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Palestinian baby dies at one Israeli roadblock, Woman Killed at Another - UN Security Council - Global Policy Forum Palestinian Baby Dies at One Israeli Roadblock,
Jordan Times
Woman Killed at Another
July 12, 2001A Palestinian woman in labour was barred from passing an Israeli military checkpoint for an hour, giving birth in her car to a baby boy who died before reaching a medical clinic, a Palestinian doctor said on Wednesday.
In another checkpoint confrontation, a Palestinian woman was shot in the head and killed by an Israeli soldier on Wednesday after her taxi evaded a roadblock.
Israel, meanwhile, credited its stringent security measures for the dramatic capture of a would-be suicide bomber as he prepared to detonate his explosives on Wednesday on the street in the northern town of Afula.
The events sharpened the highly charged debate on Israel's security, raising questions about how far the army and police should go with preventive measures after nearly 10 months of Israeli-Palestinian fighting.
Israel says its ID checks, roadblocks and the closure imposed on Palestinian areas are absolutely essential to prevent, or at least limit, bomb attacks and shootings carried out by Palestinian militants in recent months. “A great disaster was prevented,” police spokesman Yaron Zamir said after police captured the 30-year-old Palestinian man in Afula and safely detonated the pipe bomb he was carrying in a bag. “This is the first time that police forces managed to overpower a suicide bomber with an explosive and detonator in his hands.”
The incident began when three plainclothes detectives in an unmarked car spotted a Palestinian man acting suspiciously, Zamir said. When a policeman yelled at the man, he began running. Three detectives jumped on the suspect and threw him to the ground as he pressed a switch in his hand, trying but failing to detonate the bomb.
Palestinians, however, decry the pervasive security steps as collective punishment that has crippled their economy, and complain that Israeli security forces treat all Palestinians as suspects.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians are blocked from going to work in Israel. Even if allowed through, they can be delayed for hours and be subjected to humiliating treatment from soldiers.
Occasionally, It's a Matter of Life and Death
Firial Idries, who was in labour with her third child, was being driven on Tuesday evening by her husband from their West Bank village of Bardala to a clinic in the village of Tubas, about 20 kilometres away, said Dr Abdul Hassan Daraghmeh, who runs the Tubas clinic.
En route, the car was stopped at an Israeli checkpoint and soldiers prevented it from passing for about an hour, Daraghmeh said, citing the account he was given by the relatives accompanying the woman.
The woman gave birth at the checkpoint, assisted by her mother-in-law, the doctor said. After the birth, soldiers relented and let the car pass, and eventually mother and child arrived in Tubas, the doctor said.
Daraghmeh said the boy cried when born, but the mother-in-law didn't know how to open an airway, and he suffocated. “The umbilical cord was still connected with the placenta and the temperature in the car was high,” Daraghmeh said.
The child was dead on arrival at the clinic, while the mother was bleeding heavily, Daraghmeh said.
The Israeli military said it was aware of the report, and was investigating, but had no immediate comment.
Near the West Bank city of Hebron, Palestinian factory worker Rasmia Jabarin, a 38-year-old mother of two, was shot dead on Wednesday morning after her taxi carrying Palestinian workers evaded an Israeli checkpoint.
After the van took a dirt road, an Israeli army jeep appeared behind it and signaled for the taxi to stop, said Mayasar Batat, one of the passengers.
The driver did not stop, and after a few minutes, the army jeep drove alongside and a soldier fired a single shot into the van, hitting Jabarin in the head, witnesses said. “We have been going this way every day. Many people do this,” said Batat.
Israel's military said the army jeep overtook the van and attempted to block its path, but the driver veered onto the shoulder and drove past. “From an initial investigation, the soldiers acted in accordance with procedures” that call for them to fire in the air and shoot out the tires, the military said. The statement acknowledged Jabarin's death, but did not say how she was shot.
Israel says humanitarian cases are allowed to pass roadblocks. But those decisions are often up to the discretion of young, inexperienced soldiers manning the checkpoints in tense areas.
Palestinians say there have been dozens of cases where pregnant women in labour and others in need of urgent medical attention have been delayed or turned back.
Meanwhile, Danny Naveh, the Israeli minister without portfolio, shrugged off criticism from abroad over the demolition of more than 20 Palestinian houses in east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip since Monday. “I'm sorry about the American criticisms, which anyway are nothing new, but Israel will continue to destroy illegal Palestinian-built homes,” he told public radio.
The demolitions were roundly condemned by Washington, Russia, the European Union and Israel's arch-foe Iran. Hanan Ashrawi, a former Palestinian cabinet member and the new spokeswoman of the Arab League, said in Cairo that the government of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon wanted to purge the Palestinians from the region.
“Israel has not declared a war, but is waging a daily war ... through premeditated murder, the destruction of homes and ethnic cleansing,” she told reporters.
Hardline Israeli Internal Security Minister Uzi Landau countered on army radio that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat had made “murdering Jews the Palestinian national sport.”
The faltering truce has sparked a new round of diplomatic initiatives to try to get the peace process back on track. US envoy David Satterfield is due in the region this week for talks, while Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres — increasingly the lone voice in the Israeli government urging peace with Arafat — will go to Cairo on Sunday. He will hold talks with his Egyptian counterpart Ahmad Maher, who will warn him about Israel's “provocative” policies, Egyptian officials said.
Meanwhile Gulf Arab foreign ministers opened an extraordinary meeting in the Saudi city of Jeddah on Wednesday to discuss the “the means to support the Palestinians in the face of Israel's aggressive policies,” said a source close to the talks.
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