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TITLE: Bereaved Palestinian Father Rails at Checkpoint |
AUTHOR: |
PUB: Reuters |
DATE: January 5 |
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Hassan Al-Zreai embraced his dead baby and let out a bellow born of sorrow and despair when Israeli soldiers refused to allow him through their checkpoint. "Is there more fascism than what those soldiers are doing? Is there more humiliation than what we areliving?" he shouted. Zreai needed to get home, to a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip a few kilometers (miles) on the other side of the Israeli roadblock. He wanted to have the tiny body washed before burial, in accordance with Islamic custom. Zreai's baby daughter had died in Shifa hospital in Gaza City, a few days after her complicated birth. Now he and his wife were in a queue with hundreds of people who waited in lorries and cars from early morning until they were finally allowed to cross at 3 p.m. "Where are Arabs and where are Muslims?" he asked, circling his car in frustration. "How could they leave us under the mercy of the Israeli occupation?" As part of its battle against the Palestinian uprising in which 300 Palestinians, 13 Israeli Arabs and 43 other Israelis have been killed, Israel has tightened its "closure" on all Palestinian-run areas, sealing them off for long stretches. Palestinians condemn the Israeli closure policy as collective punishment. Israel says it has no choice if the violence -- now in its 14th week -- is to be contained. After two Israeli soldiers was killed in a bomb explosion last month, the restrictions on the self-ruled Gaza Strip were strengthened by an internal closure order dividing it into four isolated segments. Israeli troops are positioned on the main roads to towns and villages. Bulldozers have piled sand to block the subroads. An Israeli tank, an armored personnel carrier and two jeeps blocked the crossroads near the Jewish settlement of Netzarim where Zreai was stranded. People said their Friday prayers at the roadside, waiting for a gesture from an Israeli soldier telling them to pass. Hospital officials said that on Thursday soldiers at the same checkpoint had held up a truck carrying milk and oxygen for a clinic for premature babies in Khan Younis in southern Gaza. END |