Growing Alarm Over Palestinian Humanitarian Crisis
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| Palestinian children are subject to malnutrition and illness, as well as Israeli attacks |
LONDON,
July27 (Islamonline & News Agencies) - While the Israeli forces is
re-occupying Gaza strip and West Bank towns, officials and experts are
sounding the alarm over a growing humanitarian crisis in
Israeli-occupied Palestinian areas, including reports that
malnutrition among children is widespread and increasing rapidly.
A
report by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), not
yet officially released but widely distributed in diplomatic circles
and posted on a Palestinian web site, has provided disturbing figures,
Agence France-Presse (AFP) said.
"The
situation is catastrophic," chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb
Erakat said this week in assessing the impact of the Israeli
occupation of Palestinian lands and other aggressions in the last
22-month-old conflict.
Thirty
percent of Palestinian children under five, who were screened,
suffered from chronic malnutrition and 21 percent from acute
malnutrition, up from 7.5 and 2.5 percent respectively in 2000, the
report said.
It
said that 45 percent of the young children and 48 percent of women of
childbearing age suffered from moderate to mild anemia, and the poor
state of sanitation posed a risk of communicable diseases.
"Due
to diminished access to potable water, residence overcrowding and
inadequate shelter, possible disease outbreak such as cholera is a
growing concern," according to the text posted on the web site
"miftah.org."
It
said that not one of 300 households surveyed in the northern West Bank
town of Nablus had drinking water that was up to international
standards, AFP reported.
With
some 700,000 Palestinians shut in by extended curfews and movements
restricted imposed by the Israeli army throughout the West Bank and
Gaza Strip, medical care has been severely disrupted.
The
USAID report quoted the Palestinian health ministry as saying its
facilities were operating at 30 percent capacity. The Israeli
aggression has driven up the percentage of babies delivered at home
from three to 30 percent.
Ambulance
services were severely curtailed, chronic patients in rural areas cut
off from treatment, and the availability of vaccines significantly
reduced, it said, adding "the child immunization program is
breaking down."
The
agency says 30% of the 3.5 million Palestinians living in the West
Bank and Gaza Strip now rely on aid organizations for their daily
food, and the number is increasing rapidly. They say there is a
growing risk of an outbreak of a serious disease such as cholera, a
British daily based newspaper The Independent reported.
So
pressing is the concern that fears of a humanitarian crisis were
raised at the last meeting of the Middle East quartet of the U.S.,
Russia, the United Nations and the European Union, the daily added.
The
preliminary results are based on a survey of about 300 Palestinian
households. The final findings will be based on 1,000 households but
still a drastic increase on the situation before the Intifada began.
The
United Nations agency for refugees in the occupied territories, UNRWA,
says it now feeds 217,000 families in the West Bank and Gaza Strip,
compared to only 11,000 before the outbreak of the intifada, The
Independent reported.
The
Palestinian economy is in ruins after months of closures and blockades
by the Israeli forces. Palestinian workers have been prevented from
traveling from the West Bank or Gaza Strip to Israel; Palestinian
farmers and manufacturers have been unable to get their produce to
shops in Israel, which raised the unemployment in Palestine to be on
the verge of humanitarian crisis.
Mustafa
Barghuti, head of the Palestinian Health, Development, Information and
Policy Institute, said 75 percent of Palestinians were living below
the poverty line.
"These
Palestinians are living on two dollars a day while the poverty line in
Israel is set at 20 dollars a day," he told AFP this week.
The
violence, including the demolition of thousands of Palestinian homes
by Israeli troops, and daily struggles have also taken a psychological
toll on the population, experts say.
The
USAID report said a study by Bir Zeit University in Ramallah found
that nearly 90 percent of 764 households surveyed contained one or
more family members reporting psychological problems.
The
European Union urged Israel on Friday, July 26, to lift its blockade
of the Palestinian territories, reiterating its position in an appeal
to Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Michael Melchior.
"It's
very important to give back some life to the Palestinian economy and
to let the reform progress proceed," said Danish Foreign Minister
Per Stig Moeller, whose country currently holds the EU rotating
presidency.
Further
talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians were just starting
when the Israelis raided Monday, July 22, a building in the densely
populated Gaza City that killed 18 Palestinians, including eleven
children.
Faced
by strong international criticism, the Jewish state has agreed to
release a tenth of the 430 million dollars in customs duties and taxes
it withheld from the Palestinians, and to drop demands for a means of
monitoring how the money is used.
"This
is a small but very welcome first step towards improving the situation
of the Palestinian territories," EU Commissioner for External
Relations Chris Patten said in a statement Thursday, July 25.
In
the past couple of months, the situation has deteriorated drastically,
with the Israeli army reoccupying Palestinian towns in the West Bank
and placing them under 24-hour curfew, disabling Palestinians from
going to work or sending their children to school.
The
Palestinian children have been the victims of the Israeli army since
the beginning of the Intifada, as figures show that 26% of People
Killed in Gaza since the start of Intifada were Children.
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