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Balata Refugee Camp, West Bank -- Children receive food that was sent from the United Arab Emirates, as emergency relief during ramadan, to a few of the 20,000+ that live in the camp.

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Blame Israel, says Red Cross as it ends food aid for West Bank
By Justin Huggler in Jerusalem
16 November 2003

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is ending its emergency food programme in the West Bank, saying the economic collapse there is the direct result of Israeli military closures and that Israel must live up to its responsibility as the occupying power for the economic needs of the Palestinians.

The move comes as the Israeli media reported that François Bellon, the Red Cross representative, told senior Israeli generals that the Palestinian Authority was on the verge of an "explosion" that could lead to "the worst ever humanitarian crisis" in the occupied territories.

Israel is concerned that other international organisations may follow the Red Cross, which would leave Israel to face the cost of providing the services they currently provide - a cost that some estimates put as high as $1.1bn (£650m) a year.

The Palestinian economy has collapsed under the weight of military closures of Palestinian cities, making it impossible for Palestinians to move their produce or travel to jobs in other cities or in Israel. Last year and early this year, curfews imposed for all but a few hours a week by the Israeli army made it impossible for Palestinians to work at all...

Read the complete article here:
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=464142

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One Meal a Day for Most Palestinians
By Jim Lobe
14 November 2003


Most Palestinians living in the Israeli-occupied territories of Gaza and the West Bank are eating only one meal a day, leading to malnutrition at levels found in sub-Saharan Africa, according to a new United Nations report.

The area is "on the verge of humanitarian catastrophe," adds the document released Wednesday by the UN Human Rights Commission`s special rapporteur on the right to food, Jean Ziegler.

The report, based on a visit to the territories in July, as well as statistics accumulated over the past year by UN and US agencies, describes the ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians as a "horrifying tragedy," and stresses that Israel has the right to take defensive measures to protect its citizens against attacks.

But Ziegler, a recognized authority on international law and human rights from Switzerland, charges Israel with failing to uphold its legal obligation to ensure the right to food of the civilian Palestinian population.

The result – more than one-half of Palestinian households are currently eating only one meal a day and are fully dependent on international food aid.

"Many Palestinians who the special rapporteur met spoke of trying to subsist on little more than bread and tea," Ziegler wrote in his 24-page report.

"Severe malnutrition reported in Gaza is now equivalent to levels found in poor, sub-Saharan (African) countries, an absurd situation as Palestine was formerly a middle-income economy" with a rich agricultural base.

"The consequences of the ways in which current security measures are applied in the OPT (Occupied Palestinian Territories) are entirely disproportionate in the sense that they jeopardize the food and water security of the great majority of the Palestinians and thus amount to collective punishment," it added...

Read the complete article here:
http://www.palestinechronicle.com/story.php?sid=20031114013554540

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World Food Programme says situation continues to deteriorate in the occupied Palestinian territories
By WFP (extract)
28 October 2003

Christaine Berthiaume of the World Food Programme said that she had been in the occupied Palestinian territories last week. The situation in that region continued to deteriorate. A WFP study showed that more than 50 per cent of the inhabitants of the occupied territories lived below the poverty line. WFP was preparing a study on the "mechanisms of survival" and its results would be out at the end of November. Preliminary results showed that the people in the occupied Palestinian territories had run out of survival mechanisms. They had sold their jewellery, their land, their possessions like machinery, and now everything was gone. Children went to school, and then helped their families by working - right now they gathered green beans and olives. There were some 800,000 people who were not refugees who needed food aid in the occupied territories. The construction of the security wall was contributing to the food insecurity situation.

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article2111.shtml

World Food Program - Palestinian Territory
http://www.wfp.org/country_brief/index.asp?region=6

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