Making her first visit to the occupied Palestinian territories, the British actress Vanessa Redgrave, a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), today urged countries to increase their humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians and called on the Israeli Government to ease its restrictions on the movement of UN agencies. At a press conference in Jerusalem, Ms. Redgrave said the UN agency responsible for helping Palestinian refugees has so far received only $62 million out of the $209 million it needs to provide such services as food aid, housing, employment assistance and trauma counselling for the rest of the year. Ms. Redgrave also appealed to Israel to ease the security restrictions it has imposed recently in the Gaza Strip so that UN agencies can distribute food more quickly to Palestinians. The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has delayed its latest round of food distribution in Gaza by three weeks because of the restrictions. Some 250 containers of food remain stuck at the port of Ashdod, with another 800 containers due to arrive by the end of August. UNRWA officials say the number of Palestinians needing food aid has soared since September 2000, the start of the latest intifada. Currently the agency can only distribute about five to six containers of food a day in Gaza, well below the target of 20 containers. On Tuesday Ms. Redgrave cancelled a planned visit to the Gaza Strip city of Rafah - where she had hoped to meet some of the more than 15,000 people left homeless by Israel's demolition of homes - because of the security restrictions. During her six-day trip, which ends on Saturday, Ms. Redgrave has visited the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, toured refugee camps and health clinics, launched a UNICEF measles immunization scheme and participated with the British violinist and composer Stephen Bentley in a cultural programme for Palestinians. Ms. Redgrave has also met locals to discuss life under occupation and the impact of Israel's construction of a wall in the Palestinian territories. A spokesman for UNRWA said she is due to meet Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat later today. Read More...
By: Amira Hass
Date: 27/05/2013
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Slain Bedouin girls' mother, a victim of Israeli-Palestinian bureaucracy
Abir Dandis, the mother of the two girls who were murdered in the Negev town of Al-Fura’a last week, couldn't find a police officer to listen to her warnings, neither in Arad nor in Ma’ale Adumim. Both police stations operate in areas where Israel wants to gather the Bedouin into permanent communities, against their will, in order to clear more land for Jewish communities. The dismissive treatment Dandis received shows how the Bedouin are considered simply to be lawbreakers by their very nature. But as a resident of the West Bank asking for help for her daughters, whose father was Israeli, Dandis faced the legal-bureaucratic maze created by the Oslo Accords. The Palestinian police is not allowed to arrest Israeli civilians. It must hand suspects over to the Israel Police. The Palestinian police complain that in cases of Israelis suspected of committing crimes against Palestinian residents, the Israel Police tend not to investigate or prosecute them. In addition, the town of Al-Azaria, where Dandis lives, is in Area B, under Palestinian civilian authority and Israeli security authority. According to the testimony of Palestinian residents, neither the IDF nor the Israel Police has any interest in internal Palestinian crime even though they have both the authority and the obligation to act in Area B. The Palestinian police are limited in what it can do in Area B. Bringing in reinforcements or carrying weapons in emergency situations requires coordination with, and obtaining permission from, the IDF. If Dandis fears that the man who murdered her daughters is going to attack her as well, she has plenty of reason to fear that she will not receive appropriate, immediate police protection from either the Israelis or the Palestinians. Dandis told Jack Khoury of Haaretz that the Ma’ale Adumim police referred her to the Palestinian Civil Affairs Coordination and Liaison Committee. Theoretically, this committee (which is subordinate to the Civil Affairs Ministry) is the logical place to go for such matters. Its parallel agency in Israel is the Civilian Liaison Committee (which is part of the Coordination and Liaison Administration - a part of the Civil Administration under the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories). In their meetings, they are supposed to discuss matters such as settlers’ complaints about the high volume of the loudspeakers at mosques or Palestinians’ complaints about attacks by settlers. But the Palestinians see the Liaison Committee as a place to submit requests for permission to travel to Israel, and get the impression that its clerks do not have much power when faced with their Israeli counterparts. In any case, the coordination process is cumbersome and long. The Palestinian police has a family welfare unit, and activists in Palestinian women’s organizations say that in recent years, its performance has improved. But, as stated, it has no authority over Israeli civilians and residents. Several non-governmental women’s groups also operate in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem, and women in similar situations approach them for help. The manager of one such organization told Haaretz that Dandis also fell victim to this confusing duplication of procedures and laws. Had Dandis approached her, she said, she would have referred her to Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, which has expertise in navigating Israel’s laws and authorities.
By: Phoebe Greenwood
Date: 27/05/2013
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John Kerry unveils plan to boost Palestinian economy
John Kerry revealed his long-awaited plan for peace in the Middle East on Sunday, hinging on a $4bn (£2.6bn) investment in the Palestinian private sector. The US secretary of state, speaking at the World Economic Forum on the Jordanian shores of the Dead Sea, told an audience including Israeli president Shimon Peres and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas that an independent Palestinian economy is essential to achieving a sustainable peace. Speaking under the conference banner "Breaking the Impasse", Kerry announced a plan that he promised would be "bigger, bolder and more ambitious" than anything since the Oslo accords, more than 20 years ago. Tony Blair is to lead a group of private sector leaders in devising a plan to release the Palestinian economy from its dependence on international donors. The initial findings of Blair's taskforce, Kerry boasted, were "stunning", predicting a 50% increase in Palestinian GDP over three years, a cut of two-thirds in unemployment rates and almost double the Palestinian median wage. Currently, 40% of the Palestinian economy is supplied by donor aid. Kerry assured Abbas that the economic plan was not a substitute for a political solution, which remains the US's "top priority". Peres, who had taken the stage just minutes before, also issued a personal plea to his Palestinian counterpart to return to the negotiations. "Let me say to my dear friend President Abbas," Peres said, "Should we really dance around the table? Lets sit together. You'll be surprised how much can be achieved in open, direct and organised meetings."
By: Jillian Kestler-D'Amours
Date: 27/05/2013
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Isolation Devastates East Jerusalem Economy
Thick locks hug the front gates of shuttered shops, now covered in graffiti and dust from lack of use. Only a handful of customers pass along the dimly lit road, sometimes stopping to check the ripeness of fruits and vegetables, or ordering meat in near-empty butcher shops. “All the shops are closed. I’m the only one open. This used to be the best place,” said 64-year-old Mustafa Sunocret, selling vegetables out of a small storefront in the marketplace near his family’s home in the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City. Amidst the brightly coloured scarves, clothes and carpets, ceramic pottery and religious souvenirs filling the shops of Jerusalem’s historic Old City, Palestinian merchants are struggling to keep their businesses alive. Faced with worsening health problems, Sunocret told IPS that he cannot work outside of the Old City, even as the cost of maintaining his shop, with high electricity, water and municipal tax bills to pay, weighs on him. “I only have this shop,” he said. “There is no other work. I’m tired.” Abed Ajloni, the owner of an antiques shop in the Old City, owes the Jerusalem municipality 250,000 Israeli shekels (68,300 U.S. dollars) in taxes. He told IPS that almost every day, the city’s tax collectors come into the Old City, accompanied by Israeli police and soldiers, to pressure people there to pay. “It feels like they’re coming again to occupy the city, with the soldiers and police,” Ajloni, who has owned the same shop for 35 years, told IPS. “But where can I go? What can I do? All my life I was in this place.” He added, “Does Jerusalem belong to us, or to someone else? Who’s responsible for Jerusalem? Who?” Illegal annexation Israel occupied East Jerusalem, including the Old City, in 1967. In July 1980, it passed a law stating that “Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel”. But Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem and subsequent application of Israeli laws over the entire city remain unrecognised by the international community. Under international law, East Jerusalem is considered occupied territory – along with the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Syrian Golan Heights – and Palestinian residents of the city are protected under the Fourth Geneva Convention. Jerusalem has historically been the economic, political and cultural centre of life for the entire Palestinian population. But after decades languishing under destructive Israeli policies meant to isolate the city from the rest of the Occupied Territories and a lack of municipal services and investment, East Jerusalem has slipped into a state of poverty and neglect. “After some 45 years of occupation, Arab Jerusalemites suffer from political and cultural schizophrenia, simultaneously connected with and isolated from their two hinterlands: Ramallah and the West Bank to their east, West Jerusalem and Israel to the west,” the International Crisis Group recently wrote. Israeli restrictions on planning and building, home demolitions, lack of investment in education and jobs, construction of an eight-foot-high separation barrier between and around Palestinian neighbourhoods and the creation of a permit system to enter Jerusalem have all contributed to the city’s isolation. Formal Palestinian political groups have also been banned from the city, and between 2001-2009, Israel closed an estimated 26 organisations, including the former Palestinian Liberation Organisation headquarters in Jerusalem, the Orient House and the Jerusalem Chamber of Commerce. Extreme poverty Israel’s policies have also led to higher prices for basic goods and services and forced many Palestinian business owners to close shop and move to Ramallah or other Palestinian neighbourhoods on the other side of the wall. Many Palestinian Jerusalemites also prefer to do their shopping in the West Bank, or in West Jerusalem, where prices are lower. While Palestinians constitute 39 percent of the city’s population today, almost 80 percent of East Jerusalem residents, including 85 percent of children, live below the poverty line. “How could you develop [an] economy if you don’t control your resources? How could you develop [an] economy if you don’t have any control of your borders?” said Zakaria Odeh, director of the Civic Coalition for Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem, of “this kind of fragmentation, checkpoints, closure”. “Without freedom of movement of goods and human beings, how could you develop an economy?” he asked. “You can’t talk about independent economy in Jerusalem or the West Bank or in all of Palestine without a political solution. We don’t have a Palestinian economy; we have economic activities. That’s all we have,” Odeh told IPS. Israel’s separation barrier alone, according to a new report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTD), has caused a direct loss of over one billion dollars to Palestinians in Jerusalem, and continues to incur 200 million dollars per year in lost opportunities. Israel’s severing and control over the Jerusalem-Jericho road – the historical trade route that connected Jerusalem to the rest of the West Bank and Middle East – has also contributed to the city’s economic downturn. Separation of Jerusalem from West Bank Before the First Intifada (Arabic for “uprising”) began in the late 1980s, East Jerusalem contributed approximately 14 to 15 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in the Occupied Palestinian territories (OPT). By 2000, that number had dropped to less than eight percent; in 2010, the East Jerusalem economy, compared to the rest of the OPT, was estimated at only seven percent. “Economic separation resulted in the contraction in the relative size of the East Jerusalem economy, its detachment from the remaining OPT and the gradual redirection of East Jerusalem employment towards the Israeli labour market,” the U.N. report found. Decades ago, Israel adopted a policy to maintain a so-called “demographic balance” in Jerusalem and attempt to limit Palestinian residents of the city to 26.5 percent or less of the total population. To maintain this composition, Israel built numerous Jewish-Israeli settlements inside and in a ring around Jerusalem and changed the municipal boundaries to encompass Jewish neighbourhoods while excluding Palestinian ones. It is now estimated that 90,000 Palestinians holding Jerusalem residency rights live on the other side of the separation barrier and must cross through Israeli checkpoints in order to reach Jerusalem for school, medical treatment, work, and other services. “Israel is using all kinds of tools to push the Palestinians to leave; sometimes they are visible, and sometimes invisible tools,” explained Ziad al-Hammouri, director of the Jerusalem Centre for Social and Economic Rights (JCSER). Al-Hammouri told IPS that at least 25 percent of the 1,000 Palestinian shops in the Old City were closed in recent years as a result of high municipal taxes and a lack of customers. “Taxation is an invisible tool…as dangerous as revoking ID cards and demolishing houses,” he said. “Israel will use this as pressure and as a tool in the future to confiscate these shops and properties.”
By the Same Author
Date: 20/10/2005
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UNICEF Humanitarian Action: Occupied Palestinian Territory
1. ISSUES FOR CHILDREN Some of the most significant changes in the five-year conflict in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) have occurred over the last nine months. Aside from the disengagement in the Gaza Strip and withdrawal of four settlements in the northern West Bank, which has reduced the exposure of children to death and injury, there has been a continued system of closures in the West Bank which seriously affects both the economic and social fabric of the Palestinian society – including the right to education, play, health and nutrition. The number of Palestinian children in Israeli detention remains at the same level as in early 2004, with some 285 children in detention. Children are still living with distress and continue to be vulnerable. The chronic anxiety undermines self-esteem and feelings of loss of control due to the erosion of households’ coping mechanisms adversely affect family relationships. The violence in homes and schools is an issue of increasing concern and closely linked with the surrounding pressures stemming from the external environment. Furthermore, the situation in West Bank and Gaza remains volatile. The most recent incidents in late September in and around Gaza illustrate this, and indicate how children and schools can be affected. No doubt with half of the 1.3 million residents under the age of 18 years and three quarters of all households having at least one child in school, daily events in Gaza affect children in an immediate and significant manner. More and more households are deprived of their income, isolated from basic services and cut off from their usual social support networks. As a result, several studies indicate that affected family and social relationships trigger high levels of violence in homes and schools. HEALTH AND NUTRITION Chronic malnutrition (stunting) in children under five has increased to almost 10 percent, with children in the Gaza strip most affected. Thus 50,000 children are malnourished. The burden of malnutrition is mostly carried by children 12-23 months old – more than 15% of them are malnourished at this critical period, making them vulnerable after the end of the infant period. Basic equipment for maternal and new born health is lacking and families and communities are insufficiently equipped with the necessary knowledge and practices to prevent and manage the most common childhood diseases. Current practices in clinics and hospitals do not use enough cost-effective interventions for mothers and newborns, in order to increase their chances for survival and growth. The adoption, expansion and scaling up to full implementation of an integrated strategy in managing common childhood illnesses is key to ensure the health and wellbeing of Palestinian children, including psychosocial care of the young child as an integral part. EDUCATION The major issue of concern is to ensure full access to education services and to guarantee that high-quality learning is provided in a child-friendly environment. Access to education continues to be challenged by restrictions of movement, in particular for the teachers. The quality of education is showing signs of decline and in the worst affected areas, the learning achievements for students are deteriorating. Few children have the opportunity to experience a child-friendly learning environment with safe spaces and opportunities for sports and recreation. In addition, children lack educational materials and schools lack good teaching aids. While the child-friendly school concept is being promoted throughout oPt, the concept is challenged in particular in confrontational areas. In these areas it is necessary to adapt the child-friendly school concept to learners’ needs and link it with psychosocial and child protection services, while ensuring outreach to local communities. ADOLESCENTS Adolescents have limited opportunities to play and exercise in areas safe for them. Close to half of the children in West Bank and Gaza spend very limited time on extra-curricular activities like sports or playing outdoors. Overall, young Palestinians spent their spare time at home and few girls get opportunities to interact with peers outside their homes. Violence in the lives of adolescents is on the increase – both at home and in school. There is now, more than ever, a need to create safe and friendly spaces to foster opportunities for play and exercise. CHILD PROTECTION AND PSYCHOSOCIAL WELLBEING Although general levels of violence have decreased in 2005, the situation in the West Bank and Gaza remained tense – even after the disengagement period. After the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the withdrawal of four settlements from the West Bank, children in Gaza are not exposed to military incursions and house demolitions as they were earlier. More than ever, children need sustained psychosocial support in order to return to normalcy. The withdrawal will inevitably give rise to new expectations for youth, which, if they are not fulfilled, might in turn increase their frustration. In a changing environment, they need new outlets and to be fully involved in the improvement of the lives of their communities. The threat of unexploded ordinance (UXO) is on the increase and has become an issue of greater concern within the last few months. This is due to the fact that children have access to areas they previously could not reach and with the withdrawal of the settlers and IDF from Gaza and the settlements of Ganim, Kadim, Sanur and Homesh the danger to children, particularly in the surrounding areas, has increased. Between January and end June this year, three children have been killed and 16 injured by explosive remnants of war. To View the Full Report as PDF (48 KB)
Date: 02/07/2004
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UN Goodwill Ambassador Vanessa Redgrave Calls For More Aid for Palestinians
Making her first visit to the occupied Palestinian territories, the British actress Vanessa Redgrave, a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), today urged countries to increase their humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians and called on the Israeli Government to ease its restrictions on the movement of UN agencies. At a press conference in Jerusalem, Ms. Redgrave said the UN agency responsible for helping Palestinian refugees has so far received only $62 million out of the $209 million it needs to provide such services as food aid, housing, employment assistance and trauma counselling for the rest of the year. Ms. Redgrave also appealed to Israel to ease the security restrictions it has imposed recently in the Gaza Strip so that UN agencies can distribute food more quickly to Palestinians. The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has delayed its latest round of food distribution in Gaza by three weeks because of the restrictions. Some 250 containers of food remain stuck at the port of Ashdod, with another 800 containers due to arrive by the end of August. UNRWA officials say the number of Palestinians needing food aid has soared since September 2000, the start of the latest intifada. Currently the agency can only distribute about five to six containers of food a day in Gaza, well below the target of 20 containers. On Tuesday Ms. Redgrave cancelled a planned visit to the Gaza Strip city of Rafah - where she had hoped to meet some of the more than 15,000 people left homeless by Israel's demolition of homes - because of the security restrictions. During her six-day trip, which ends on Saturday, Ms. Redgrave has visited the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, toured refugee camps and health clinics, launched a UNICEF measles immunization scheme and participated with the British violinist and composer Stephen Bentley in a cultural programme for Palestinians. Ms. Redgrave has also met locals to discuss life under occupation and the impact of Israel's construction of a wall in the Palestinian territories. A spokesman for UNRWA said she is due to meet Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat later today. Date: 20/05/2004
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UNICEF calls for the protection of children in Rafah
UNICEF said today it is deeply concerned about the impact on children of the ongoing military operation in the Gaza Strip, particularly a missile strike Wednesday that claimed the lives of at least 10 Palestinians, many of them children. "Palestinian children have a right to be protected against all acts of violence in the midst of the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict," said David S. Bassiouni, UNICEF Special Representative in Jerusalem. "They have a right to a safe shelter, safe access to their schools and to health services," he said. With the recent military actions in Rafah - and Wednesday's missile strike - at least 10 children have already lost their lives, including Asma and Ahmed, a 16 and 13-year-old girl and boy, respectively, shot in their home in Rafah on Tuesday morning. Many additional children have been injured and all are facing psychosocial distress. The ongoing house demolitions in Rafah have left more 1,100 Palestinian people homeless in a 10 day period alone, out of which almost 600 are children. Between September 2000 and May 2004, more than 11,000 Palestinians have lost their homes. UNICEF, jointly with other UN agencies, is assessing the impact of house demolitions on children and will support efforts to help restore normalcy to children's lives. Since the start of the conflict, Israeli and Palestinian children have paid a very heavy price, UNICEF said. Over 660 children under age 18 have been killed, of which 560 were Palestinian and 104 were Israeli - including four Israeli sisters killed by militants in an attack in the Gaza Strip on May 2. "UNICEF calls on the State of Israel to abide by its obligations to the Convention on the Rights of the Child by protecting children from direct exposure to violence, and providing those who have lost their homes with alternative housing," Bassiouni said. "The injudicious use of force where children are present can only bring about the deaths of innocent youngsters. We urge the Israeli authorities to reconsider the impact these incursions are having on Palestinian children." Date: 02/10/2002
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Thousands of Palestinian Children Denied Access to Schools
JERUSALEM, 2 October 2002 ? A month into the Palestinian school year, the UNICEF Special Representative in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Pierre Poupard, today expressed serious concern over the number of Palestinian children being prevented from attending school by Israel-imposed restrictions. "Right now the Israeli military is preventing thousands of Palestinian children and teachers from attending school," Mr Poupard said. "A generation of Palestinian children is being denied their right to an education." While UNICEF noted that most Palestinian children have either returned to school or are receiving alternative schooling, it said that more than 226,000 children and over 9,300 teachers are unable to reach their regular classrooms and at least 580 schools have been closed due to Israeli military curfews, closures and home confinement. UNICEF said Israel has an obligation to ensure education is accessible to every Palestinian child, in accordance with the 4th Geneva Convention and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. As an absolute minimum, mobility restrictions on Palestinian civilians must be lifted throughout the OPT during school hours. There are almost 1 million Palestinian children of school age. Children living in the districts of Nablus, Jenin, Tulkarem and Hebron are most affected. The mobility restrictions in these areas have necessitated the creation of a substitute schooling system. Many Palestinian school children are now being home-schooled by their parents, or gathering in makeshift classrooms such as mosques, basements, and alleyways. "Alternative schooling initiatives are an indication of the extent to which the regular lives of Palestinian children are being devastated by this conflict," said Mr Poupard. UNICEF cautioned that the quality of home education can not be assessed or assured. UNICEF emphasized that the organizers and teachers of alternative schooling have a responsibility to ensure their actions are in the best interests of children at all times. UNICEF is currently implementing a 'back to school' campaign to help ensure that the poorest Palestinian children can afford to stay in school. The campaign includes the provision of school uniforms and school bags ? expenses that often keep poor children out of the classroom. The campaign is supporting over 14,000 children. "This year, with the economy on the verge of collapse, many Palestinian parents are unable to afford to send their children to school. UNICEF appeals to the donor community for further support," Mr Poupard said. Some 317,000 Palestinian school children are now in desperate need of assistance due to financial hardship. Last school year, UNICEF supported a community-based education program in Hebron and Khan Younis assisting over 12,250 Palestinian children whose education was disrupted as a result of the crisis. This year, UNICEF is expanding the program by supporting officially-endorsed home schooling initiatives.
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