Mustafa Barghouthi holds press conference to expose Israeli criminal behaviour at checkpoints

Editorial Note: The following news reports may be summaries from original sources. They may also include corrections of Arabic names and political terminology.

Date: 19 / 08 / 2007 Time: 16:44

Ramallah – Ma'an –

Palestinian Legislative Council member, Mustafa Barghouthi, on Sunday held a press conference in Ramallah to reveal recent Israeli violations of human rights in the Palestinian territories.

Barghouthi said that Israel adopts several methods to disguise its criminal behaviour in the Palestinian territories, especially holding high-level Israeli-Palestinian meetings.

Barghouthi said that each of the 543 stationary and 610 flying checkpoints is used to harass Palestinians.

He showed pictures of the gates erected in the separation wall in the Qalqilia area. Palestinian citizens are denied passage through these gates and are prevented from reaching their area of residence. Citizens must obtain an Israeli permit in order to pass and it only allows passage during a short period.

Barghouthi showed a DVD of an Israeli soldier attacking three Palestinian children, then spitting in their faces and preventing them from passing through a checkpoint.

He also reiterated the cases of Israeli soldiers using children as human shields.

Barghouthi said 69 Palestinian women were forced to deliver their babies at military checkpoints due to Israeli closures. One third of the babies and five of the women died as a result. In addition, four in a thousand Palestinian children die before they reach the age of one due to Israeli military checkpoints.

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Note to readers:

The Israeli settlements as well as the Land-Grab, Apartheid Wall in the Palestinian occupied territories have been built illegally on confiscated Palestinian lands. These represent a major violation of international law, Geneva Conventions, and they obstruct reaching a peaceful resolution for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

The Israeli occupation forces abduct and kidnap Palestinians from their homes on daily basis. Most media refer to these abductions and kidnappings as arrests, which is inaccurate and not true as the Israeli occupation government has no jurisdiction over Palestinian citizens inside their own territories.

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