Situation is dire but not unavoidable - Barghouti

Dr Mustafa Barghouti, the Director of Palestine Monitor in Ramallah, has called on the international community to make "urgent efforts to save the Palestinian children from dying unnecessarily."

In an electronic conversation, he told Gulf News the humanitarian situation in the Occupied Territories "is dire but not unavoidable, if the world community moves quickly.

"The imposed curfew by the Israelis in all major towns of the West Bank has a devastating effect on the population's health, economy, society and the lives of over two million people."

He described the closure and restriction on the freedom of movement, checkpoints, road blocks as 'draconian'.

He added: "Military blockades divide the West Bank and Gaza Strip into cantonments making access from one area to the other a humiliating struggle at the least and life threatening at the most."

According to statistics surveyed by the human rights organisations working in the Occupied Territories, 65 Palestinians lost their lives after they were prevented to take in life saving drugs since the beginning of the Intifada.

The victims include new born babies, diabetic patients, those needing kidney dialysis and old people suffering from heart problems.

The recently released results of a Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics survey on nutrition found:
* 63.8 per cent of those surveyed faced difficulties in food supply during the Intifada.

*l 45.5 per cent of children are suffering from chronic malnutrition, 36.3 per cent from mild chronic malnutrition.

* More than one third of households are unable to access health services due to closure, curfew or lack of resources.

Dr Mustafa Barghouthi: "In order to solve the crisis we must examine the underlying causes. An increase in food aid from donor countries, while a nice gesture, is not a solution.

"We are not drought-ridden Ethiopia, nor war torn Sudan. Rather, only one factor is responsible for this crisis, and that is the Israeli imposed siege and closure to which Palestinians are subjected."

The fact is that Palestinians are unable to work, he said. "They cannot buy food. Additionally, military blockades and checkpoints isolate one Palestinian area from the other so goods cannot travel.

"In Gaza for example boxes of tomatoes are cheap. No one in the West Bank can afford them and no one in Gaza can purchase them as they remain inaccessible there.

"The problem here is access to employment and food. This humanitarian crisis has been created by the Israelis and can be solved only by them. It is not unavoidable."