[child-rights] Israeli policies hurting Palestinian children, UN expert on right to food says

ISRAELI POLICIES HURTING PALESTINIAN CHILDREN, UN EXPERT ON RIGHT TO FOOD SAYS
New York, Nov 12 2003  4:00PM

The United Nations expert on the right to food said today that Israel 
should be condemned for the effects that its policies of occupation are 
having on the nourishment of Palestinian children.

Jean Ziegler, Special Rapporteur of the UN Commission on Human Rights on 
the right to food, has issued a report after touring the occupied 
Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in July.

At a press briefing in New York, Mr. Ziegler said 9 per cent of Palestinian 
children under the age of five suffer some form of brain damage because of 
chronic malnutrition caused by the Israeli occupation.

He said that closures, curfews and the hindrance of the movement of people 
and merchandise within the occupied territories meant that access to food 
was lacking for many Palestinians - "the main reason for this dramatic 
situation."

Mr. Ziegler said too many Palestinians were cut off from the land they need 
for their livelihoods, thanks to the establishment of military zones, the 
construction of a security fence and what he described as a Bantustan-style 
policy of separating communities.

But the Special Rapporteur told the briefing he was not saying Israel had a 
policy of starving Palestinians into submission, and he said Israeli 
authorities, particularly the Defence Ministry, had been extremely helpful 
to him during his visit.



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