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UN exposes Israel's strangulation of Palestinian livelihood by S. Ramy Two Years of Israeli terrorism and brutalities in occupied Palestine have rendered at least “63 percent” of Palestinian work force in the West Bank, and “50percent” in Gaza out of work, causing “70 percent” of the population in Gaza to live under the poverty line, U.N. officials admit. These awesome figures highlight a U.N. Special Envoy Terje Roed-Larsen’s latest report on the rapidly deteriorating Palestinian economy under the shadow of Israeli guns and the boots of occupation troops. "Throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Palestinians (3.3 million souls) have run out of money and are unable to work to earn it. They increasingly must rely on handouts, selling personal items, credit anything simply to survive,” Roed-Larsen said in a written statement, adding that Israeli restrictions on the movement of people in occupied Palestine constitute “ de facto consequence of collective punishment of Palestinian civilians.” The U.N. finds out that unemployment in the West Bank—where two million Palestinians are imprisoned in their homes since mid-June-- skyrocketed to 63 percent, and as high as 55 percent of its population lives under abject poverty. But in heavily populated Gaza (1.3 million Palestinians mostly refugees live in 350 kilometers of land which its quarter is assigned to few hundreds of Jewish settlers) the unemployment rate among Palestinians stood at 50 percent with 70 percent living in abject poverty. Describing these terrible findings, Roed-Larsen’s spokesman Mark Dennis said “Its part of a serious and continual deterioration of the [Palestinian] economy since the beginning of the closure regime in October 2000[forced by endless columns of Israeli tanks and armored vehicles, and tens of thousands of soldiers and reservists]. On its part the World Bank said in a report published on Aug. 31,02 “ the Palestinian economy is in severe recession,” adding that “ any significant recovery of the Palestinian economy requires that the government of Israeli occupation dismantle the present system of internal [military] checkpoints and border restriction on workers,” Hundreds of Israeli military checkpoints scattered in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank have restricted movement of people to their daily work, reaching hospitals and schools, thus disrupting the cycle of production and bringing the Palestinian economy to its knees. Furthermore, some two million Palestinians living in the West Bank cities of Nablus, Jenin, Tulkarm, Ramallah, Beereh, Hebron, Qalqiliya, scores of villages and dozen of heavily populated refugee camps have been under strict curfew for three months. In such difficult circumstances created by the occupation and its collective punishments, no wonder that the majority of the Palestinian people “are living merely on handouts”.
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