PALESTINE - A Quick Reference Guide

[Arlo Silvers]

Just come across this most comprehensive online/downloadable pdf provided by The Palestine Monitor, this is just the Quick Reference Guide at the end of the 77 page doc, available at:

http://palestinemonitor.org/spip/spip.php?article760

Economy

**Over half of Palestinians live in Poverty: 45.7% in the West Bank and 79.4% in Gaza.
**With the suspension of aid in 2006 the number of people in deep poverty nearly doubled to 1 million people.
**Palestine’s GDP has fallen 2.1% in Q1 ‘08 from Q4 ‘07, leading to estimates that GDP in 2008 will comprise 70% of 1999’s.
**Per Capita GDP is expected to fall in 2008 by 7.4%.
**Unemployment has increased in Q1 ‘08 from 22.6% to 25.8% in Palestine as a whole.
**In the West Bank unemployment actually lowered (19%-16.3%).
**In the Gaza Strip it has heightened considerably under the Israeli seige (29.8%-45.5%).
**Labor force participation as a whole in Palestine is 40.6%.

Refugees

** Registered Palestinian Refugees in the Middle East total 4,618,141.
**Estimated Palestinian Refugees worldwide 5.5 million.
** The war in 1948 resulted in over 750,000 Palestinian refugees.
** The 1967 “Six-Day War”a further 240,000 refugees were created.
** Since 1967, another 400,000 Palestinians have been displaced.

The Gaza Strip

**Total Population - 1,500,202 / Population Density - 4117 per sq km
**Fertility Rate - 5.19 children/woman / Life Expectancy - 73.16 years
**Average Age - 17.2 years / Some estimates have put the median age at 15.3
**Total Refugees - 1,059,584 / Refugees as % of Population - 70%
**Unemployment - 45.5% / **% dependant on foreign aid - 86%

Prisoners

**Prisoners are held in the approximately 30 detention centers located within the 1967 borders of Israel.
**ICRC is following-up on roughly 10,500 prisoners.
**Addameer estimates that there are approximately 9,493 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
**Out of the 9,493 – 750 are administrative, 349 are aged 18 or less, 75 are female, 47 are Palestinian parliamentarians.
**According to Israeli Prison Services: 70% have been found guilty or arrested for crimes with “blood on their hands”.
** According to Israeli Prison Services: The political make-up of prisoners is: 44% Fatah, 26% Hamas, 14% Islamic Jihad, 5% Popular Front, 1% Democratic Front, and 10% are undefined.

East Jerusalem

**19% of East Jerusalem households live below the poverty line (21).
**A 2006 study estimated that 62% of Palestinians in East Jerusalem live in poverty, as compared with 23% of Jewish families in East Jerusalem (22).
**In 2005 the Arab and Jewish birthrates in Jerusalem were equivalent at 3.9 children per woman (23).
**In the first three years of occupation, Israel confiscated 18270 dunums (18,27 sq kms) of Palestinian land (4).
**By 1991 that number had reached 23378 dunums (23,4 sq kms) (5).
** By 2007, the Wall resulted in the confiscation of land belonging to 19.2% of Palestinian families in Jerusalem (6).
**From 1967 until the end of 2006, Israel had revoked the residency rights of around 8,269 Palestinian Jerusalemites (12).

The Wall

**Currently 409 km (or 57%) of the planned route has been constructed
**66km (or 9%) is currently under construction; and construction has not yet begun on 248km (or 34%) of the planned route.
**The Wall’s total length is 723km - twice the length of the Green Line between the West Bank and Israel.
**When complete, 14% of the Wall will be constructed on the Green Line or in Israel, while 86% will be inside of the West Bank.
**Approximately 385,000 settlers in 80 settlements will be located between the Wall and the Green Line.
**Approximately 35,000 West Bank Palestinians will be located between the Wall and the Green Line AKA ‘no man’s land’.
**This 35,000 is in addition to the majority of the 250,000 East Jerusalem residents who will be in a similar scenario.
**Approximately 125,000 Palestinians in 28 communities will be surrounded on three sides by the Wall.
**Approximately 26,000 Palestinians in 8 communities will be surrounded on four sides with a tunnel or road connection.
**The Wall costs the Israeli government: approximately $3.7 million per kilometer, and approx $4 billion when completed.
**Building the Wall along the Green Line would have saved Israel 5.7 billion NIS (approx $1.7 billion).
Checkpoints and Movement Restrictions.
** 74 % of the main routes in the West Bank are controlled by checkpoints or blocked entirely.
** In September 2008 there were 699 closure obstacles in the West Bank
**Approximately 130 of these have been added since the Annapolis Conference in November 2007.
** 630 of the obstacles have been identified as follows: trenches (3%), partial checkpoints (3%), earth walls (7%), roadblocks (11%), road barriers (12%), checkpoints (12%), road gates (16%) and earth mounds (36%).
** From April to September 2008 the weekly average of flying checkpoints was 89.

Settlements

**Currently 121 Israeli settlements and approximately 102 Israeli outposts. Both are built illegally on lands occupied in 1967.
**There are approximately 462,000 Israeli settlers.
** 191,000 are in settlements around Jerusalem and 271,400 are further spread throughout the West Bank.
**The settlers have grown between 4-6% per year over the last two decades in comparison to Israeli society as a whole (1.5%).
**Approx. 385,000 settlers in 80 settlements will be located between the Separation Barrier as envisioned and the Green Line.
**In 2008 tenders for new settlement building increased by 550% from 2007.
**Settlement construction has increased by 30% since the launching of the new round of peace talks.
**Settlement building around Jerusalem has increased by a factor of 38.
**9,000 new housing units have been approved in E. Jerusalem, and approximately 2,600 new housing units are being built east of the Separation Wall, comprising 55% of all settlement construction activity.
**Settlements are built on less than 3% of the oPT; yet due to the extensive infrastructure they comprise more than 40%.

Water

**The average water supply to the Palestinian communities in the oPT is about 63 liters per capita per day in the West Bank versus 140/day in Gaza.
**In 7% of the Palestinian communities (43 out of 708), per capita supply is less than or equal to 30 liters per day; in 36% (225 communities) it is between 30 and 50 liters per day; in 41% (264 communities) it is between 50 and 100 liters per day; and finally, only in 16% (100) of these communities does the per capita supply exceed 100 liters per day.
**Only 69% of Palestinian communities are connected to water networks.
**Only 7% of the available water in the Gaza Strip meets WHO standards.
**Israel, primarily the settlements, utilize 37% of the water from the Eastern Aquifer which is entirely located in teh West Bank.
**the price of water supplied by private tankers has increased in 290 communities in Palestine, with 205 of them experiencing an increase of up to 150% and the remaining 85 of them up to 200%.

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