Pilgrims crowd Bethlehem on warm Christmas eveErika Solomon
BETHLEHEM, West Bank
Thu Dec 24, 2009 11:21am ESTBETHLEHEM, West Bank (Reuters) - Thousands of Christians crowded into Bethlehem on an unseasonably warm Thursday evening, before celebrating Christmas midnight mass in the Church of the Nativity at the birthplace of Jesus.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-zPdB_kUVwWhile much of North America and Europe shivers in the grip of winter, visitors to Bethlehem were buying chilled fruit juice in Manger Square and stripping off sweaters in the mild weather.
Bagpipers played carols for some 15,000 visitors packing the stone flagged square opposite the small Door of Humility where pilgrims stoop to enter the multi-denominational church, built above the spot where Christians believe Jesus was born.
"It's about 20 degrees (68 Fahrenheit) and it's a little hard to get that Christmas feeling I'm used to having," said Phillip Well, 22, from Germany.
Some tourists were bemused by the scene.
"I'm not used to seeing marching bands and scout troops do the Christmas festivities, but it's entertaining," said 40-year-old Vijey Raghavan, of San Francisco, California.
Tourism in Bethlehem has picked up in the past few years, after collapsing during the Palestinian intifada, or uprising, which erupted in 2000. Hotels expect a 60 to 70 percent rise in business this year.
Still, many locals say development is hindered by elaborate security arrangements Israel has put in place to keep Palestinian attackers out, including an 8 meter (25 foot) high wall between Bethlehem and neighboring Jerusalem.
Visitors and local people cannot escape the sight of the wall but they were not allowing it to dampen the Christmas spirit. "It's safe, it's warm, it's a happy time. It's good for visitors to see the good things too," said 16 year-old Bethlehem resident Reem Mohammad.
(Editing by Douglas Hamilton and David Stamp)FactboxBethlehem hemmed in by Israeli barrier
Wed, Dec 23 2009Related NewsPalestinians say Bethlehem wall spoils Christmas
Wed, Dec 23 2009Bethlehem traders still waiting for Christmas cheer
Tue, Dec 1 2009Abbas supporters in West Bank urge him not to quit
Sun, Nov 8 2009Related VideoBethlehem Christmas preparations
10:11am EST
www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5BN23V20091224
The Wall Map around Bethlehemstopthewall.org/news/maps.shtmlMap, PENGON/Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, February 24th, 2005 The Wall around Bethlehem is in actuality part of the so–called “Jerusalem envelope” that starts from the settlement of Bet Horon to the northwest of Jerusalem city all the way to Kfar Etzion settlement in the very south of the Bethlehem District. This section of the Wall will:
Annex the entire western countryside of the Bethlehem District west of the Wall isolating four villages (Battir, Husan, Nahhalin and Wadi Fukin) with their 18,000 inhabitants.
Walaja and Jaba villages, to the north and south respectively, will be completely isolated from Bethlehem, while their lands will be annexed to the newly expanded Occupation municipal boundaries where already existing settlements will expand, and new ones will be built. Six villages, with 20,000 Palestinians, will be isolated from the Bethlehem District.
This new path of the Wall will ensure the annexation of ten settlements comprising of the so-called “Gush Etzion” settlement bloc. All ten settlements, including Bat Ayin, Efrata, Geva’ot, and Betar, will expand on the isolated lands of Bethlehem District.
The Wall in Bethlehem will cut some 4-5 kms deep inside the West Bank, annexing most of what has remained of the District’s lands, creating devastating economic and social effects.
Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign 'What Would Happen If the Virgin Mary Came to Bethlehem Today?'
The plight of pregnant women in the West Bank, where babies are dying needlessly 
by Johann Hari
Published on Saturday, December 23, 2006 by the lndependent/UK In two days, a third of humanity will gather to celebrate the birth pains of a Palestinian refugee in Bethlehem - but two millennia later, another mother in another glorified stable in this rubble-strewn, locked-down town is trying not to howl.
Fadia Jemal is a gap-toothed 27-year-old with a weary, watery smile. "What would happen if the Virgin Mary came to Bethlehem today? She would endure what I have endured," she says.
Fadia clutches a set of keys tightly, digging hard into her skin as she describes in broken, jagged sentences what happened. "It was 5pm when I started to feel the contractions coming on," she says. She was already nervous about the birth - her first, and twins - so she told her husband to grab her hospital bag and get her straight into the car.
They stopped to collect her sister and mother and set out for the Hussein Hospital, 20 minutes away. But the road had been blocked by Israeli soldiers, who said nobody was allowed to pass until morning. "Obviously, we told them we couldn't wait until the morning. I was bleeding very heavily on the back seat. One of the soldiers looked down at the blood and laughed. I still wake up in the night hearing that laugh. It was such a shock to me. I couldn't understand."
Her family begged the soldiers to let them through, but they would not relent. So at 1am, on the back seat next to a chilly checkpoint with no doctors and no nurses, Fadia delivered a tiny boy called Mahmoud and a tiny girl called Mariam. "I don't remember anything else until I woke up in the hospital," she says now. For two days, her family hid it from her that Mahmoud had died, and doctors said they could "certainly" have saved his life by getting him to an incubator.
"Now Mariam is at an age when she asks me where her brother is," Fadia says. "She wants to know what happened to him. But how do I explain it?" She looks down. "Sometimes at night I scream and scream." In the years since, she has been pregnant four times, but she keeps miscarrying. "I couldn't bear to make another baby. I was convinced the same thing would happen to me again," she explains. "When I see the [Israeli] soldiers I keep thinking - what did my baby do to Israel?"
Since Fadia's delivery, in 2002, the United Nations confirms that a total of 36 babies have died because their mothers were detained during labour at Israeli checkpoints. All across Bethlehem - all across the West Bank - there are women whose pregnancies are being disturbed, or worse, by the military occupation of their land.
In Salfit, on the other side of the West Bank, Jamilla Alahad Naim, 29, is waiting for the first medical check-up of her five-month pregnancy. "I am frightened all the time," she says. "I am frightened for my baby because I have had very little medical treatment and I cannot afford good food ... I know I will give birth at home with no help, like I did with Mohammed [her last child]. I am too frightened to go to hospital because there are two checkpoints between our home [and there] and I know if you are detained by the soldiers, the mother or the baby can die out there in the cold. But giving birth at home is very dangerous too."
Hindia Abu Nabah - a steely 31-year-old staff nurse at Al Zawya Clinic, in Salfit district - says it is "a nightmare" to be pregnant in the West Bank today. "Recently, two of our pregnant patients here were tear-gassed in their homes ... The women couldn't breathe and went into premature labour. By the time we got there, the babies had been delivered stillborn."
Many of the medical problems afflicting pregnant women here are more mundane than Jamilla's darkest fears: 30 per cent of pregnant Palestinians suffer from anaemia, a lack of red blood cells. The extreme poverty caused by the siege and now the international boycott seems to be a key factor. The doctors here warn grimly that as ordinary Palestinians' income evaporates, they eat more staples and fewer proteins - a recipe for anaemia. There is some evidence, they add, that women are giving the best food to their husbands and children, and subsisting on gristle and scraps. The anaemia leaves women at increased risk of bleeding heavily and contracting an infection during childbirth.
Earlier this year, conditions for pregnant women on the West Bank - already poor - fell off a cliff. Following the election of Hamas, the world choked off funding for the Palestinian Authority, which suddenly found itself unable to pay its doctors and nurses. After several months medical staff went on strike, refusing to take anything but emergency cases. For more than three months, the maternity wards of the West Bank were empty and echoing. Beds lay, perfectly made, waiting for patients who could not come.
In all this time, there were no vitamins handed out, no ultrasound scans, no detection of congenital abnormalities. Imagine that the NHS had simply packed up and stopped one day and did not reopen for 12 weeks, and you get a sense of the scale of the medical disaster.
Some women were wealthy enough to go to the few private hospitals scattered across the West Bank. Most were not. So because of the international boycott of the Palestinians, every hospital warns there has been an unseen, unreported increase in home births on the West Bank.
I found Dr Hamdan Hamdan, the head of maternity services at Hussein Hospital, Bethlehem, pacing around an empty ward, chain-smoking. "This ward is usually full," he said. "The women who should be in this hospital - what is happening to them?"
They have been giving birth in startlingly similar conditions to those suffered by Mary 2,000 years ago. They have delivered their babies with no doctors, no sterilised equipment, no back-up if there are complications. They have been boycotted back into the Stone Age. The strike ended this month after the PA raised funds from Muslim countries - but the effects of stopping maternity services are only now becoming clear. Hindia Abu Nabah says: "There is a clear link between the deteriorating health situation and the international boycott.
Amid this horror, one charity has been supporting pregnant Palestinian women even as their medical services fell apart.
Merlin - one of the three charities being supported by the Independent Christmas Appeal - has set up two mobile teams, with a full-time gynaecologist and a paediatrician, to take medical services to the parts of the West Bank cut off by the Israeli occupation. They provide lab technicians and ultrasound machines - the fruits of the 21st century.
I travelled with the team to the Salfit region - scarred by Israeli settlements pumping out raw sewage on to Palestinian land - to see women and children desperately congregating around them seeking help. Amid the dozens of nervous women and swarms of sickly children, Rahme Jima, 29, is sitting with her hands folded neatly in her lap. She is in the last month of her pregnancy, and this is the first time she has seen a doctor since she conceived.
"The nearest hospital is in Nablus, and we can't afford to pay for the transport to get there through all the checkpoints," she says, revealing she is planning - in despair - to give birth at home. Even if she had the cash, she says she is "too frightened of being detained at the checkpoint and being forced to give birth there". She sighs, and adds: "I will be so relieved to finally be seen by a doctor, I have been so worried." But when she returns from seeing the doctor, she says: "I have anaemia, and they have given me iron supplements," supplied by Merlin. She can't afford to eat well; she lives with her husband and four children in a room in her mother-in-law's house, and her husband, Joseph, has been unemployed since his permit to move through the checkpoints expired. "The doctor says I should have been seen much earlier in my pregnancy. My baby will probably be born too small."
All the problems afflicting these 21st century Marys are paraded in Merlin's clinic. One terrified, terrorised mother after another presents herself to the specialists here, and leaves clutching packs of folic acid, calcium, iron and medicine. Dr Bassam Said Nadi, the senior medical officer for this area, says: "I thank Merlin for the specialist care they have brought. Not long ago, we didn't even have petrol in our cars. Alongside other organisations, they are helping us survive this terrible period in our country's history."
Merlin can only maintain these mobile clinics with your help. Leaning in the doorway of her bare clinic, Hindia Abu Nabah says: "Tell your readers that we need their help. There are no Hamas or Fatah foetuses. They don't deserve to be punished. I couldn't stand to look another anaemic woman in the eye and tell her that her baby will be underweight or malformed and we don't have iron supplements to give her. I can't go back to that. I can't."
© 2006 Independent News and Media Limited
www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1223-03.htm ..............................
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UNITED NATIONS A
General Assembly Distr.
GENERAL A/HRC/10/35
26 February 2009
Original: ENGLISH
HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL
Tenth session Agenda item 2
ANNUAL REPORT OF THE UNITED NATIONS HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AND REPORTS OF THE OFFICE OF THE HIGH COMMISSIONER AND THE SECRETARY-GENERALThe issue of Palestinian pregnant women
giving birth at Israeli checkpoints:
report of the High Commissioner for Human Rights1. The Human Rights Council, in its decision 2/102 of 6 October 2006, requested the Secretary-General and the High Commissioner for Human Rights to “continue with the fulfilment of their activities, in accordance with all previous decisions adopted by the Commission on Human Rights and to update the relevant reports and studies”. In its resolution 2005/7 of 14 April 2005, the Commission on Human Rights requested the High Commissioner to report on “the issue of Palestinian pregnant women giving birth at Israeli checkpoints owing to denial of access by Israel to hospitals”.
2. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) understands decision 2/102 as preserving the previous annual reporting cycle in respect of this issue, until otherwise decided by the Council. The present report to the Council addresses the developments that have occurred since the submission of the last report on this issue (A/HRC/7/44).
3. On 6 November 2008, the High Commissioner addressed notes verbales to the Permanent Mission of Israel and to the Permanent Observer Mission of Palestine to the United Nations Office at Geneva, in which she indicated that she would appreciate receiving comments or observations that they might wish to submit following Commission resolution 2005/7 and the most recent report (ibid.) submitted by the High Commissioner on the issue of Palestinian pregnant women giving birth at Israeli checkpoints.
4. At the time of writing, no reply had been received from either Mission.
5. In order to gather information on the issue, OHCHR also wrote on 7 November 2008 to the following United Nations entities and specialized agencies represented in the occupied Palestinian territory: the Office of the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Process (UNSCO), the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the World Health Organization (WHO).
6. Replies were received on 13 November 2008 from UNICEF, on 26 November 2008 from the UNRWA Gaza Field Office, on 1 December 2008 from WHO, on 3 December 2008 from OCHA, on 10 December 2008 from the UNRWA West Bank Field Office and 13 December 2008 from UNFPA and UNIFEM.
7. The United Nations does not maintain a systematic monitoring and reporting mechanism on the issue of Palestinian women giving birth at Israeli checkpoints. UNRWA Gaza and West Bank Field Offices reported that they do not monitor the issue. OCHA noted that births at checkpoints are not an indicator that it monitors or records systematically. Nevertheless, OCHA in its reply mentioned that it reports on births at checkpoints on an ad hoc basis when a casualty results from the incident (i.e., injury or death) in its Protection of Civilians Weekly Reports. In this regard, OCHA pointed out that these reports are not comprehensive as its field staff may not be receiving information on every incident.
8. It should also be noted that limiting the scope of the issue to births at checkpoints fails to account for the consequences of the entire closure regime imposed on the occupied Palestinian territory (e.g., the closure of Gaza, the Wall, as well as other impediments to the freedom of movement of Palestinians, such as roadblocks, trenches, earth mounds, etc.), which severely impact on the daily lives of Palestinian women. The entire closure regime leaves Palestinian women particularly vulnerable with regard to their health-related needs and rights, posing severe difficulties for them in accessing necessary health-care services during childbirth.
9. Impediments to accessing health-care services due to movement restrictions were highlighted in the information provided by WHO. From 25 to 29 July 2008, alongside several military operations, the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) severely restricted Palestinian movement throughout the Hebron Governorate in the southern West Bank. Restrictions included the closure of two major junctions, Al Fawwar and Al Fahs, for an average of four hours a day. The closure of Al Fawwar junction blocked the only access point for some 150,000 people to Hebron City, while the closure of Al Fahs prevented commercial trucks from entering the industrial zone in Hebron/H2 from accessing Road 60.1
10. On 27 July 2008, the IDF closed the Beit Kahil Bridge with an earth mound for one day, effectively cutting off the population of Beit Kahil, Tarqumiya and Idhna (with a combined population of 60,000) from Hebron City. Consequently, a 24-year-old woman from Tarqumiya was forced to give birth in a car while waiting for an ambulance to transport her to a hospital.2
11. In the same location, a similar incident occurred on 28 August 2008. A WHO mental-health team witnessed and reported that, due to an earth mound, the IDF closed the only accessible road to the community centre. A woman had to deliver in her husband’s car since they could not pass the obstacle to reach the hospital on time due to the closure of the road.
12. Another incident involved a 21-year-old woman, married with one child, resident of Qusra in the Nablus District. On 4 September 2008, seven months pregnant, she started to bleed severely. At close to 1 a.m., she and her husband left for the nearest hospital in Nablus, but Israeli soldiers did not permit them to pass through the Huwara checkpoint because they did not have the requisite permit to cross by car. As a result, she delivered at the checkpoint a stillborn baby.3
13. In January 2009, a 25-year-old pregnant woman from Al A’sawiya (Jerusalem) was delayed by soldiers at Zayem checkpoint, which controls access to East Jerusalem through the Barrier. The woman, who held a Jerusalem ID and was travelling in a car with Israeli plates, informed the soldiers upon arrival that she was in labour. According to the woman, she was delayed for two hours, during which her waters broke. After being allowed through, she delivered in the car while en route to the hospital, where she was rushed into the emergency room.
14. Movement restrictions impact on the lives of Palestinian women not only during childbirth, but also during pre- and post-natal care. In that regard, the situation of the villages of Azzun Atmeh in the Qalqiliya District and Barta’ Al Sharqiya in the Jenin District has been highlighted by WHO. In Azzun Atmeh, a village completely surrounded by the Wall whose only access is through a gate guarded by the IDF, the main obstacles impeding access to quality health care and affecting the regular provision of health services is the presence of the Wall and the search procedures that the residents, including patients, are subject to upon entering and leaving the village. Accessing secondary health-care services, especially while the gate is closed, means an added risk of the deterioration of health status in urgent cases and pregnant women. The risk of unattended delivery is also compounded by the fact that no midwife is available in Azzun Atmeh.
15. Barta’ Al Sharqiya is a totally enclosed enclave in the Jenin District in the West Bank, where entry and exit to other districts in the West Bank are accessible through two gates.4 Accessing secondary health-care services, especially after the gates are closed (from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m.) is a complicated process. This can pose a life-threatening risk for patients who need urgent lifesaving treatment. Special coordination with the Israeli soldiers at the gates is required for ambulances and patients entering or exiting Barta’ Al Sharqiya. This often results in delays in transporting patients and potentially leads to health complications. Moreover, no drugs or vaccinations are allowed into the village without prior coordination with the Israeli soldiers. UNRWA used to provide mobile clinic services but has been facing problems in entering the village due to Israeli search procedures at the entrance gate.
16. According to UNFPA and UNIFEM, an estimated 2,500 births per year face difficulties en route to a delivery facility. Many Palestinian women have developed various higher-risk coping mechanisms in reaction to movement restrictions and for fear of being unable to cross Israeli checkpoints in a timely manner to reach health-care services. Consequently, birth location patterns have been affected drastically. The trend is reported to occur even if it results in a lower standard of health care (e.g., births attended at home or in doctors’ clinics). The risks presented by checkpoints, road closures and other obstacles are reported to have led to an increase of 8.2 per cent in home deliveries, further compounding the risk to women’s health and to their babies. The Palestinian Ministry of Health has assessed the proportion of deliveries outside health facilities as high as 13.2 per cent.
17. To conclude, the critical impact of the closure regime (e.g., the Wall, checkpoints, road closures, earth mounds, etc.) on Palestinian women’s access to adequate prenatal, natal and post-natal medical care remains a matter of serious concern, impairing the fulfilment of the right of everyone to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.5 It should also be noted that Israeli policies on closure may, in certain instances, amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment under article 16 of the Convention against Torture.6 Finally it is reiterated that the issue of pregnant Palestinian women giving birth at Israeli checkpoints must be understood within the context of the broader regime of the Israeli occupation and associated restrictions on movement, impacting as they do on all aspects of life in the occupied territories.
Notes 1 OCHA, Protection of Civilians Weekly Report, 23-29 July 2008, 4 August 2008; see
www.ochaopt.org/documents/ocha_opt_protection_of_civilians_weekly_report_270_2008_ 07_29_english.pdf.
2 Ibid.
3 Naheel ‘Awni ‘Abd a-Rahim Abu Rideh gave her testimony to the Israeli human rights organisation B ’Tselem; see
www.btselem.org/english/testimonies/20080904_Nahil_ Ridah_Ridah_forced_to_give_birth_at_checkpoint.asp.
4 Barta’ and Shaked.
5 This right is protected in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, art. 25, as well as in a number of international conventions to which Israel is party, including the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, art. 12; the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, art. 5 (e) (iv); the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, art. 12; and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, art. 24. The position of United Nations human rights treaty bodies is that, as a State party to international human rights instruments, Israel continues to bear responsibility for implementing its human rights conventional obligations in the OPT, to the extent that it continues to exercise jurisdiction in those territories (see A/HRC/8/1 7). The International Court of Justice adopted a similar position in its 2004 Advisory Opinion on the Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, paras. 102-113. The ICJ also noted that Israel’s obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights include “an obligation not to raise any obstacle to the exercise of such rights in those fields where competence has been transferred to Palestinian authorities” (para. 112).
6 Committee against Torture conclusions and recommendations: Israel (A/57/44, paras. 47-53). See also CAT/C/PER/CO/4, in which the Committee against Torture stated that, where a State party had failed to take steps to prevent acts that put women’s physical and mental health at grave risk, it constituted cruel and inhuman treatment.
unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/C7067BCF833833DE85257571006853D3...................
Bethlehem Checkpoint at 4 a.m.www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1FaWE1SIZk
