Its a SAD picture
I know this post will make it some what out of the image gallery but I read this article and what I was trying to say about feeling helpless is so clearly said in here that I am going to cut and paste it. For those who may not know the Haaretzdaily is an Israeli newspaper. Read the last paras in particular.
============================================ http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=118434&contrassID=2&subContrassID=14&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y
Saturday, January 19, 2002
Shvat 6, 5762 Israel Time: 09:26 (GMT+2)
The war against the unborn
How did we get to the point where Israeli soldiers are preventing women in labor from reaching a hospital?
By Gideon Levy
The two bereaved mothers of Yamoun, Heira Abu Hassan (left) and Amiya Zakin: “It is a crime.”
(Photo: Photos by Miki Krats)
Suleiman Abu Hassan was in this world for one hour before departing it. His mother, in labor, spent 12 hours desperately trying to get to a hospital. She never made it. Mohammed Zakin died at the age of eight hours, after his mother spent half a night on the roads, finally arriving at a hospital by tortuous back routes. But she was too late as well. Suleiman’s parents didn’t even succeed in approaching the anonymous, faceless, inhuman soldiers who were perched in the tanks that blocked their way. Mohammed’s parents did manage to approach the soldiers, but were unable to persuade them to let a woman in labor travel 1.5 kilometers on the main road - which is open to Jews only - to the maternity hospital in Jenin. The soldiers were contemptuous; they sent the parents back home.
These are not exceptional cases. This is policy. The siege that was imposed on Jenin encompasses everything, including ambulances and women in labor. These are not normal times. These are disgusting times, as the writer David Grossman put it, when a Palestinian woman in labor no longer has a way to get to a place of sanctuary. These are brutal times, which have no parallel since the onset of the occupation nearly 35 years ago. These are the worst of times.
And this is also the other side of terrorism - Israeli terrorism. A roadblock that doesn’t let pregnant women in labor pass is a lethal roadblock. It attacks innocent civilians, just as in a suicide bombing attack. The victims of this Israeli terrorism, the members of the two bereaved families, sat this week in their homes in Yamoun village, their heartbreak plain to see. Their two dead sons, Mohammed and Suleiman, rest in the earth in the nearby cemetery, two children who lived only for a few hours. The blood of these two infants is on our heads. On the heads of those who gave the soldiers their orders, on the heads of the soldiers who obeyed those orders and treated two women in labor, who were writhing with pain, as they did. It is on the heads of all of us for permitting this evil machine to continue to run amok, uninterrupted.
Heira’s story
Hassan Abu Hassan and his wife, Heira, have five children. They grow a bit of wheat and oats, and their distress is visible in their large, meager home, with its rocky courtyard. Hassan is 42, Heira is 35, and her brother is the head of the local council. On December 16, the Sunday of the Id al-Fitr holiday, which marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan, they were visiting relatives. Heira felt well in the morning - she was in the 30th week of her pregnancy and no one expected her to give birth that day. They spent the evening visiting her parents, returning home at about 10:30 P.M.
Then the contractions began, and she told her husband. Hassan was frightened: “I tried to persuade her that she was wrong: `You are only in the 30th week. Where will we go?'” Heira agreed to wait another hour, but the suffering only mounted.
At 11:30 P.M., Hassan called his brother and his sister-in-law, and with Heira they all went to the local midwife, Raida Hameisi. Village midwives are becoming crucial figures again in the West Bank in this period of closure and siege. The midwife, though, told Heira to get to a hospital as quickly as possible because of the premature birth. Without an incubator, the infant wouldn’t stand a chance, she said. At the request of the father, who felt trapped and helpless, Hameisi phoned the hospital in Jenin and asked if they could send an ambulance.
“Jenin is encircled and there is no way to send an ambulance,” the midwife was told, “try the District Cooperation and Coordination Office.” They went to the home of Heira’s brother, the head of the council, to see whether he could help. Heira sat on the back seat, wracked by pain, her sister-in-law wiping the perspiration from her brow and trying to calm her.
It was after midnight. The council head called the DCO, an association that assists the ill, the Red Crescent, the hospital. “This is the mayor,” he told everyone. Nothing helped. There was no chance that an ambulance could get through: there were tanks along the way and the dirt roads were covered with mud because of the rain the day before. Nayef Hameisi tried to explain his sister’s plight, but it was hopeless. From the house they could hear the noise made by Israeli armored vehicles, which just then were driving by on the main road. They were afraid, they say. To try and get onto the main road in their car or by taxi was out of the question, for fear of the tanks.
A quarter to one. They returned home. The brother and the sister-in-law suggested that they go alone, so that “If we are killed, only two will die and not four.” Even to drive on the roads of the town was dangerous at that time of the night. Hassan: “I asked my wife to try and hold out a little longer.” Heira’s whole body was shaking. She cried out, she went on suffering, trying to get through the night until first light. Hassan went to his brother’s house to get a gas burner, in order to help stop his wife’s chills. The mother’s cries woke the children. Aroub and Adam, the youngest, also started to cry.
And so it continued until almost 3 A.M. - the mother in torment, the children crying, the father at his wit’s end. At 3 A.M., Heira declared that she could not bear it any longer, and they went back to the midwife. Heira was bleeding. The midwife told Hassan that his wife’s condition was becoming serious and dangerous. “I will try to deliver the baby,” she said, adding: “You will lose the baby, but I will try to save Heira’s life.”
The midwife then had second thoughts, and suggested that they try to get to the town’s gynecologist, Dr. Yusuf Khalil Oudeh. Maybe he would be able to do more. But Dr. Oudeh lives close to the main road, from which Palestinians are banned, and Heira implored her husband not to make the attempt: it’s too dangerous. “I will suffer until the morning and then we will go there.”
At 3:30 A.M. they were back home. A little before 4:30, Hassan’s mother arrived, having heard from his brother, from whom Hassan took the gas burner, about the serious plight of her daughter-in-law. When she saw Heira, shaking and bleeding, she stated that they had to try to get to Jenin, no matter what. “We will try to go through the fields. At any price. You must be brave,” she said. They set out at 4:30 A.M., the three of them: mother, father, grandmother. They drove toward the village of Dan and then turned left, toward the fields, to try and bypass the barrier of the tank. Hassan was afraid the car would get stuck in the mud, with no one to help him. After driving for about 100 meters in the field, the car did in fact sink into the mud. Heira’s cries grew louder and more intense.
By now it was 5 A.M. or maybe a quarter past. Hassan called his brother, who owns a tractor, to come and pull them out. The brother arrived and towed the car onto the main road. We will all die together, Hassan said to himself, deciding to drive toward the tank that was blocking the road. The tank’s searchlight dazzled him and the turret began to turn in the direction of the car. “I didn’t have the courage to go any closer,” he says now, in a monotone. Heira sits, silent, her gaze constantly on the floor. A week earlier, the soldiers killed a taxi driver near Kabatya. “The army has no sentiments,” Hassan says. They had been outside for an hour and a half.
Six A.M.: They reached the doctor’s house. Heira was freezing cold. Dr. Oudeh lit a heater and 10 minutes later announced that she was almost ready to give birth. The fetus was healthy, but without an incubator, the newborn would be in a high-risk situation. He therefore decided to stabilize the mother’s condition and summon an ambulance. Maybe it would get through. “If we can get her to the hospital in the next hour, we will save the baby,” the doctor stated, also in despair. He called the Red Crescent and explained Heira’s condition.
The Red Crescent told the doctor that the Israeli army prohibited ambulances from using the road and that it was impossible to get through the fields because of the mud. Nevertheless, he was told, “In two hours - either we get there or you can forget about us.” The doctor told Heira to remain in the gynecologist’s chair and not to move.
7:15 A.M.: Dr. Oudeh told Hassan to go out and find a taxi or a car that would try to get to Jenin. The situation is dangerous, he said. No one at the local taxi stand was willing to risk the drive to Jenin. Totally despondent, Hassan returned to Dr. Oudeh’s clinic.
8:30 A.M.: Dr. Oudeh said that time was running out, that the mother’s life was in danger. He asked for authorization to deliver the baby, telling Hassan that he took no responsibility for the infant’s life, that his chances were negligible without an incubator. Hassan agreed. At 10 minutes to nine he heard the sound of his infant son crying, as he came into the world. The doctor emerged and said, “Come and see your wife and your son.” The newborn boy weighed 1.8 kilograms. He was in good condition and Heira’s condition had also improved significantly. They stayed at the clinic for another hour and then the council head took his utterly exhausted sister home. Hassan went in to take the baby. He was lifeless.
Hassan called the doctor, who pronounced the baby dead. At 10:30 A.M., Hassan came home with the tiny body. They summoned the sheikh from the mosque, said the requiem prayer and named the boy Suleiman, because he seemed to resemble his big brother Selim. At 2:15 P.M., with the afternoon prayer, 15 hours after Heira’s contractions began, they buried Suleiman in the town cemetery.
“The army killed him,” says Heira. If we could have reached Jenin, I would have a living boy. It is a crime. If I were Jewish, what would have happened? I carried him for seven months. I suffered for seven months together with the suffering of the 12 hours in labor. I saw that he wanted to eat. I held him in my arms. All I can think about is that he wanted to eat and I didn’t give him. My baby died hungry."
Amiya’s story
Mohammed Zakin also died on his first day in this world. He, too, died because of the cruelty of Israeli soldiers who refused to let his mother, Amiya, get to a hospital. I met Rada, his father, the one-armed peddler from Yamoun, about a half a year ago in the garbage dump of Umm al-Fahm, trying to make his way illegally to Nazareth in order to sell his wares - shirts and baby clothes. Since being threatened by a Border Policeman there, (who he said remarked that if he catches him one more time, “I will remove your other arm, too”), Rada has been too frightened to try to sneak into Israel. His eight children no longer have a provider. Rada is 40; Amiya, his wife, is 38 and their eldest son is 17. They lost their newborn son on December 10. Rada’s voice breaks every so often, and he wipes away tears, as he relates the events of their nightmare:
"Amiya’s pains began at 4 A.M. I called an ambulance from the Red Crescent in Jenin. He told me: `It is impossible to get out of Jenin. We want to help you, but how can we?’ I called a taxi and we went to the specialist, Dr. Oudeh. Dr. Oudeh examined her and told us she needs a hospital because her condition is very serious. She was bleeding and her water broke.
"The doctor said: `If you don’t want the baby, I will deliver her now. But if you want the baby, you have to get to a hospital, in Afula or Jenin.’ He tried again to summon an ambulance - maybe now they would come - but they told him the same words.
"My wife’s pains got worse and I begged my brother, who is a taxi driver, to take us. I told him that I wanted to get to the roadblock where there are tanks. Maybe the soldiers there will let us in. I convinced him.
"At about a quarter to five, before we got to where the tank is placed, in the middle of the road, 150 meters from there, we stopped. There is a projector on the tank and he signaled us to stop by blinking it, and the driver stopped. Right away I got out of the taxi and I told the soldier Good morning.' He was on top of the tank. He told me: Get back right now.’ I told him in Hebrew that my wife was pregnant and that she wants to give birth and that she has to get to a hospital urgently and she has a flow of blood. He told me he had the right to kill me, but not to let me in. `Those are the orders.’
I begged him again, and he said: Can't you hear me?' We went back to the village of Dan and from their through the fields to Burkin. We came to the tank there. I thought to myself that maybe the soldiers here are different and maybe they have different orders. They also blinked the projector and the driver stopped and I got out of the taxi and I told him, Good morning,’ and he said, Good morning. Why did you come here?' I told him my wife was pregnant and she has to get to a hospital very badly. He told me: That is not my problem. You’re wasting your time. Look for one of your people to help your wife. You can’t go in from here.'"
They were a kilometer and a half from the hospital in Jenin. Desperately, they went all the way around Jenin and tried to reach Kabatya. Someone had told them that there was a nurse there who was also a midwife and that maybe she could help. But the nurse said she could do nothing. They decided to look for a vehicle that would be able to get through dirt roads.
Rada found a friend with a jeep, but they got to a roadblock and couldn’t go any further.
It was already 6:30 A.M. We walked to the other side of the roadblock and I helped my wife pass the earth barrier; she could barely stand, until I stopped a car and we got to the hospital at about 7 in the morning. Luckily for us, the hospital was on alert to receive wounded people, so they examined her right away and she went into the operating room immediately. She had an operation and the child came out and he was living for about eight hours and then he died. My wife received a blood transfusion and that is that. That is what happened.
"The doctors said that the child died because we got to the hospital late and because of everything that happened to my wife on the way. After three days they let her out of intensive care and they called an ambulance to take her home. The ambulance driver told me: `You know that we are not allowed to leave Jenin.’ We looked for a taxi and we went on a dirt road with potholes, and her operation opened up and she had an infection because of the open operation. There was a doctor from the village who looked after her all day until the infection passed. She was in bed for 20 days and I took her back again for another operation, but now, thank God, she is, not a hundred percent, but she can walk.
“The children have an uncle called Mohammed who helped us, so we called the boy Mohammed and we buried him in the cemetery, hear next to the house. … I don’t know how your leaders give orders to the soldiers that a woman who wants to give birth is not allowed to pass. You know how much she is waiting for the child. And the family, too. I so much wanted another son who would help me earn a living when I get old. I don’t have an arm. Do you know what it’s like when your wife is in a condition like that, and you can’t help her?”
Then we went out to the small grave, a row of stones surrounding a diminutive plot. And Rada wept.
© Copyright 2002 Ha`aretz. All rights reserved
Sad
hmcq:
I said there is life, and yes there is.
I said there is happiness coz I don’t want to make ppl disoppointment. disoppointment is a sin.
I like these words,
it is time for us to think not just of how we improve our lifes but how we can improve other peoples
I am agree with you.
http://www.gupistan.com/gallery/1/power quote1.jpg
I don’t know why image is not working. plz edit it and also tell me whats wrong with it.
[This message has been edited by cool down (edited January 20, 2002).]
Makes me feel how fortunate we are and how little we appreciate it...
Ashtakfirullah
http://www.gupistan.com/gallery/1/power quote2.jpg
[This message has been edited by cool down (edited January 20, 2002).]
I have fixed it for U
“Every soul shall have the taste of death”
Quran (29:57)
Ms. Cool Down,
You shouldn't be quoting a guy, who's been known to be very nasty to animals. He and his team electricuted hundreds of cats, dogs and even horses in public to prove Ac is more dangerious then DC, so that he can dominate the wired world over George Westinghouse. (Yeah success at any cost.)
"Every soul shall have the taste of death"
Quran (29:57)
[This message has been edited by Quasimodo (edited January 20, 2002).]