Giving Birth at an Israeli Military Checkpoint
Palestinian mothers giving birth at Israeli checkpoints

Between 2000 and 2005, 67 Palestinian women were put in the disastrous situation of giving forced birth within an Israeli military checkpoint. The women were denied access to a doctor and as a result, over half of the births resulted in the death of the child.

In most cases, for a pregnant Palestinian woman to reach a hospital, an Israeli checkpoint must be crossed. This raises the likelihood of a Palestinian women being stuck within an unsanitary and certainly not up-to-hospital-code checkpoint while her child is being born. The process is stressful, oppressive, and dangerous to both the mother and child.

There have been attempts by the UN to train midwives to reach these women during their pregnancy, but this doesn’t address the underlying issue that all Palestinians have difficulty reaching hospitals due to military checkpoints.

Latest Posts

Where Is the Palestinian Mandela?

Where Is the Palestinian Mandela?

Many interested in Israel-Palestine have asked the question: “Where is the Palestinian Mandela?” But Nelson Mandela’s grandson Nkosi Zwelivelile Mandela has argued that this question emerges from a distortion of his grandfather’s legacy.  Who Was Nelson Mandela?...

read more
Palestine Open Maps

Palestine Open Maps

Palestine Open Maps (POM) is a platform that uses mapping technologies in collaboration with researchers to showcase visual stories of the geographical transformation of historic Palestine over the last 70+ years. The project combines 1940s British Mandate of...

read more
Rachel Tetrault

Rachel Tetrault

Rachel Tetrault is a community organizer and campaigner who wrote a letter to Straight.com about Vancouver’s choice to adopt a contentious antisemitism definition. In the letter, Tetrault shares about her Jewish upbringing and facing Israel’s racism against...

read more
Jerusalem