Ramallah, 10-05-07, 12:30: A pregnant Palestinian woman lost her 7-month-old unborn baby today when she was shot in the abdomen by Israeli soldiers whilst in her bedroom. Maha Mohammed Rafat Katouni, aged 29, was hit when the Israeli military fired on her home during a raid on the Ein Beit Ilma neighbourhood in west Nablus in the early hours of Thursday morning. The bullet entered 3 centimetres from her umbilicus, blowing up the baby‘s head in the womb and hitting the mother‘s colon.
The baby died instantly, while the mother suffered heavy bleeding when the Israeli army prevented emergency services from reaching the house. Doctors at the Rafidia Hospital in Nablus were finally able to operate, but Maha remains in critical condition.
Palestinian Minister of Information Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi said that this was yet one more example of Israel‘s flagrant violations of Palestinians‘ human rights enshrined in international law, and drew attention to the special protection afforded to women and children under the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War.
He further highlighted that 24 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military in April alone, four of whom were children. Some 120 Palestinian children were killed in 2006, an average of 10 per month, while 854 children have been killed by the Israeli military during the last six years.
A recent study on perinatal and infant mortality published together with the John Hopkins University found that four out of every 1,000 Palestinian children born die before the age of one, a factor linked to Israel‘s matrix of movement restrictions in the West Bank.
The study reports that the access of mothers to post-natal health care services is frequently blocked due to Israel‘s Apartheid Wall and the presence of 530 permanent and 600 ‘flying‘ Israeli military checkpoints throughout the West Bank.