Pregnant Palestinian women forced to give birth at home because of fence

In village surrounded by separation fence on outskirts of Qalqiliya, pregnant women prefer to stay elsewhere in later months of pregnancy for fear they will not be able to pass through gate in fence in order to give birth in hospital


Pregnant Palestinian women in Azzun Atma, a village near Qalqiliya encircled by the security fence, prefer to take up residence outside of the town in the later stages of their pregnancy for fear that they will be prevented from crossing the fence to get to the local hospital when they go into labor.

The IDF checkpoint which separates the village from the rest of the West Bank is not manned during the night and thus women who go into labor are unable to reach the local hospital.


In the last year, some 20 out of the 33 pregnant women from the village relocated to outside of Azzun towards the end of their third trimesters.


Hanan Yakoub, one of the few women who took the chance of staying in the village in her ninth month asked: "How am I, at 40 years of age, expected to give birth in a car? Where is your mercy? At my age it isn't easy to give birth, and certainly not in a car."