TEL AVIV, Friday, April 21, 2019 (WAFA) – Three major Israeli hospitals have admitted for the first time that they have practiced segregation of Palestinian and Israeli mothers in maternity wards, Israeli daily Haaretz has uncovered in a report.

The hospitals admitted in February that segregation had taken place during a lawsuit filed in front of Israel‘s District Court by four Palestinian mothers.

Hadassah University Hospital in occupied East Jerusalem, Haemek Hospital in Afula and Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba, admitted that they practiced the segregation policy "on request" of Israeli and Palestinian mothers.

Another hospital, Galilee Medical Center in the city of Nahariya, also included in the lawsuit, denied they had such a policy.

The four Palestinians had attended the hospital, each separately in the last seven years, and had recordings of conversations and arguments with nurses supporting the segregation, who moved them to another room.

The mothers filed their lawsuit last year, and demanded a compensation of $5,500 for being segregated from a room of Jewish mothers during their stay to give birth.

One of the nurses, according to the Israeli daily, was heard saying that “we are really trying to segregate, if there is pressure and no place, we do mix the women [Palestinian and Jewish], but try to separate them the next day."

M.N