Research with marginalised communities points to the need to understand political determinants of reproductive health. For residents of Kufr 'Aqab neighbourhood, Israeli biopolitics in East Jerusalem can be barriers to access to maternal health. This is manifested in women having to cross military checkpoints to give birth in hospitals located in Jerusalem to make their children eligible for "permanent residency", a document required for Palestinians to live in Jerusalem. A basic qualitative design is utilised, and semi-structured in-depth interviews with 27 women and 20 men were conducted and thematic analysis was used to extract themes and subthemes. Women reported exposure to risky conditions during pregnancy and worries of giving birth at checkpoints. Social support was restricted for some women due to inability of the husband/family to reach the hospital at the time of birth. Men reported distress related to inability to attend birth. Giving birth in a Jerusalem hospital, as part of passing residency to children, was perceived as reaffirming Palestinian presence in the City and transforming sites of suffering to sites of resistance. Israeli residency policies and segregation of Jerusalem affect Kufr 'Aqab residents' pregnancy and birth on physical, social and psychological levels. Results indicate the importance of incorporating political determinants of access to maternal care and safe pregnancy in the conceptualisation of reproductive rights.

Lack of identification and referral of children and adolescents with mental health problems contributes to the treatment gap in low-and middle-income countries, and especially in humanitarian settings. The Community Case Detection Tool (CCDT) is developed to improve community-based detection and increase help-seeking among children and adolescents in need of mental health care. The CCDT uses brief, easily understood pictorial vignettes that represent common symptoms of childhood internalizing and externalizing problems. The tool is developed for gatekeepers to support proactive detection of children in need of mental health care and to subsequently encourage help-seeking. This study evaluates the accuracy of the CCDT in detecting children and adolescents aged 6e18 years with significant mental health care needs in a conflict-affected setting: the occupied Palestinian territory. Methods: Teachers and community workers were trained to use the CCDT. Children detected using the tool were invited for a structured clinical interview with a psychologist using the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School-Age Children-Present and Lifetime version, as well as the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, to test the accuracy of CCDT-based detection. Results: Our sample consists of 52 children positively detected as matching with one of the vignettes. Approximately three of four detected children were indicated for psychological treatment based on the clinical interview (positive predictive value ¼ .769), and 64.6% returned 'borderline' or 'abnormal' total difficulty scores on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Conclusions: The CCDT offers a promising low-cost solution to mitigate underdetection of mental health problems in challenging settings.

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Background Although much research has been done into fertility and childbearing in the Palestinian context, research into the practice of child-raising is scarce. In preparation for a study on child discipline and abuse in the West Bank, we investigated the cultural appropriateness of two International Child Abuse screening tools: one for parents or caretakers (ICAST-P) and the other for young people aged 18-24 years (ICAST-R), which were both developed by the International Society for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (ISPCAN).