CHRISTIAN AID REPORTS ON DEEPENING POVERTY
IN THE PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES

Minister of State for Overseas Development and Human Rights Tom Kitt officially launched Christian Aid’s new report Losing Ground: Israel, Poverty and the Palestinians on Tuesday 28 January 2003. Commending Christian Aid’s work in the Palestinian Territories the minister reaffirmed Ireland’s commitment to development work in the area, which he hopes to visit shortly.

The report examines in detail how Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip has been the primary cause of the destruction of the Palestinian economy. Almost three-quarters of Palestinians now live on less than US$2 a day – below the official UN poverty line. Last year, for instance, due to Israeli closures of these regions Palestinian earnings from agriculture fell by 70 per cent as farmers were unable to market their produce.

Increasing signs of poverty reported by doctors include child malnutrition, anaemia in pregnant women and a sharp increase in numbers of underweight babies. Stress –related conditions, such as heart disease and hypertension, have also increased. Since the beginning of the second intifada in September 2000 new cases at mental health clinics have grown by 100 per cent – alarmingly, most of these cases are children.

The report calls for full Israeli withdrawal from the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and for international monitors to oversee the process. It also calls on the international community to support reforms of the Palestinian Authority in the interests of the Palestinian people.

Constantine Dabbagh, Director of the Gaza Strip Programme of the Middle East Council of Churches (MEC) a Christian Aid partner, who came to Ireland for the launch, said, “I want my grandchildren to be able to play with their Jewish neighbours as I played with Jewish children in Haifa 50 years ago before I became a refugee.”

Amongst those at the report’s launch in the Shelbourne Hotel were the Right Revd Michael Mayes, Bishop of Limerick & Killaloe, chairperson of The Bishops’ Appeal Advisory Committee, and Canon Des Sinnamon, Rector of Taney, who recently spent a sabbatical in Gaza.

According to a press release at the launch Christian Aid Ireland, which has been working with partner organisations in the Middle East for fifty years, unreservedly condemns suicide bombings and all other attacks on civilians, Israeli or Palestinian, and accepts that the Palestinian Authority has failed to tackle poverty among Palestinians. Israel’s right to recognition and to safety for all its citizens as well as its right to economic development is not in question. Christian Aid Ireland simply believes that the Palestinian people should also be afforded that same right.

- ENDS –

With the compliments of the Diocesan Communications Officer 3/02/03

THE CHURCH OF IRELAND DIOCESES OF DUBLIN & GLENDALOUGH
DIOCESAN COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER VALERIE JONES
TEL: 01-4935 405/087-2356 472 (H) 01-4946 202 FAX: 01-4944 720
E-mail:dco@dublin.anglican.org