A Palestinian man suffocated on Monday morning before dawn while waiting in the narrow corridor of Checkpoint 300 in the southern occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem, where hundreds of workers were waiting to pass through on their way to work inside Israel.
Video footage of the incident shows the crowd of workers passing the man’s body over their heads towards the exit, where he was taken to hospital for treatment.
The identity of the man remained unknown.
In the early hours of the morning, typically before dawn, hundreds of Palestinians endure long waits at the 300 checkpoint, one of the only access points Palestinians from the southern West Bank have to Jerusalem and Israel.
Palestinians crowd into the cement- and metal-barred walkways, push through turnstiles, pass a metal detector, and show their IDs and permits to Israeli soldiers in order to travel to Israel for work . The process can at times take hours and cold winter temperatures coupled with hours of waiting time means frustrations are high.
In 2014, two Palestinian men were crushed to death due to extreme overcrowding at Taybeh Checkpoint. https://t.co/BEbSM37o4P
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) March 7, 2018
Checkpoint 300 was built in 2005 two kilometers inside of the green line, despite rulings by the International Court of Justice that the separation wall was deemed illegal in 2004.
Israel maintains severe restrictions on Palestinians’ freedom of movement through a complex combination of fixed checkpoints, flying checkpoints, roads forbidden to Palestinians but open exclusively to Jewish settlers, and various other physical obstructions.
(Maan, PC, Social Media)
Has anyone noticed this sort of discrimination in predominantly muslim countries? Such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran etc? I’m not saying it’s ok for the Jewish people to do to the Palestinians but why dont these other countries have to answer for their crimes against other faiths? Also why is no one fighting China over it’s racist policies toward Ighur Muslims? Or Buddhists?