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"This is something that is done to animals, not people," Meisner said.
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CAIRO — A 27-strong galaxy of German bishops likened the discriminatory treatment helpless Palestinians suffer under Israel's stifling checkpoints and occupation to infamous Nazi tactics, Britain's Daily Telegraph reported on Wednesday, March 7.
"This is something that is done to animals, not people," Cardinal Joachim Meisner, Archbishop of Cologne said as the group passed one of Israel's countless checkpoints.
During their weeklong visit that ended Tuesday, a delegation representing all 27 German bishoprics was shocked by the crippling sieges Palestinians endure in their every day life.
The delegation had visited Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum, before leaving Israel into the occupied Palestinian territories.
"This morning we saw pictures of the Warsaw ghetto at Yad Vashem and this evening we are going to the Ramallah ghetto," Bishop Gregor Maria Franz Hanke said before traveling to the de facto capital of the occupied West Bank.
The German bishops blamed the Israeli government for the Palestinians' dilemma.
"Israel has the right to exist, but this right cannot be realized in such a brutal manner," Hanke insisted.
"It's enough to drive one mad."
Over the past decade, Israel implemented a closure system of more than 700 barriers, roadblocks and checkpoints in the occupied West Bank.
The Washington Post has reported that beatings, shootings, harassment in front of children and wives and life-threatening delays are few examples of the appalling conditions Palestinians suffer at Israeli checkpoints.
Many pregnant Palestinian women traveling to hospitals to give birth are usually locked up at Israeli checkpoints, where they end up delivering their babies with no doctors or sterilized equipment.
According to UN estimates, a total of 36 Palestinian babies have died because their mothers were detained during labor at Israeli checkpoints.
The Wall
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The high-level delegation was shocked by nightmarish Israeli wall that cripples Palestinians' lives.
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Along with all the sad scenes they saw, the high-profile German bishops delegation was particularly infuriated by Israel's sneaking separation wall.
"For me it is a nightmare," said Cardinal Meisner, a resident of eastern Germany.
He recalled some bitter memories of the infamous Berlin Wall as he passed through Israel's 700km-long cement barrier.
"I didn't think I would see such a wall again in my life."
The archbishop insisted that Israeli barrier will eventually face the same fate of the Berlin Wall.
"Just like they brought the Berlin Wall down, so too will this wall come down," he added.
"It will not endure."
The separation wall is a mix of electronic fences and concrete walls that will eventually snake some 900 kilometers along the occupied West Bank and leave even larger swathes of its territory on the Israeli side.
According to the UN report, with the competition of the wall, 30 percent of the West Bank population, or some 680,000 people, will be "directly harmed".
After the International Court of Justice issued a landmark ruling branding the wall as illegal, the UN General Assembly asked Israel to tear it down and compensate the Palestinians affected.
But Israel is defiantly pressing ahead with the construction of the wall under the pretext of protecting Jewish settlements.
Palestinians see the wall as nothing but an Israeli attempt to pre-empt the borders of their future state.
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