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December 2, 2002
JERUSALEM -- Israeli army doctors are now equipped to deliver Palestinian babies, an army magazine reports, reflecting how difficult it has become for women to get to hospitals because of Israeli travel restrictions.
The medical corps has distributed 30 "childbirth kits" to army doctors throughout the West Bank, said the army weekly Bamachane in its current edition.
Because of frequent curfews confining Palestinians to their homes and roadblocks that often hold up long lines of Palestinians, there have been large numbers of complaints from people who say they cannot reach hospitals for treatment.
Dr. Ilan Gal, a member of Physicians for Human Rights, said a month ago that 39 Palestinian women have given birth at army checkpoints over the past two years.
The travel restrictions were imposed after Palestinian-Israeli violence erupted in September 2000. The Israelis say they are necessary to keep Palestinian bombers and other attackers out of the country, and they charge that ambulances are sometimes used to smuggle militants and weapons.
The Palestinians deny that and charge that through its restrictions, Israel is crippling the Palestinian economy and causing severe hardships to hundreds of thousands of innocent people.
The medical kits include sterile blankets, umbilical cord clips, surgical gloves and diapers and other equipment, the report said.
JERUSALEM -- Israeli troops shot and killed one Palestinian and a second Palestinian man died under the rubble of one of the three homes the soldiers demolished in an overnight operation in the Gaza Strip.
Late Saturday, Israeli forces backed by about 30 tanks rolled into the Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahiya, about 3 miles north of Gaza City, firing machine guns and tank shells that knocked out the town's power transformer, witnesses and Palestinian security officials said.
Palestinian witnesses said the dead man was an innocent bystander, watching events from the balcony of his home. The army said its soldiers fired at and hit armed Palestinians.
Early Sunday, hours after the army withdrew from the town, Palestinians found the body of 70-year-old Ashour Dab under the rubble of one of the three homes the army demolished.