BY ROHAN PEARCE
The suffering of ordinary Palestinians inflicted by the Israeli occupation since September 2000 extends beyond the almost 1700 killed and the more than 20,000 injured by the Israeli army and paramilitary "settlers".
A new report funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) reveals that the occupation has disrupted the access to food of Palestinian families in the occupied territories of Gaza and the West Bank to such an extent that they face the spectre of widespread starvation.
Although a comprehensive report will not be released until early September, preliminary findings were released on August 5.
The study found a combined moderate and acute malnutrition rate of 9.3% for children aged from 6 months to 59 months in the Occupied Territories "considered an emergency by most humanitarians and public health officials", according to the report. In a healthy population, the figure would be 2.28% or less. The figure for the Gaza Strip is particularly stark: 13.2%.
Acute malnutrition indicates that the children tested had inadequate food in the period immediately prior to the study, indicating that one of the primary causes is Israel's near-continuous invasions of the Occupied Territories.
Additionally, 13.2% of the children in the same age range studied suffered from chronic malnutrition, indicating longer-term under-nutrition.
A large proportion of children in the Occupied Territories are also anemic. Almost one fifth of children in the 6-59 months-old age-range surveyed were classed as suffering moderate to severe anemia under World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines, another indicator of widespread malnutrition.
The development of anemia in children can cause impaired learning abilities and growth development and a decrease in resistance to infectious diseases.
Disruption of food supply
The USAID study included a survey of the disruption of food supplies to wholesalers and retailers in the Occupied Territories during June: 100% of food wholesalers in the West Bank indicated major shortages of fish, 66.7% shortages of chicken and 50% shortages of turkey during that month. In Gaza, 100% of wholesalers indicated major shortages of lamb, 33.3% of fish, 20% of chicken and 50% of turkey.
The availability of dairy products was similarly low during the period studied: 47.1% of West Bank wholesalers and 84.8% of Gaza wholesalers surveyed indicated major shortages of powdered milk.
Shortages of baby formula were also common: 27.9% for the West Bank and 86.7% for Gaza.
Food shortages and malnutrition are intimately connected with the Israeli occupation. In the West Bank, road closures and the imposition of checkpoints by Israel were responsible for 52% of the disruptions of supplies to wholesalers. Israeli invasions and curfews were responsible for a further 34% of the disruptions.
Border closures had a drastic impact on wholesalers since they prevented goods coming into the West Bank from Jordan. Gaza food wholesalers were similarly affected, supplies from Egypt unable to enter during closures. Border closures and checkpoints were responsible for 63% of the disruption to Gaza-based wholesalers in June.
Palestinian food retailers were far more directly impacted by Israel's "Determined Path" re-invasion of the Occupied Territories in June. The invasion and subsequent curfews were responsible for 60% of food retail disruptions in Gaza, and 53% in the West Bank.
Beyond the immediate impact of the Israeli invasions, widespread poverty and insufficient infrastructure (even more so after Israel's massive assault on civilian infrastructure) remain two of the key factors affecting the health and living standards of Palestinians. For example, daily Palestinian per capita water use is 70 litres in the West Bank, 30 litres less than the WHO's recommended minimum level. In the Gaza Strip, the average level is 50 litres.
By contrast, the Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip, illegal under international law, use 584 litres of water per capita per day. Eighty five per cent of Palestinian water in West Bank aquifers is extracted by Israel. Of 300 households surveyed in Nablus, an environmental health assessment team from USAID found that none had drinking water that met international standards.
Environmental devastation from the occupation is also taking its toll on Palestinians' health. A report to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, released on June 10, said: "In the occupied Palestinian territories ... Israelis dump solid waste without restriction on Palestinian land, fields and side roads.
"The solid waste generated in West Jerusalem, for example, is transferred to the unsanitary dumping site east of Abu Dis, adjacent to the area where Israel has dumped the serially displaced Jahhalin Bedouin. That site in the West Bank overlays the infiltration area of the eastern sector of the water aquifer... Also, the settler colonies of Ari'el, Innab, Homesh Alon Morieh, Qarna Shamron, Kadummim and others dispose of their solid waste in the West Bank, as do military camps and Israeli settler colonies inside the Green Line [Israel's pre-1967 border]."
Additionally, Israeli industrial waste is dumped in the Occupied Territories. According to the UN report: "The West Bank examples [of Israeli industrial zones] occupy a total area of approximately 320 hectares, located mainly on hill tops, from which they dump industrial waste water onto adjacent Palestinian lands. Information as to the nature of the enterprises in the Israeli industrial zones is not accessible to the Palestinians."
Lack of information about the factories prevents complete identification of the waste being dumped, preventing measures being taken to protect Palestinian health.
Despite the direct impact of invasion and occupation on Palestinians, poverty remains one of the key causes of the Occupied Territories' health crisis. Palestinian poverty has increased during Israel's war, due to the continued economic dependence of the Occupied Territories on Israel.
Withholding revenue
One particular factor exacerbating Palestinian poverty is Israel's withholding from the Palestinian Authority of around US$600 million of Palestinian revenue from customs duties and other fees. (Officials in the Israeli government have recently announced they intend to hand over US$42.3 million of the money, using US$29.6 million to cover Palestinian "debts" for electricity, medical care, water and other services.)
Many of the restrictions on Palestinians and the Palestinian economy were in place prior to the beginning of the second intifada in September 2000, but since then have increased along with Israeli repression.
The Israeli policy of "closure" sealing the borders of the Occupied Territories and preventing free movement within the territories has had a severe impact on the livelihoods of many Palestinians. From the beginning of the intifada until December 2001 there was severe internal closure in the West Bank 73% of the time and 4% of the time in Gaza. There was partial internal closure for 25% of that period in the West Bank and 95% in Gaza.
During periods of severe closure, Palestinians are prevented from using major roads, which are "reserved" for the use of Israeli soldiers and settlers and some other non-Palestinians. A World Bank report, Fifteen Months Intifada, Closures and Palestinian Economic Crisis, released on March 18, noted that "even on days of 'partial' closure [Israeli] checkpoints have created a life of roundabout routes, interminable delays and frequent harassment. As a result, productive time is lost, transport costs have risen, damage to roads and vehicles has increased and the normal intercourse of business and commerce is a thing of the past".
A January 28, 2001, article in the Israeli daily Ha'aretz described how: "Residents are forced to travel circuitously, to walk, to change taxis, to climb paths along hills and between olive orchards, at times trying to retrace their steps due to a suddenly instituted roadblock now holding back a kilometre's worth of cars, or because of a new closure that wasn't there even the night before."
Travel permits
Travel between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip has become increasingly difficult. Before the intifada, Palestinians required Israeli permits to travel between the territories. Since the start of the intifada, permits are increasingly difficult, often impossible, to obtain.
Between October 2000 and the end of December 2001, the main border crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip was closed 65% of the time. The number of Palestinian workers entering Israel when it was open was only 20% of the pre-September 2000 level due to restriction of permits by the Israeli authorities.
The passage of goods in and out of the Occupied Territories and Israel has been similarly affected. For example, the border with Jordan was closed 83% of the time between October 2000 and the end of 2001.
According to the World Bank, 100,000 Palestinians, out of the total 125-130,000 working in Israel, lost their jobs in the last quarter of 2000. The cause was their inability to leave the Occupied Territories due to the Israeli government's closure policy and the unwillingness of Israeli firms to employ Palestinians.
In turn, this contributed to a massive drop in employment in the Occupied Territories due to the reduced purchasing power of the usually better paid sections of the Palestinian working class previously employed in Israel. Employment within the Gaza Strip fell by 25%. Between September 2000 and January 2001, the World Bank estimates that the portion of the Palestinian population classed as "poor" rose from 21% to 31%.
As the June 10 UN report put it: "A number of congruent rights take on a particular, if tragic, meaning in the occupied Palestinian territories: the right to life; the right to an adequate standard of living; the right to freedom of movement and residence; the right to popular participation; the right not to be subjected to arbitrary interference with one's privacy, family and home; and the right not to be subjected to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment."
[USAID's Preliminary Findings of the Nutritional Assessment and Sentinel Surveillance System for West Bank and Gaza is available at <http://www.usaid.gov/wbg/nutritional_report.pdf>. The World Bank's assessment of the Palestinian economy is available from its site <http://www.worldbank.org>.]
From Green Left Weekly, August 14, 2002.
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