Quote:
Originally Posted by burn_this_city
Your article is from 2007, not exactly current considering the blockade started that year. Israel imports the bare minimum food so the people don't starve, but calories alone don't stop malnutrition. 10% of kids are stunted, and 65% suffer from anemia. The blockade also stops people from getting essential medical care and necessary medicine. 30% of drugs deemed essential have 0 stock.
http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb...20FINAL-LR.pdf
If you're looking for another source, Unicef has similar numbers online. |
The blockade is no longer in existence. The blockade against food products was ended in 2011. As I previously mentioned, Israel does not control the border with Egypt.
If malnutrition in the Palestinian territories was a problem, you'd expect that to be reflected in life expectancy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ife_expectancy
Desptie having higher birthrights, the people of Gaza have a higher life expectancy than the best comparable, Egypt, and the peolpe in the West Bank have a higher life expectancy than their best comparables, Jordan.
I don't deny that Palestinians suffer as a result of this conflict, but trying to compare their plight to sub-saharan Africa is nothing but propaganda. Look at the life expectancy stats on those nations that you say are comparable. The majority are sub-50 years. While like I mentioned above, the Palestinians have a higher life expectancy than their non "occupied" arab contemporaries.
Also, you don't find it slightly suspect that the agencies reporting this "famine" are the agencies who's livelyhood depends solely on their being a famine. Pictures and evidence coming out of the Gaza Strip in no way support the idea there is any shortage of food there.
Edit:
The rates of Anemia, what your report sites as a major symptom of malnutrition, are less in the Gaza Strip, than they are in Egypt:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12197323