I thank the committee for agreeing to meet us. We are very grateful for the opportunity to present the views expressed in and research gathered for our report, Losing Ground, Israel, Poverty and the Palestinians. I will briefly outline the aims and conclusions of the report. The principal opportunity arising from this meeting is to allow our partners, who work in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, to inform the committee of the reality there, as they see it, and explain what people in Ireland and Europe can do about the situation. Reverend Robert Herron, president of the Irish Council of Churches, will then say a few words about his recent visit to the area with Christian Aid.
As with all our work, Christian Aid approaches the issue of Israel, poverty and the Palestinians, which the report covers, from a development and human rights perspective. We work with our partners in almost 60 countries throughout the world to expose the scandal of poverty, challenge its root causes and contribute to its eradication. In the case of the Middle East we have pursued these objectives with our Israeli and Palestinian partners for more than 50 years.
In recent years our sense has been that poverty among the Palestinians is getting worse, not better. Just as we do in many countries around the world when faced with the challenge of poverty, our response to this issue has been to consult our partners, commission research and produce a report to inform our policy, development practice and advocacy of solutions which, we hope, will make a lasting difference on the ground in the long-term.
The findings are stark. We are all used to seeing television images of violence from the Middle East. This report details another sort of violence below the headlines, namely, the dramatic plunge of ordinary Palestinians into extreme poverty and the creation during the past two years of a humanitarian crisis which has rendered long-term development work of the sort normally done by PARC virtually impossible. As well as being a Christian Aid partner, PARC is a long-standing partner of Ireland Aid and receives finance from the Irish Government through its overseas programme, which Mr. Abdullah will discuss.
In brief, some of our key findings are that three quarters of Palestinians in the occupied territories are now living on less than $2 a day, the official United Nations poverty line. Almost all Palestinians are worse off now than they were when the peace process began nearly ten years ago. The hoped for peace dividend has not materialised. Since 2000, when the current phase of the conflict started, key indicators of poverty have been getting worse. We found, for example, that malnutrition among the population has risen to almost 13%, anaemia among children under five years has risen to 20% and in the Gaza Strip the number of new mental health cases has doubled in the past two years. Having done the research for the report and spoken to our partners, which are both Israeli and Palestinian, we found that the main responsibility for the current humanitarian crisis rests principally with Israel's military occupation of the territories. Over the longer term the actions of the Israeli Government has created a situation of "de-development" through the systematic erosion of the basis for a viable Palestinian economy and society. One might have hoped the Oslo agreement would have made a difference but things have got worse.
We identified a number of key structures causing poverty, including the loss of land; the expansion of settlements; the control of water - about which I will make a few remarks later; and the closures and curfew restriction on movement. The lack of a strong and accountable self-government for the Palestinians must also be included. It is not only the Israelis who are to blame. The Palestinian Authority has not made poverty eradication its priority, which we note in the report. Our partners are best placed to inform the committee on the human dimension of these realities outlined in the report.
I wish to highlight the issue of water in regard to agriculture. Since 1967 Israel has tightened its control over water in the occupied territories. For example, before a well can be dug the permission of the Israelis is required. No new water sources are allowed for agricultural purposes. This is despite the fact that over half the wells that were functioning in 1967 are no longer in use. The Palestinian response has been to bring water into villages by truck, which is hampered by the restrictions on movement. This method also costs three times as much as it did a few years ago. They also use water tanks on their roofs, but from talking to people on the ground it appears the tanks are routinely shot at by Israelis, supposedly randomly in cross-fire but there is such a pattern that we conclude that it may not be so random.
This is having a major effect on agriculture, which is a cornerstone of the Palestinian economy. Agriculture accounted for 27% of Palestinian gross domestic product as recently as the run up to the Oslo peace process, but now it only constitutes 7% of GDP in the Palestinian territories. In the 1970s some 17% of the land was irrigated but now they can only irrigate 5%. Due to the trade restrictions imposed by the Israelis the value of agricultural exports fell by 30% in 2001. Because of the closures, which have meant that farmers do not have access to the land or do not have access to a market, agricultural earnings in 2001-02 fell by 70%. In Ireland we are aware of the important role that agriculture can play in the economy. It has played a key role in Palestine yet it is being undermined by the policies of the Israeli Government.
As has been said already, our conclusion is that it is the occupation that is responsible for the deepening poverty in Palestine. The Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories has been condemned by the United Nations. We affirm that the confiscation of land is in contravention of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which protects civilians and populations under occupation. The closures and curfews amount to collective punishment, which is forbidden by the same convention. The international community has failed to uphold the law which it has created and has failed to ensure a resolution to the conflict that would end the occupation it has condemned. If the international community is to tackle Palestinian poverty and allow Palestinians to tackle it themselves we need to do something to alleviate the current humanitarian crisis.
Israeli troops must withdraw to the positions they held two years ago before the current intifada. There should be an international presence on the ground to monitor human rights abuses on both sides and to allow humanitarian work to proceed unimpeded. We must also act now to create the economic foundations for sustainable development. At the very least there must be freedom of movement of goods, services and people within and between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank if people are to be able to trade and earn their way out of poverty. We must also move to dismantle the occupation and ensure a just and lasting peace between Israel and a future Palestinian state. The European Union, including Ireland, must specify what actions it is taking and will take to ensure Israeli compliance with international law, particularly the Fourth Geneva Convention.
The European Union also has a bilateral trade agreement with Israel, which offers it preferential access to our markets. The agreement contains a human rights clause and it is time we called on the European Union to review the agreement and its operation in respect of the human rights clause. If it is not being respected then the trade preferences should not be continued. The agreement provides for the suspension of the agreement when either party is in breach.
We welcome the Government's support for development in the Palestinian territories. There is a long-standing relationship with NGOs such as PARC, which is one of our partners, and also for the Palestinian Authority since the Oslo peace accord. The Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs, Deputy Kitt, announced today that he is to visit the area, which we also welcome. Perhaps there may be an opportunity for a parliamentary delegation at some time in the future. We would be willing to collaborate on that.
We urge the Irish Government and our legislators to seek every opportunity to influence the international community to ensure Israeli compliance with international law and to re-start negotiations for a settlement that would be just and lasting for both parties in the Middle East.
Judeh Abdullah from PARC will speak of his experience and how he sees the current situation.