Memorandum submitted by Save the Children
The humanitarian situation for children in the
occupied Palestinian territory is as bad as, and deteriorating
faster than at any time since the Oslo accords were signed. We
are appalled by the ongoing suffering of Palestinian children.
We condemn in the strongest possible terms the freezing of aid
by the international community and, by the Israeli government,
the withholding of VAT revenues, the destruction of essential
infrastructure and ongoing restrictions on humanitarian movement.
These actions have critically undermined the ability of the elected
Palestinian government to provide basic services and led to the
worst impacts of the deteriorating humanitarian situation being
denied the resources and urgency they demand.
RECOMMENDATIONS:
— Civilians must be protected, especially
children. Save the Children recommends that the Security Council
deploy a child protection assessment mission to the occupied Palestinian
territory under the mandate of Security Council Resolution 1612,
with a view to making firm recommendations to the working group
of the Security Council of the action required to ensure children
are sufficiently protected and can access education and health
care. This would require agreement by all related state's parties.
— Humanitarian access must be ensured
to enable aid agency staff and supplies to reach the children
and families most in need and to enable residents of the occupied
Palestinian territory to reach essential services.
— Continue to press for all parties
to cease hostilities and uphold international humanitarian law
in the interests of mitigating the extreme negative impacts to
the health and wellbeing of children by both Palestinian and Israeli
violence.
— Financial assistance should resume
immediately, or as soon as possible, to the Palestinian Authority
to ensure that the essential services that children and their
families depend on must continue. Financial assistance to the
education sector must be prioritised, as it has been particularly
negatively impacted and it provides services to the largest single
segment of the population. The resumption of donor aid and return
of the vat revenues owed to the PA would cover the salaries of
striking teachers and enable students to return to school.
— In the absence of direct assistance
to the Palestinian Authority, Save the Children recommends that
the mandate of the TIM be expanded to include support to the education
sector as a matter of priority, and include the resumption of
technical assistance programming with the PA.
— Save the Children urges the UK government
to heed the experience of Palestinian children, and to press for
implementation of the advisory opinion issued by the International
Court of Justice, to immediately stop construction of the Wall
and dismantle the sections of the Wall already in existence.
— Save the Children is calling for
all parties to negotiate a peaceful long-term resolution as soon
as possible to bring an end to the conflict and for the rights
of children in the region to be upheld. All parties should respect
previously signed agreements, and take into particular account
the voices of children in the negotiating process.
1. Save the Children welcomes the International
Development Committee's session on the occupied Palestinian territory
(OPT) and the opportunity to submit evidence. Save the Children
has operations and staff on the ground in the OPT where we are
working with children to promote their rights, particularly their
right to protection. In Gaza over the past several months, we
have distributed more than 1,200 emergency kits to vulnerable
households and back-to-school kits to 2,050 children in al Shoka,
one of the areas that has been hardest hit by the Israeli military
campaign that began on 28 June.
2. Palestinian children have borne the brunt
of the conflict in the OPT, although they are entitled to special
protections under international law and UN Security Council resolutions.
Palestinian children comprise 56% of the total Palestinian population.
From January to August of this year, 82 children have been killed
as a result of Israeli military actions, representing 18% of total
fatalities related to the conflict. Over 292 children have been
injured and at least 391 children are held in detention by Israeli
authorities. [225]
3. In this report, Save the Children would like
to highlight the impacts of the fiscal crisis, the Separation
Wall, and increasing poverty and isolation on children throughout
the OPT.
SUMMARY OF
MAIN ISSUES
4. Worsening poverty, isolation, violence and
a sense of fear and hopelessness are negatively impacting the
psychosocial well-being of children across the OPT. Children have
highlighted their restricted access to health and education, separation
from family and friends, and lack of safe places to play and develop
because of incursions, checkpoints, curfews, the Wall, and the
total blockade of Gaza as their most important concerns.
5. The ongoing Israeli military occupation and
its associated policies prevent children's right to live and develop
in a safe and protected environment. At present, Israel denies
its responsibilities under international law to protect Palestinian
children in the OPT, the Palestinian Authority is severely constrained
in exercising a protective function, and the international community
has not stepped in to bridge the gap and press for compliance
to the CRC by all duty bearers.
Iman, 11, is a smart student in al Shoka School.
She has four sisters and two brothers. Her father who used to
work in the airport is unemployed now. Iman lives in a small rented
house after the Israeli military forces destroyed her old house,
including two other houses and a kindergarten next door. Her house
was close to the airport where the Israeli military forces were
stationed during the invasion. Iman misses spending Ramadan in
her old house and wishes to build her house again. She wants to
be a dentist in the future.
"My parents were out visiting some relatives
and I was sitting inside the room with my brothers and sisters
reading Qur'an when the Israeli bulldozers started destroying
our house. My father told me once that we should not worry, because
they only bulldoze trees."
"They were destroying the house while we
were all sitting scared in one room. That room was the last one
they destroyed. They made a hole in the wall of the room. My sister
waved to them using a white piece of cloth. When they saw us,
they stopped and ordered us to leave. We were running away without
even putting our shoes on."
"Our old house was big and new. We had fruit
trees and olive trees in our garden, but they destroyed them with
the house. We lost everything we liked in that house. We also
lost our winter clothes. My brother, Mohammed, lost his favourite
bicycle. My father goes to our old house everyday traing to find
anything left under the destruction."
"Ramadan was better last year. We used to
play, buy Ramadan lanterns and read Qur'an in our old house. I
do not enjoy Ramadan in this new house because it is not my house.
I do not feel like playing when other people are suffering around
me. I do not feel safe this Ramadan. I just wish next Ramadan
will be safer."
RELATED TO
ISSUE 1: THE
IMPACT OF
THE SUSPENSION
OF AID
TO THE
PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY
AND THE
IMPACT OF
THE TEMPORARY
INTERNATIONAL MECHANISM
(TIM) FOR PALESTINIAN
BASIC NEEDS,
AGREED BY
THE QUARTET
AND THE
EUROPEAN COUNCIL
Suspension of Aid—Increased Poverty and
Food Insecurity
6. The Palestinian Authority (PA) employs over
152,000 people; an estimated one-quarter of the entire Palestinian
population is dependent on these salary earnings. The PA budget
has been dramatically depleted as a result of the suspension of
aid by major donors and the withholding of VAT revenues by Israel
(which previously represented 30% and 60%, respectively, of the
PA budget.) Consequently, the PA has been unable to pay its employees
their full salaries since March. This is having a devastating
effect on the lives of these families (now classified as vulnerable),
on the Palestinian economy in general, and on the PA's ability
to provide essential services. The lack of salary payments is
compounding already worsening poverty levels across the OPT. Currently
66% of Palestinian households are living below the poverty line.
[226]About
30% of total households in the OPT had received humanitarian assistance
by the end of the second quarter of 2006. [227]The
World Food Programme has estimated that 51% of Palestinians are
food insecure and are unable to cover their daily food requirements
without external assistance (representing a 14% increase over
last year).
Suspension of Aid—Reduced Access to Health
Services
7. The non-payment of PA employee salaries has
led to a general public sector strike, which has particularly
impacted the services available to children. The PA operates 62%
of all health clinics and most major hospitals throughout the
OPT. Even before the strike there were reports of stock-outs of
essential drugs, rising absenteeism, and declining performance
in the public sector. With the strike, many health facilities
have reduced services to critical and chronically ill patients,
women in advanced labour, chest pains, chemotherapy, and dialysis.
[228]Most
significantly for children, in the West Bank the Ministry of Health
primary health care clinics have offered significantly reduced
services or have been closed entirely, severely disrupting the
vaccination regime, well-baby clinics, and other essential services
for children. [229]
8. Families are engaging in negative coping
mechanisms, including reducing household expenditures, choosing
cheaper food, and reducing food consumption. Malnutrition among
children is rising. The prevalence of anaemia in pregnant women
is high—in Gaza, for example, the percentage of pregnant
women who have anaemia is estimated to be 39.8%.[230]
Families are increasingly unable to pay for the costs of health
care that is available.
Suspension of Aid—Reduced Access to Education
Services
9. The general public sector strike and the
non-payment of PA employee salaries has also led to a reduction
in the education services available to children. The Palestinian
Ministry of Education, which operates 75% of all schools in the
OPT and provides educational services to approximately 765,000
school-age children, is facing severe financial constraints due
to decreased levels of aid. While the teacher's strike has been
temporarily called off in Gaza, returning 240,000 students to
school, the strike in the West Bank continues. The 525,000 students
in the West Bank are now particularly at risk, both from the lasting
psychosocial impacts of severe disruption of routine, and from
increased exposure to violence as these children spend more time
in the streets without access to safe, recreational activities.
In addition, those students in their last year of high school,
whose academic year is tightly regulated in preparation for their
final matriculation examinations, are facing setbacks and delays
in their preparatory study.
10. While the PA has cut school fees in half
for this year, there are still many parents that are unable to
afford to send their children to school. The number of students
unable to pay fees was estimated to have increased by 90% over
the summer months. [231]Schools
are dependent on the payment of school fees for their normal operating
costs.
The Role of the Temporary International Mechanism
(TIM)
11. The Temporary International Mechanism (TIM)
has responded to some of the above impacts by injecting much-needed
funds into the Palestinian economy, supporting the health sector,
paying fuel and utility bills, and providing some relief to vulnerable
families through the partial payment of salaries and social welfare
payments. Save the Children, however, believes the TIM to be inadequate
and no substitute for direct assistance to the PA. Save the Children's
primary concern remains that the Palestinian Authority be able
to continue to deliver critical services, as the legitimate and
competent service provider in the OPT. The administrative, management,
and coordination responsibilities of public sector institutions
cannot replaced by NGOs or UN agencies. UN agencies and NGOs do
not have the capacity or the responsibility to administer public
services, in particular when there are capable administrative
structures already in place. However, if the mandate of the TIM
is extended, Save the Children believes that it must prioritize
the education sector and ensure an adequate level of funding to
enable schools to function.
RELATED TO
ISSUE 6: THE
IMPACT OF
THE SEPARATION
BARRIER AND
OTHER CONTROLS
ON THE
MOVEMENT OF
GOODS AND
PEOPLE ON
EMPLOYMENT, POVERTY,
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
AND ON
THE DELIVERY
OF HUMANITARIAN
ASSISTANCE
The Wall—violation of children's rights
12. Israel's Separation Wall has impacted Palestinian
life in a significant way and violates the rights of children.
Begun in June 2002 and constructed almost entirely on West Bank
lands, the Separation Wall is projected to be more than 703 kilometres
long, twice as long as the 1967 borders of the West Bank, or the
"Green Line" . The Wall is in parts an eight-meter-high
cement structure twice the height of the Berlin Wall: in other
areas it is an electrified metal fence with trenches, patrol roads,
razor wire and motion sensors on each side. [232]The
Wall is now over 51% complete, with an additional 13% currently
under construction. [233]
13. The Wall, because of its trajectory deep
into the West Bank, also curbs freedom of movement for Palestinians
within the West Bank. More than 500,000 Palestinians live within
a one kilometre strip of the Wall. When the Wall is completed,
60,500 Palestinians, including approximately 34,000 children in
42 villages, will reside between the Wall, the Green Line and
closed areas—the so-called "Seam Zone".[234]
Save the Children reports that for many children and their teachers,
this means passing through gates in the Wall to get to school,
gates which are not open regularly and are intimidating to pass
through. Thus far, there are about 73 gates in the Wall and only
38 are accessible to Palestinians with the correct permit. [235]
14. Palestinian children report to Save the
Children that the Wall prevents them from going to school, from
seeing family and friends, and from getting health care. They
say they feel insecure and afraid of the Wall, and that their
families are poorer and have lost their lands because of it. Children
say to the world: "We ask the world to remove this apartheid
wall because it steals our freedom and it affects our education
process and concentration. It also separates us from other villages
and relatives. Children all around the world: Come and set Palestine
free." [236]
15. In Nazlet Issa, a village in the northern
part of the West Bank, children have been living with the effects
of the Wall since 2002. The Wall was constructed in the middle
of the village, separating families and neighbours, people from
their work, and children from their schools.
16. 14-year-old Basma says: "This Wall
takes [away] our simple rights. There are many children who have
these rights, but we don't have the right to visit family or people
outside the village, or go to parks or the zoo or to the pool.
Our life starts to look like wishes...".
Gaza—lack of humanitarian access
17. Save the Children staff face continuing
difficulty in travelling in and out of Gaza itself and accessing
the al Shoka community in southern Gaza, which is the target area
of our emergency intervention. Ongoing Israeli military actions
and severe restrictions imposed on travel to, from and within
Gaza continue to seriously impede our ability to provide humanitarian
assistance to children and families in need. Save the Children
estimates that they are unable to access al Shoka 60% of the time,
due to military activity and incursions. The lack of access has
seriously disrupted our ability to help ensure that children have
access to emergency food and hygiene supplies, safe water, a protective
environment, and the psychosocial support that they need.
Gaza—increased poverty and isolation
18. Long-term isolation, compounded by the fiscal
crisis and the current military campaign, has pushed Gaza to a
humanitarian crisis. Currently in Gaza, 87.7% of households are
living below the poverty line, [237]and
70% of the Gazan population is food insecure and dependent on
assistance from the United Nations to cover their basic needs.
[238]The
poor were particularly affected following the Israeli military
bombing of Gaza's main power plant. These families, already reducing
household costs by buying cheaper foods and eating less, are facing
new shortages in electricity and cooking gas. As a way to cope
with poverty, some families send their children to collect empty
cartons and wood chips for fuel in order to cook. [239]
19. Save the Children assessments in al Shoka,
Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun have shown in these areas in particular
that many families earn little or no income. About 24% of the
population in these areas work for the government, and have not
been paid their regular salaries since March. General unemployment
in these areas is about 30% and the average income level for 62%
of the population is less than 126 GBP (1,000 NIS)/month.
20. Diarrhoea in children 0-3 has increased
in Gaza's refugee population, indicating a deterioration in the
water quality. [240]The
continuous shelling of the Beit Lahia Waste Water Treatment Plant
by the Israeli military has damaged the infiltration pools and
banks and prevented maintenance teams from assessing the damage.
[241]
21. As indicated, children have been impacted
by the increased levels not only of poverty, but of isolation
and violence as well. Children are confined to their homes and
are afraid to play outside because of shelling and aerial bombardment.
Children also suffer psychosocial problems such as anxiety, stress,
sleeplessness, loss of appetite, aggressive behaviour and difficulties
related to academic achievement. [242]
October 2006
225 OCHA, The Humanitarian Monitor, occupied Palestinian
territory, CAP 2006. Back
226
Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, Poverty in the Palestinian
Territory, 2nd Quarter, 2006. Back
227
PCBS, 2nd quarter, 2006. Back
228
Ibid Back
229
Hospital and Ministry of Health reports, September 2006. Back
230
OCHA Humanitarian Monitor, No 4, August 2006. Back
231
OCHA, Humanitarian Monitor, occupied Palestinian territory, August
2006. Back
232
OCHA, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, April
2006. Back
233
Ibid Back
234
http://www.humanitarianinfo.org/opt/docs/UN/OCHA/OCHABarrierProj-6jul06.pdf Back
235
OCHA, Update 4, Preliminary Analysis of the Humanitarian Implications
of the April 2006 Barrier Projections. Back
236
Living Behind Barriers report, Save the Children, March 2004. Back
237
Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, Poverty in the Palestinian
territory, 2nd Quarter 2006. Back
238
World Food Program warns of deteriorating humanitarian situation
in Gaza, World Food Programme press release, 28 August 2006. Also,
UNRWA statistics from Press Release issued 6 July 2006. Back
239
Ibid Back
240
OCHA Humanitarian Monitor, No 4, August 2006. Back
241
OCHA Humanitarian Monitor, No 3, July 2006. Back
242
Save the Children Alliance, Questionnaire in Beit Lahia, Beit
Hanun and al-Shoka in Gaza, August/September 2006. Back
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