ON JUNE 21, R Barker responded to my letter in support of the Gaza freedom convoy.

R Barker states that “women in Palestine aren’t allowed to voice their opinions or even leave their house alone”. That would mean that the 50 per cent of women in the occupied territories who enrol in higher education have to sit there in silence.

As for “an Islamic woman [not being] allowed to drive” – this is just false. It is true, however, that she is not allowed to drive along the 59km of Israeli-only highways and roads in the Occupied West Bank.

The Israeli government and military have occupied the Palestinian territories since 1967. The Pales-tinians are Muslims, Christians, others of faith and no faith. The continuation of this occupation requires repression, dispossession of land, an economic siege and the best PR machine in the world.

Nor is it true that Israel has won more Nobel Peace prizes than any other country. In fact Israel has won three such prize. Switzerland has won twelve. The US 24.

K Armstrong, Baker Street, York.

• THE letter ‘Case for Israel’ is truly fantastical. I draw attention to the following points: Israel is in defiance of international law, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva Conventions that apply to occupying powers. It has systematically confiscated, appropriated, annexed, and assimilated virtually all land belonging to the Palestinians in a 60-year period.

Far from being “the only democracy in the Middle East”, Israel imports and expels its electorate in order maintain the apartheid regime that is confiscating money belonging to the democratically elected government of Palestine.

This is a state that possesses hundreds of nuclear weapons, and refuses to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The armed forces of Israel do not only murder Palestinians when rockets are fired or borders are breached, they kill them week in week out and have within their prisons 7,500 Palestinians, including over 300 children.

Roger Westmoreland The Oval, Pocklington.

• R Barker has offered readers a very questionable defence of Israel.

The claim that Israel has more Nobel Peace Laureates than any other country is far from the truth. The UK has 14 Laureates, more than any country of comparable size. The USA has the overall lead with 20 Peace Laureates and Israel is well down the league table with two.

The two Israeli Laureates, Yitzak Rabin and Shimon Peres, were jointly honoured with the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat at the time of the Oslo Accords. Yitzak Rabin was later murdered by an Israeli anti-peace terrorist.

Also it was Britain, not Israel, who built the Al Shifa hospital, the largest hospital in Gaza. Most of the others were built by the UN or by Christian charities. However, Israel holds the record for flattening hospitals.

Press readers will remember the horrific TV images of the phosphorous bombs raining down on Al Quds hospital during the Israeli onslaught in Gaza last year.

Eamonn Morrison Lowther Court, York.