Occupied Jerusalem: 8 March, 2003 (IAP News)

The Israeli occupation army killed as many 176 Palestinian women and forced at least 50 other women to give birth at army roadblocks, according to a report published in the occupied territories Saturday.

The report, prepared by the Palestinian Ministry of Health, pointed out Palestinian women are the only women in the world who are forced to give birth at Israeli checkpoints and roadblocks, all for the purpose of seeing the women and their fetuses suffer and die.

The report pointed out that Israeli troops kill Palestinian women knowingly, deliberately and callously, citing the example of Nuha sweidan, the 33-year-old Gaza woman who was crushed to death during the Israeli army rampage last week. Sweidan was pregnant in her ninth month. The report also pointed out that in some cases, the Israeli army murdered in cold blood the husband who escorted his wife to hospital.

The report gave the example of Muhammed Abdullah al Hayek, 22, of the village of Zita near Nablus, who was murdered in cold blood last year while taking his wife, Mayson Shorati, to hospital to give birth.

The report, released on International Women's Day which is today, appealed to women around the world to identify and show solidarity with Palestinian women who face casual death, suffering and humiliation at the hands of Israeli occupation soldiers on a daily basis.