Racism causes more Palestinian babies to die

Ramallah: Palestinian babies are three times more likely to die than Jewish babies due to racist policies and practices applied in the Israeli hospitals.

Israeli hospitals have been segregating Palestinian and Jewish mothers in maternity wards in the latest discriminatory trend backed by far-right Israeli politicians.

In a major study compiled by 200 experts in the academic sector, the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics (ICBS) said infant mortality rates stood at 2.2 deaths per 1,000 births among the Jewish population, while infant mortality rates of Palestinians in 1948 areas stood at 6.4 deaths.

The same study showed Palestinians in 1948 areas were more likely to suffer from mental health issues including depression.

Close to half of Palestinians suffer from depression compared with 31 per cent of Israeli Jews.

Palestinian citizens of Israel are those native Palestinians who did not flee when the Israeli regime was established on Palestinian land in 1948. They lived under military rule for almost two decades but were later given Israeli citizenship.

Israeli authorities claim these Palestinians enjoy equal rights to Jews, but there is ample documentation of systematic discrimination towards them.

Israeli lawmaker, Bezalel Smotrich of the Jewish Home party was recently quoted as saying, “Palestinians are my enemies and that’s why I don’t enjoy being next to them.”

His wife reportedly threw a Palestinian obstetrician out of the delivery room when she was giving birth saying, “I want Jewish hands to touch my baby. I am not comfortable being in the same room with an Arab woman.”

Abdul Hakim Al Haj Yahya, a Palestinian lawmaker in the Israeli Knesset recently sent a letter to the Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein urging him to suspend Smotrich.

“This kind of racist incitement affect an entire population and cannot be ignored,” Yahya said.