Poverty: 46% of Palestinians in the West Bank and 70% in the Gaza Strip are below the poverty line. In the 2005/2006 school year 56,000 children could not afford the $11 fee to go to school.
Refugees: There are over 1 million Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip
and 5.5 million worldwide, making them the largest refugee population in the world.
Prisoners: The Israeli army and government exercise virtually unchecked freedom to detain, threaten, arrest, imprison, torture, and assassinate Palestinians, often without charge or trial. As of Feb. 2011, 5834 Palestinians are being held in Israeli prisons. No less than 221 of them are children and 798 of them are serving life sentences.
Unemployment: The Gaza Strip’s unemployment rate is a staggering 40% and 86% of the entire population depend on foreign aid just to survive.
Lack of Rights: Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and in Israel are denied equal rights to Jews in the same areas purely on the basis of their religion and ethnicity.
The Wall: or “Security Fence”, that is currently under construction by Israel in the name of preventing terrorism in fact weaves through, not around, the West Bank, effectively separating hundreds of thousands of West Bank Palestinians from their land, jobs, hospitals, and schools, and from each other. 266,442 Palestinians in 78 communities will be isolated when the barrier is completed.
Checkpoints: The Israeli military controls the movement of nearly four million Palestinians through a system of checkpoints, roadblocks, and segregated roads. By the same means, Israel also limits the supply of food, water, medical supplies, and other basic necessities to Palestinian civilians. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society has reported 112 deaths and 35 stillbirths as a result.
Settlements: Israeli settlers suffer practically no legal consequences for building new illegal (according to international and Israeli law) settlements, for expanding existing ones, or for threatening or physically attacking Palestinian civilians. There are currently 121 Israeli colonies and approximately 102 Israeli outposts built illegally on lands occupied since 1967 with approximately 462,000 Israeli settlers.
Water: Only 7% of the available water in the Gaza Strip meets World Health Organization standards and 31% of communities are not connected to any kind of water network.
Violations: Israel’s ongoing 40-year Occupation of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem is illegal and violates the Fourth Geneva Conventions, as well as more than 60 United Nations resolutions. Israel has violated more UN resolutions than any other country in the history of the organization.
American Tax Dollars: Ever year, the US government funnels billions of American tax-dollars to Israel, which are used primarily to purchase American-made weapons to arm the occupying Israeli army and settlers.
