A view of the Har Homa settlement, West Bank
Facts on the ground
Christian Aid's powerful new report on Israel and the Palestinians argues that, without determined and rapid intervention by both the UK and Irish governments, the opportunity for a two-state solution will collapse.
A major crisis is developing in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Malnutrition and anaemia are mounting. According to a recent World Bank report, real per capita income in the West Bank and Gaza Strip - already down by a third in the last four years will lose another 12 percentage points by 2006. Unemployment and poverty, conservatively estimated at 28 and 50 per cent respectively, are projected to rise by seven per cent in the next 16 months. Read more and download the report here.
Demolition, land requisition and the economic stranglehold are forcing people to choose between being trapped by the barrier or leaving their homes
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There are 753 different types of obstacles to travel in the West Bank. Individually, they may seem small obstacles. But together they have a crippling effect on both economic and social life. Together, these different impediments to free movement - roadblocks, gates, fences, trenches, earth mounds, and military checkpoints - are what are known as ‘closure’, the system of movement control which exists not only around the West Bank and Gaza, but within them. Read more and download the report here.
There are 753 different types of obstacles to travel in the West Bank. Individually, they may seem small obstacles. But together they have a crippling effect on both economic and social life. Together, these different impediments to free movement - roadblocks, gates, fences, trenches, earth mounds, and military checkpoints - are what are known as ‘closure’, the system of movement control which exists not only around the West Bank and Gaza, but within them. Read more and download the report here.
Increasing poverty makes it harder for the poorest to pay the costs of consultations and medicines... people now have to choose between money for food or a visit to the clinic
It is hard to imagine the international community tolerating ethnic cleansing or forced expulsion - so-called hard transfer - such as that in the Balkans in the 1990s. However, ‘soft transfer’ - creating the conditions under which people find it very difficult or impossible to continue living in their homes - does not seem to generate the same concern. Read more and download the report here.
'...construction of the separation barrier must be stopped and existing sections must be dismantled in line with the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice'
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