A hungry Man is an Angry Man!
"I have no heart for somebody who starves his folks." This is New York Times’ recent quote. The speaker is Mr. George W. Bush. Apart from the occasion, the question which came to my mind when I first browsed this quote, does his Excellency have a heart for those who not only deteriorate their economy and very soon to starve their people and every surrounding? It is said that a hungry man is an angry man! Hopefully, the Israeli inflicted hunger on Palestinians would soon be lifted. Actually such a hunger is even inflicted in a way or another on many worldwide, mostly in this part of the world!
According to AP newswires, on December 11th 2002, Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, Mr. Peter Hansen, slams Israel for hindering aid work for Palestinians in Gaza, West Bank. Mr. Hansen accused Israel of hindering the organization's work and not respecting its "humanitarian obligations." Hansen said Israeli troops regularly harassed workers of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, or UNRWA, at checkpoints. Two U.N. school employees were among 10 Palestinians recently killed in Gaza. Recently, Israeli troops had subjected relief workers to "even stricter controls and obstacles," and numerous letters of complaint to officials remain unanswered, he said. "We protest every time we feel they are not respecting their humanitarian obligations." "Twenty-three staff members were detained for long periods without any explanation at all, and we have written dozens of letters ... but not a single response,".
On December 10, 2002, Mr. Hansen wrote to the Indian “The Hindu”: “ The world has grown used to the idea that hunger manifests itself only in the hollow cheeks and distended stomachs of an African famine. But today in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, an insidious hunger has the Palestinian people in its grip. Hidden in the anaemic blood of children or lost in the statistics of stunted growth, a dreadful, silent malnutrition is stalking the Palestinians. The populations of Gaza and the West Bank have lived for over two years with checkpoints, closures and curfews that have ravaged their economy. Over 50 per cent are now unemployed and more than 60 per cent are living below the poverty line. The effect of this economic collapse was felt first in the erosion of family savings, followed by increased indebtedness and then the forced sale of household possessions.”
“ poverty is increasingly being felt in the stomach. In the terminology of experts, the Palestinians are suffering in the main from micronutrient deficiencies - what the World Health Organization calls the "Hidden Hunger." It may be less dramatic than the protein-energy malnutrition that stalks African emergencies, but on the scale that it is being found among the Palestinians it is just as serious. Micronutrient deficient children fail to grow and develop normally; their cognition is damaged, often severely and irreversibly; their immune systems are compromised; in both adults and children, mental and physical capacities are impaired. In extreme cases, blindness and death result. The mental and physical development of a generation of Palestinian children hangs in the balance. An ongoing study funded by the United States Agency for International Development has found that four out of five children in Gaza and the West Bank have inadequate iron and zinc intake, deficiencies that cause anaemia and weaken the immune system. Over half the children in each territory have inadequate caloric and vitamin A intake. The stark fact is that 22 per cent of the Palestinian children are suffering from acute or chronic malnutrition for purely man- made reasons”.
By
Mohammad Abdo Al-Ibrahim