A fetus lost at the Awarta checkpoint, a woman forced to walk through a closed gate mid-labour, two other births forced en route to hospital: as Israel's military tightens its grip on Nablus following deadly clashes near the village of Tal, Palestinian medics say pregnant women are bearing the sharpest edge of a closure regime that has choked the city for four consecutive days.
A pregnant Palestinian woman from the village of Qaryut, south of Nablus, lost her fetus on Monday after Israeli soldiers held her ambulance for more than half an hour at the Awarta military checkpoint, according to paramedic Bashar al-Qaryouti, who spoke to AFP and the Palestinian news agency WAFA. The incident, reported by The National, The New Arab, Al Jazeera and the AFP-sourced HNGN wire, has become the emblematic case of a wider pattern medics describe as pregnant women being repeatedly denied timely passage through Israeli checkpoints amid a sweeping military crackdown around Nablus.
According to al-Qaryouti's account, the woman, in her sixth month of pregnancy and suffering severe bleeding, was subjected to a search at the checkpoint despite her condition. He said Israeli soldiers ordered the ambulance driver to switch off the vehicle's engine, disabling the onboard medical equipment that was keeping her stable. The ambulance was held for over 30 minutes — by some accounts closer to an hour, as reported by The National — before being allowed to proceed. Doctors at the hospital were able to save the woman's life but could not save the pregnancy, al-Qaryouti told WAFA and AFP. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the incident, according to HNGN's AFP-sourced report.
A Pattern, Not an Isolated Incident
Original ground reporting by Middle East Eye indicates the Qaryut case is one of several. The outlet documented the case of Alia Awad, 28, from the village of Beit Furik, east of Nablus, who was denied passage through an Israeli checkpoint while in labour. According to her brother Ahmed Awad, cited by Middle East Eye, soldiers refused to open an iron gate at the village entrance and instead ordered Alia to get out of the car and walk roughly 50 metres alone, passing beneath the gate, to reach an ambulance waiting on the other side.
The National additionally reported that two other Palestinian women were forced to give birth en route to hospital as a direct result of the closures imposed around Nablus. A researcher and project coordinator with Physicians for Human Rights – Israel, quoted by The National, said that "sealing off entire communities while preventing ambulances from reaching patients or evacuating the wounded places civilians' lives at immediate risk."
"The siege imposed on Nablus is directly affecting patients and pregnant women and preventing them from reaching hospitals." — Ghassan Hamdan, spokesperson for civil institutions and community organisations in Nablus, quoted by The New Arab.
The Broader Closure Regime
The checkpoint incidents are unfolding against the backdrop of a large-scale Israeli military operation across the occupied West Bank, launched after deadly clashes near the village of Tal in late July left, according to HNGN's revised toll, two Israeli soldiers and four Palestinian villagers dead. The Israeli military said it detained more than 70 suspects overnight and searched over 300 locations across the West Bank, describing those detained as Hamas affiliates, arms traffickers and other suspected militants; 11 of the detentions were carried out in Tal itself. Amin Shuman, president of the Palestinian higher commission for prisoner affairs, put the total number of Palestinians arrested across the West Bank at more than 80 and accused Israel of imposing collective punitive measures, according to HNGN.
The New Arab reported that Nablus governorate has been under strict closure for a fourth consecutive day, with Israeli forces simultaneously demolishing homes and businesses, issuing new military orders to seize hundreds of dunams of Palestinian land, and conducting widespread raids and arrests across the territory. The National separately noted that Israel's parliament was set to vote on more than $16 million in funding for settlement farms and outposts during a recess session even as the Nablus lockdown continued. Both The National and HNGN also reported settler attacks on Palestinians and their property during the same period, including an attack on the Abu Fuzaa encampment near Taybeh and the release of cattle onto agricultural land in Al-Burj village.
A Second Death Linked to Ambulance Delays
The Qaryut miscarriage follows, by about a week, the death of Sujoud Faqha (also transliterated Sajoud Fuqaha), a 30-year-old mother of two from Sinjil, north of Ramallah, who died of a heart attack after Israeli forces prevented an ambulance from reaching her by closing an iron gate at the town's entrance, according to reporting carried by the Palestine Foundation Information Center (Pakistan) and Press TV, both citing WAFA. Palestinian and regional outlets have increasingly linked the two cases as evidence of a wider deterioration in emergency medical access tied to the current closure regime.
What Remains Unverified
The medical particulars of the Qaryut case — the duration of the delay, the disabling of the ambulance's equipment, and the outcome for the pregnancy — rest principally on the account of a single paramedic given to WAFA and AFP, which has then been carried, in near-identical form, across Al Jazeera, The New Arab, The National, HNGN and Press TV. As of this writing, the Israeli military has not issued its own account of the incident, and independent verification of the checkpoint delay's exact duration is not yet available from an Israeli source. COGAT (the Israeli body coordinating civilian affairs in the West Bank) and rights organisations such as B'Tselem or Physicians for Human Rights – Israel have not been reported as having issued a specific statement on the Qaryut incident itself, though the latter's researcher is quoted, as above, in general terms on the closures.
Illustration: Gemini