[News] Palestinian women 'have suffered most in intifada

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Palestinian women 'have suffered most in intifada

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=625001



By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem





31 March 2005

Palestinian women have borne the brunt of the pain inflicted by 
four-and-a-half years of conflict but their plight has been largely 
ignored, Amnesty International says.

The human rights group calls on both sides of the conflict to take "urgent 
steps" to alleviate the suffering of women in the occupied territories in a 
report which levels criticism at the Palestinian Authority as well as the 
Israeli military for failing to safeguard women's basic rights.

The report lambasts Israel for failing to allow sick and especially 
pregnant women access to medical care across checkpoints and suggests that 
some of the worst devastation wrought by the army's demolition of more than 
4,000 homes since the Palestinian uprising began in September 2000 has been 
inflicted on women.

The report also highlights the ill treatment of women in Israeli detention 
and the impact of a "discriminatory" 2003 law that prevents couples, 
including parents, from living together if one is a Palestinian from the 
West Bank and another an Arab Israeli citizen or resident of East Jerusalem.

But the report, subtitled Conflict, occupation and patriarchy, also blames 
the Palestinian Authority for having been "unable and unwilling" to 
confront abuses of women, including "honour" killings, and says that it is 
impossible for women threatened by their families to escape. It also points 
out that 200 Israeli women have been killed by Palestinian armed groups as 
well as the 160 Palestinian women killed by the Israeli army.

Among a harrowing series of typical case studies the report cites the case 
of Maysoon Saleh Nayef al-Hayek, whose 10-mile trip from her home village 
to the hospital in Nablus to deliver her first baby ended in a nightmare in 
which her husband was shot dead by Israeli troops.

She describes in the report how her husband drove her and her father-in-law 
to the Huwara checkpoint and adds that after being ordered out of the car 
to produce their papers: "We told the soldiers I had to go to hospital to 
give birth as soon as possible, that I was in severe pain. They first 
refused, then told me to uncover my belly, so they could see I was telling 
the truth. All this lasted about an hour and we were told to go ahead. We 
drove on and after a few hundreds of meters I heard shots from the front of 
the car.

"The car stopped, and I saw that my husband ... had been shot in the throat 
and upper body, and was bleeding heavily." She added: "Soldiers came and 
pulled me out of the car. They made me take off all my clothes to examine 
me. Then they left me on the ground, bleeding from the wounds and in 
labour. I asked for something to cover myself with but they didn't give me 
anything. To this day, I feel shame and anger about this."

Her husband by now dead, she gave birth to her child in a hospital lift.

NA, a 38-year-old woman from Khan Yunis, in the Gaza Strip, said that she 
travelled to Alexandria for medical treatment in December last year but had 
since not been allowed to return home. "I have four children who are all in 
school and the youngest is five years old. All I want is to go back."

But the report also highlights the case of Maha, 21, a Palestinian woman, 
who was forced to drink poison in September by her father who had 
discovered that she was pregnant. Maha telephoned the Women's Affairs 
Technical Committee, a women's NGO in Gaza City, to seek help but it was 
impossible to reach Beit Hanoun, where the girl lived, because the Israeli 
army had just launched a major operation and had completely sealed the 
area. As a result she was too late in arriving at hospital to be saved.

The report, written by Amnesty's Middle East expert, Donatella Rovera, also 
says that women bear the brunt of the anger of male relatives who feel 
humiliated because they cannot, as a result of the economic devastation 
caused by Israeli closures and blockades, "fulfil their traditional role as 
providers for the family".

'My baby died in my arms at a checkpoint'

In August 2003, 29-year-old Rula Ashtiya was forced to give birth on the 
ground, on a dirt road by a checkpoint, after Israeli soldiers refused her 
passage. Her husband Daoud called the ambulance and was told they should go 
to the Beit Furik checkpoint between their village and the town of Nablus 
because the ambulance could not get past.

Rula said: "We took a taxi and got off before the checkpoint because cars 
are not allowed near the checkpoint and we walked the rest of the way; I 
was in pain. At the checkpoint there were several soldiers; they were 
drinking coffee or tea and ignored us. Daoud spoke to them in Hebrew; I was 
in pain and felt I was going to give birth there and then; I told Daoud, 
who translated what I said to the soldiers but they did not let us pass.

"I was lying on the ground and I crawled behind a concrete block by the 
checkpoint to have some privacy and gave birth there in the dust, like an 
animal. I held the baby in my arms and she moved a little but after a few 
minutes she died in my arms".

Her weeping husband cut the umbilical chord with a stone.



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