The other Palestinian crisis

July 19, 2002

A recent report by the U.S. Agency for International Development draws a shocking picture of humanitarian conditions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Among its key findings:

Malnutrition is widespread among children under five. Thirty percent of those screened were suffering from chronic malnutrition (defined as stunted growth) and 21 percent from acute malnutrition (or underweight). Those numbers were up from 7.5 percent and 2.5 percent, respectively, in 2000.

- The child immunization program is in danger of breaking down, partly because interruptions in electricity leave medical facilities unable to maintain cold storage for vaccines.

- According to the World Bank, at least 50 percent of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip were living below the poverty line of about $2 a day as of April, and the situation is deteriorating rapidly.

- Some 50 percent of Palestinians (both refugees and non-refugees) require external food assistance to help meet minimum daily caloric requirements.

- There is an increasing risk of communicable disease outbreak due to diminished access to potable water, residence overcrowding and inadequate shelter. A USAID environmental health assessment of 300 households near the northern West Bank city of Nablus found none with drinking water that met international standards.

- Medical treatment of rural Palestinians, and those with chronic diseases, has been interrupted due to access and affordability issues. According to Palestinian Ministry of Health estimates, births attended by skilled health workers have decreased from 97.4 percent two years ago to 67 percent now.

The economy of the West Bank and Gaza Strip didn't have much to recommend it before the outbreak of the current intifada in 2000. It has only gotten worse over the months of Palestinian violence and Israeli military reprisals.

An anecdote reported in the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz illustrates the complexity of assessing blame for the situation: In the suburb of A-Ram, north of Jerusalem, the garbage has been piling up in the streets since the Israeli army impounded three garbage trucks and two bulldozers more than a week ago.

Mayor Ra'ed Barghouti was informed by the Israeli Civil Administration that the matter could be resolved if he contacted a certain administration official. Barghouti, however, is unwilling to cooperate with the administration, which he says is trying to circumvent the Palestinian Authority.

Discussions about the Middle East conflict usually revolve around questions of how to halt the violence, resolve a decades-old political fight and stave off a wider war. Yet the situation, hard as it is to believe, is even more dire than that. There is also a looming humanitarian crisis of hunger and disease, one that must prompt a greater sense of urgency in all parties involved.

The world has watched the appalling specter of Palestinian suicide bombers. It can't, as well, stand by and watch a society head down a path toward perishing.