
impact on Palestinian women in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
“Israel’s
military machine has chewed up Palestinian women for far too long,
while the Palestinians in their turn must now rise to the challenge of
properly protecting women's rights”, said Kate Allen, Amnesty
International UK Director Kate Allen.
Since
the eruption of the Palestinian Intifada four years ago, some 3,,200
Palestinians have been killed by Israeli occupation forces, including
600 children and 150 women.
Amnesty’s
new report said violence against women and sex crimes have also
increased in the Palestinian society in the last four and a half
years.
“Palestinian
women's suffering has been two-fold: they have borne the brunt of
conflict and decades of Israeli occupation and in Palestinian society
they are also denied full rights and protection,” Allen said.
Lost
Babies
The
36-page report said scores of Palestinian women have been forced to
give birth at Israeli military checkpoints, set up everywhere in the
occupied Palestinian lands.
It
further added that many of them “have lost their babies because
Israeli soldiers denied them passage”.
Rula
Ashtiya was forced to deliver on a dirt road by the Beir Furik
checkpoint after Israeli soldiers refused her passage to Nablus
hospital on August 26, 2003.
“I
was lying on the ground in the dust and I crawled behind a concrete
block by the checkpoint to have some privacy and gave birth there, in
the dust, like an animal,” she said holding back her tears.
“I
held the baby in my arms and she moved a little but after a few
minutes she died in my arms.”
The
Washington Post reported on Monday, November 29, that beatings,
shootings, humiliation in front of children and wives and
life-threatening delays are but a few examples of the appalling
conditions at the sandbagged Israeli checkpoints.
House
Demolition
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A
Palestinian watches as an Israeli bulldozer demolishes a house
in the village of Wad Rahal near Bethlehem. (Reuters)
|
Amnesty’s
report also lambasted the Israeli demolition of over 4,000 Palestinian
homes, leaving tens of thousands of Palestinians, most of them women
and children, homeless and destitute.
It
also slammed the Israeli destruction of vast areas of Palestinian
agricultural land since the breakout of Al-Aqsa Intifada.
In
one case last year, two women -one aged 85, the other 65 - had their
home in Rafah demolished by an Israeli army bulldozer while they were
trapped inside it, said the report.
According
to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), a total of
1,728 Rafah homes have been demolished by Israel since the start of
Al-Aqsa Intifada, leaving 17,400 homeless.
In
his annual report on the human right situation in the occupied
Palestinian territories, UN special rapporteur John Dugard accused
Israel of severe human rights violations against Palestinians,
including “wanton” destruction of infrastructure.
“(Israeli)
Bulldozers have destroyed homes in a purposeless manner and have
savagely dug up roads, including electricity, sewage and water
lines,” he said.
Big
Prison
Amnesty’s
report came two days after the Israeli rights group B'Tselem and the
HadMoked Center for the Defense of the Individuals accused Israel of
turning the impoverished Gaza Strip into a big prison.
“It
is easier for Palestinians in Israel or the West Bank to visit
relatives in prison than visit a relative in Gaza,” they said a
report published Tuesday, March 29.
It
stressed that as a result of Israeli military siege, more than 77% of
the Palestinians in the Strip live below the poverty line -
almost double the number that existed before the Intifada.
According
to 2002 UN statistics, unemployment increased to 50% in the West Bank
and Gaza Strip.
