GAZACITY, 15 May 2007 (IRIN) - Renewed infighting among rival Palestinian armed groups has put aid agencies on the alert for more bloodshed as well as threats to their staff in the troubled Gaza Strip. More than 400 Palestinians have been killed in clashes mainly between militias affiliated to the Hamas and Fatah political parties in the past 14 months. Inter-Palestinian violence, some of it clan-related rather than political, is accounting for at least as many Palestinian deaths as Israeli military action, the UN reported this year. Read more about Aid agencies dig in as Gaza erupts
JERUSALEM, 8 May 2007 (IRIN) - A recently renewed strike by Palestinian public health workers is severely affecting services by government hospitals and primary healthcare centres throughout the West Bank, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Monday. “The longer the strike continues, the greater the likelihood of long-term health effects,” said Eileen Daly, the ICRC’s health coordinator for the West Bank. Read more about West Bank health services deteriorate as Palestinian medical sector strikes
JERUSALEM, 29 April 2007 (IRIN) - A recent United Nations report reveals that the humanitarian situation in the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt) continued to deteriorate in the second half of last year, largely because of a collapsing economy. Many Palestinians fell further into poverty. The Gaza Strip was the hardest hit with about 80 percent of households earning less than US $1 a day, twice the percentage of those earning that little in the West Bank. Read more about Humanitarian situation worsened in OPT in 2006
UMMNASSER, 16 April 2007 (IRIN) - Hundreds of Bedouin families living in tents after their north Gaza village was flooded with sewage are in urgent need of medicine and blankets, the UN and local doctors have warned. Three hundred families are living in tents pitched on high ground near Umm Nasser, the village that was flooded after a filtration basin broke, sending thousands of cubic metres of sewage into the village on 27 March. Five residents were killed in the flood and 18 more were injured. Read more about Evacuated sewage disaster victims need medicine and blankets
Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani12 April 2007
CAIRO, Apr 12 (IPS) - Israel’s rejection of the Arab peace initiative, which was reiterated at last month’s Arab Summit, drew emphatic criticism from Egyptian commentators. Although Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert later called for peace talks with “moderate” Arab heads of state, most local political observers say Tel Aviv wants to have its cake and eat it too. “Olmert’s response was an attempt to normalise relations without responding to the initiative’s demands,” Mohamed Basyouni, former Egyptian ambassador to Israel and head of the committee for Arab affairs in the Shura Council (the upper consultative house of the Egyptian parliament) told IPS. Read more about Egypt: Israel Seen as Fighting Peace
A survey commissioned by international development agency Oxfam International and released today, highlights how the suspension of Western aid and Israel’s refusal to transfer money owed to the Palestinian Authority (PA) has led to grave humanitarian consequences for Palestinians. The survey by the Palestinian Centre for Public Opinion (PCPO) found that more than four out of five of the 677 families interviewed have seen a drop in their income following the year long boycott of the Palestinian Authority. Half of all the families reported losing more than half their income. Read more about Oxfam Survey: Financial Boycott Pushes Palestinians into Poverty
Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani31 March 2007
CAIRO, Mar 30 (IPS) - Another diplomatic row has erupted between Cairo and Tel Aviv after a documentary film aired on Israeli television in February claimed that Israeli forces had executed hundreds of unarmed Egyptian prisoners of war (POWs) in the wake of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. The foreign ministry summoned the Israeli ambassador to express “Egypt’s anger” over the revelations, but critics from across the political spectrum decried the step as inadequate. Read more about Alleged POW Killings Spark Egypt-Israel Diplomatic Row
Reports in the media indicate this week that Nablus is once again experiencing another incursion into the area with several fatalities. Since February 28, 2007, the city of Nablus has been the scene of repeated incursions. In response to calls for assistance to the city, Caritas Jerusalem has undertaken a distribution of humanitarian aid packages of food to 200 residents of Nablus’ Old City. The major problem that Nablus faces is the fact that the city is a virtual prison for its inhabitants. The region of Nablus is tightly monitored and movement restrictions in that area are very closely monitored by the Israeli army. The map on the previous page illustrates this very well. Read more about Emergency Situation in Nablus
United Nations relief agencies are responding to the needs arising from the bursting of a sewage reservoir in an emergency filtration basin at the waste water treatment plant in Beit Lahia in Gaza. According to latest reports, waste flooding into the nearby Bedouin village of Um Al Nasser killed four people and injured 18, while 11 people remain missing. Ninety-six homes were destroyed or damaged. Between 250 and 300 families have been relocated to a temporary camp situated on higher ground between the Bedouin village and the former Israeli Nissanit settlement. Read more about United Nations aids victims of sewage spill in Gaza
The victims who were killed in yesterday’s environmental disaster in Um El-Naser (Bedouin) village increased to five after rescue crews recovered the body of Fatima Habban Abu Safra (70) yesterday afternoon. The body was found under the rubble of her house that was flooded by sewage water. It is noted that earth barriers around a sewage pool that was constructed last September broke and flooded the village. The pool was constructed by a joint council of municipalities in the northern Gaza Strip. Rescue teams recovered four bodies in earlier rescue operations. All of them were drowned by the sewage flood. Read more about Um El-Naser Environmental Disaster Victims Increase to Five
