Malnutrition of Palestinian Children Likely To Worsen, UNICEF Says

 

GAZA, August 24, 2004 (IPC+Agencies)--- The United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) warned that the escalated violence between the Israelis and the Palestinians and the steadily worsening Palestinian economy, both health and nutrition situations of the Palestinian children are likely to go downhill in the upcoming years.

 

In a report, the executive council of UNICEF called upon the human rights watchdogs and the international relative bodies to move immediately to stave off the danger the Palestinian children are liable to and support them with the required foodstuffs and health aids as they are frequently subjected to indiscriminate shooting by the Israeli occupying forces.

 

Mrs. Sumyia Al Burghothi, Deputy Permanent Observer of Palestine at the United Nations, called on the UN Security Council and the member states in the United Nations to bring an end to the outrageous Israeli violation of the international humanitarian law.

 

In a letter passed on to the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and the president of the Security Council, she said that the ongoing Israeli policies and practices, including the extrajudicial killing and the unleashing grave breaches of the human rights against the Palestinian people constitute a contravention of international law and worsening the already exacerbated situation on the ground.

 

She urged the international community to work on persistently to rein in the Israeli atrocities against the Palestinian people and guarantee an Israeli adherence with the international law.    

 

The monthly report issued by the Palestinian National Information Center (PNIC), which titled Israeli violation during Al Aqsa Intifada, noted that 643 children were killed during Al Aqsa Intifada.

 

According to the Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS), the Israeli authorities currently withhold 350 minors whose ages range from 13 and 18 years old. Many of these minors were exposed to various levels of torture, humiliation and inhuman treatment from the minute they were taken from their homes late at night. Minors, like other Palestinian prisoners, are led to detention centers where severe methods of interrogation are used against them and then put to trial before military courts.