Pregnant Palestinians Lose Babies, As Israel Keeps Frontier Shut

Agence France Presse

4 August 2004

RAFAH, Egypt, Aug 4 (AFP) - Three Palestinian women lost their babies through miscarriages in the past two days as they waited for the Israeli army to open the Rafah frontier, closed since mid-July, a police source there said on Wednesday.

The three were among the Palestinians, whose numbers have now swollen to around 3,400, including children and elderly people, who have been trapped since Israel closed the border in the southern Gaza Strip, according to the same source.

Sabah Habbal, aged 40 and several months pregnant, waiting in torrid heat and deteriorating conditions, suffered contractions on Tuesday and lost her baby. She is now in hospital in the Egyptian sector of the border town of Rafah, in a serious condition, an Egyptian medical source said.

Two other women, Najah Ezzedine, aged 29, and Sabah Abdel Wahab, 32, had also lost their babies in the past 48 hours in similar circumstances.

The Israelis say they closed the border because of fear of attacks, blocking the Palestinians trying to return to the Gaza Strip.

Israeli authorities refused to open the frontier to allow a Palestinian to take home the body of his wife who died last Friday, according to the widower, Saleh Mahmud Lebed, a 57-year-old Gaza resident.

He said Yusra Awad Abdel Fattah, 52, died while being treated for cancer in a Cairo hospital, and she had had to be buried in the cemetery on the Egyptian side of Rafah.

Assessing the number of Palestinians waiting for Israel to open the border, the police source said: "Nearly 1,400 people are living literally at the border post where they spend the night on the floor for want of money to do otherwise and more than 2,000 other Palestinians are lodged in hotels or with relatives who live on the Egyptian side."

France on Wednesday called on Israel to find a rapid and dignified answer to the problem.

Israel's supreme court on July 29 gave the army 30 days to answer a petition for the border to be opened.

The petitioners said some Palestinians had been waiting for more than two weeks owing to the almost complete sealing of the Israeli-controlled Rafah border since July 10. The crossing has been open for just two days in that period.