Occupied Palestinian Territories - Humanitarian Update, August 2009

Summary of monthly Humanitarian Monitor report produced by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

AUGUST OVERVIEW

This month, one of the deadliest intra-Palestinian armed clashes since the Hamas takeover of Gaza claimed the lives of 28 people, including five civilians; over 100 others were injured in the incident. Aside from this incident, there were no significant changes in protection and access trends observed during previous months. Palestinian casualties due to Israeli-Palestinian violence remained relatively low in August, in comparison with monthly averages in the first half of the year, and Palestinian movement to and from the main urban centers in the West Bank continued to be relatively smooth, with the exception of access to East Jerusalem. However, access to large farming and grazing areas and water resources in the West Bank remain heavily restricted, and Israel's blockade of Gaza continues to severely impact livelihoods and services.

The vulnerability of Palestinian children was highlighted this month by a series of troubling incidents and developments. In the Gaza Strip, a one-year-old girl died while waiting for an appointment to undergo surgery, unavailable in Gaza, at an East Jerusalem hospital. A 16-year old Palestinian boy was shot and killed by the IDF after entering the so-called "buffer zone" along the border fence. In the West Bank, the night before the first school day of the year, a 15-year-old boy died when shot in the chest by Israeli forces in a concrete watchtower; since October 2008, two other boys have been shot and killed by Israeli snipers from the same tower. In East Jerusalem, 20 children, along with their families were forcibly evicted from their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood, and, in the Massafer Yatta area of southern Hebron, 58 households, with a majority of children, were unable to receive water because the road to their village is blocked by earthmounds.

As in past months, over 350 Palestinian children were held in Israeli prisons by the end of August. In response to criticisms by human rights groups, this month the IDF established a special military court for Palestinian minors up to the age of 15, including the appointment of juvenile judges. Behind the investment in this new court, lies a worrying scenario of continued arrests, prosecutions and imprisonments of Palestinian children for offences against the Israeli military and Israeli settlers in the West Bank.

The beginning of a new school year highlights ongoing concerns regarding shortages of educational space and materials, affecting hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children. Eighteen schools in Gaza remain destroyed since Israel's "Cast Lead" offensive, and at least 280 schools with minor-to-severe damages cannot be reconstructed or repaired due to Israel's ban on the import of building materials, resulting in overcrowded classrooms; the Gaza school day is disrupted by ongoing shortages of notebooks, textbooks and other education materials. In East Jerusalem, there is a shortage of 1,000 classrooms, and over 5,000 Palestinian school-age children are not registered in any school. In Area C of the West Bank, over ten schools identified by OCHA are threatened with demolition orders, including the Jahalin Bedouin community school, built out of tires and mud to accommodate 100 children between the ages 4 and 7.

The most common infectious diseases affecting children in Gaza are due to unsafe water supplies (watery diarrhoea, acute bloody diarrhoea and viral hepatitis), and materials needed to upgrade existing wastewater infrastructure remain restricted from entry into Gaza. Eighty million liters of raw and partially-treated sewage are released daily into the environment, polluting the underground aquifer, Gaza's only source of natural water. Many people in Gaza are forced to buy desalinated water from unregulated water desalination operators, who are neither monitored nor held to basic health and safety standards. In an event held on 3 September, a number of humanitarian aid agencies, expressed deep concern over the ongoing water and sanitation crisis.

There is an ongoing challenge to ensure protection of children in the oPt. This year, UNRWA's summer games successfully met this challenge in the psycho-social sector, servicing 250,000 Gazan children and reaching 500 additional children in hospitals and orphanages, who were unable to reach the event locations. Special arrangements were made to entertain bedridden children, such as puppet shows, clowns and the showing of cartoons. This month, Gazan children broke the Guinness Book of World Records for flying the most kites simultaneously--3,710 kites soared over Gaza at the same time. Similar creativity and concrete efforts are required to offer greater protection and ensure a dignified life for Palestinian children throughout the occupied Palestinian territory.

ISSUES IN FOCUS

Access to Jerusalem for Friday prayers denied for Palestinian Muslims
All of Gaza's population, in addition to over 40 percent of the Palestinian population of the West Bank, has been prohibited from entering Jerusalem for Friday prayers during Ramadan this year. Access for Palestinians with West Bank ID cards is restricted to men over 50 and women over 45 years of age, and boys and girls under 12, who may pass without permits. Men between 45 and 50 and women between 30 and 45 years of age are eligible for special permits. In total, it is estimated that up to 60 percent of Muslim Palestinians are denied access to Friday prayers in East Jerusalem.

"Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state. Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country."
Article 13, Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Closure count
As of the end of August 2009, there were a total of 619 obstacles within the West Bank territory (i.e. excluding eight checkpoints located on the Green Line), only slightly above the parallel figure by the end of April 2008 (611). Over the course of this 16-month period, OCHA has recorded the removal of approximately 130 obstacles and the addition of another 140. Current obstacles include 70 permanently staffed checkpoints, 23 "partial checkpoints", (checkpoints staffed on an ad-hoc basis), and 526 unstaffed obstacles (roadblocks, earthmounds, earth walls, road barriers, road gates and trenches).10 Thirty-eight (38) of the 70 permanently staffed checkpoints are used by the Israeli authorities to prevent access of Palestinians without permits into East Jerusalem and Israel; yet, these checkpoints, most of which are located along the Barrier, block Palestinian access to West Bank communities and land on the other side of the checkpoint.

Source: UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

© Union Aid Abroad - APHEDA 2003.

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