Speaking to representatives of humanitarian organisations in Geneva and to officials in key Arab capitals, Dina Ezzat finds no answer yet to the suffering of Palestinians in the occupied territories and beyond This week the Palestinian Hamas government asked for information to be released about the circumstances of the killing of a leading member of the Palestinian community in Iraq. In a direct appeal addressed to the Iraqi government, and in requests forwarded to the Arab League and concerned humanitarian organisations, the Hamas government begged for an end to the victimisation of Palestinians in Iraq. Since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the considerably large Palestinian community in Iraq has been under attack. During the past year, as civil confrontations in Iraq developed into a declared sectarian war, Palestinians' conditions have moved from bad to worse. Thousands have been attempting to flee the country, with some being luckier than others. According to Radhouane Nouicer, deputy director of the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), which lends assistance to Palestinians out of the occupied territories and refugee camps, there were around 35,000 Palestinians living in Iraq under the rule of Saddam Hussein. Today, there is no word on the fate of over 15 per cent of these Palestinians who used to be given much support by the regime of the toppled Iraqi head of state. While Nouicer is not immediately suggesting that these Palestinians have been killed or otherwise aggressed, he argued that their whereabouts is not clear. Some might have escaped to neighbouring countries, especially Arab countries, while others might have ended up in countries of residence of relatives, especially the US and Australia. "At this stage many have left Iraq either through legal or illegal ways," Nouicer said. Some might have perished or been detained either in Iraqi or US jails in Iraq. During this month alone the Palestinian authorities have issued several appeals regarding the US arrest of Palestinian men and women in Iraq. Neither the US nor the Iraqi government could provide Palestinian authorities with accurate figures in relation to the number of Palestinians in Iraqi or US jails in Iraq -- or for that matter the details of the likely charges levelled against them. Palestinian officials say there is a general accusation of lending support to militant groups fighting the US military occupation in Iraq. Victimised by the Shia as part of the Sunni population, and by the Sunni in revenge for the privileged treatment they were granted by Saddam at the expense of Iraqis themselves, Palestinians are in the bad books of most, if not all, the fighting factions in Iraq today. As a result, many Palestinians, Nouicer said, have tried their best to escape the inferno in Iraq. The problem, he added, is that apart from those who had the resources and contacts to grant them alternative residence, the vast majority are without the means to alternate refuge. Thousands are known to have attempted, with no luck, to enter neighbouring Jordan and Syria. Others aspired to reside in Egypt but were equally disbarred. Some surely went back to Iraq after being rejected entry to other countries; others are still stranded on the Iraqi borders with both neighbouring Syria and Jordan. "The Syrian and Jordanian governments have accommodated a few hundred Palestinian refugees, but they have refused to take in more because, as they legitimately pointed out, they already have a big problem with a huge number of Palestinian refugees living in and out of refugee camps administered by UNRWA," Nouicer said. As a result, those who were too scared to go back, given that death threats were already issued against them, chose to stay in no man's land. "They are stranded on the borders in miserable and terrifying conditions that are not fit for human beings. They live in strictly uninhibited zones with hardly any roof on top of their heads, except for the vulnerable tents that we have to keep changing as they are destroyed by the force of the elements. They have no access to electricity or potable water and have very limited access to food and medicine," Nouicer said. He added: "Despite such bad conditions, and despite that the areas where they are in camps are awash with snakes and scorpions we, as UNHCR, still do not encourage them to go back to Iraq because it is a very serious risk to go back to a place where they are immediate targets of killing and victimisation." While it is true that so far only a few hundred Palestinians are stranded on the borders, humanitarian sources assess that if the situation continues to deteriorate in Iraq -- as it is expected to -- their number could suddenly balloon into thousands. UNHCR is not excluding a worst-case scenario, but is hoping that a miracle will prevent another Palestinian humanitarian disaster. Acting on the basis of realism, UNHCR had already sent letters to all Arab countries pleading them to provide refuge for some of the Palestinians who are desperately looking for an exit from Iraq. None of the 21 Arab countries have demonstrated any willingness to accommodate any of these Palestinians. Neither has Israel allowed UNHCR to entertain any plans of helping some Palestinians on death lists in Iraq to reunite with the equally devastated, but ironically less endangered, Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Australia, the US, New Zealand and Canada are being pushed take more. Scores of Palestinian families have now settled in both Australia and Canada and many more are finalising their paperwork to get there. This, however, is not a result that the Palestinian Ministry for Refugees Affairs appreciates. On Monday the ministry officially expressed dismay at the decision of the Australian government to grant refugee status to Palestinians hoping to escape Iraq, labelling the decision an attempt to dilute the right of return granted to Palestinian refugees by UN General Assembly resolution 194. The Australian government, the Palestinian Ministry for Refugee Affairs charges, is only trying to help Israel achieve its objective of eliminating the national Palestinian right of return. UNHCR argues that it is better to grant desperate Palestinians temporary residence and keep them out of harm's way than to leave them to the mercy of heavily armed Iraqi militant groups that hold obvious grudges against them. "At any event, it has to be clear that resettlement does not exclude the right of return when it becomes feasible," Nouicer said. Nouicer is hoping for a situation whereby fleeing Palestinians do not have to be forced from one refugee residence into another, but he is not optimistic. According to Nouicer, the Iraqi government, with all the security responsibilities it is entrusted with, has been unable to provide the resources required to beef-up security for districts of obvious Palestinian population density, nor is the Kurdish government in the relatively calm north of Iraq willing to allow the relocation of Palestinians from Shia-Sunni districts. As such, he added, immigration from Iraq, which was never for Palestinians a nation of origin, is the obvious answer. For its part, the Hamas government, sources say, have been attempting to use its close ties with Iran, the leading supporter of Shias in Iraq, to prompt an end to the victimisation of Palestinians by the Shia Badr militia. It has also communicated messages to leading Sunni figures in Iraq to spare and secure Palestinians who have no means to leave Iraq. For Nouicer, and other members of the international body of humanitarian organisations based in Geneva, the world's humanitarian capital, the problem of Palestinians in Iraq is only part of the overall Palestinian plight that seems to have no happy ending at sight. While every single humanitarian official is determined not to talk politics -- and indeed not to blame Israel for this saga of agonies inflicted upon a whole population that is divided under occupation or in endless refugee status -- humanitarian workers are expressing deep concern for the impact of the deteriorating situation on the humanitarian conditions of Palestinians. During a five-day visit to the Middle East last week, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour expressed concern on the fate and well-being of innocent civilians as a result of endless violence. Arriving to Israel and the Palestinian occupied territories in the wake of the Beit Hanoun massacre committed by Israel, Arbour gave Israel the licence to "protect itself against Qassam rockets" but insisted that any measures to be taken by the Israeli government should not undermine the safety of innocent Palestinian civilians. For months, however, according to several humanitarian organisations, Israel's alleged strategy of self-defence has compromised the well-being and livelihood of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. According to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the deterioration of household economies in both the West Bank and Gaza has been on the increase for years but peaked during the past year, mostly as a result of closures and other economic and military measures adopted by the Israeli government. Today, 60 per cent of Palestinians living in Gaza and the West Bank, the ICRC asserts, are either poor or very poor. "This confirms the fears expressed repeatedly by the ICRC concerning the consequences in humanitarian terms of the economic situation in Gaza and the West Bank," the ICRC said last week. According to a recent report, households surveyed by the ICRC fall well below the World Bank's poverty limits, judged by cash incomes. Judging by "coping mechanisms", which include access to assistance, buying on credit and taking loans, the situation is not much better, especially in view of the effective strangulation of such mechanisms in recent months under the hold of draconian sanctions against the Hamas government. The ICRC is also reporting declining health services at a time of increased health needs. In a special report, the ICRC stated that increased health needs that resulted from the suspension of funding imposed on the Palestinian Authority "by Israel and the Quartet" have not at all been met. As a result, ICRC sources say, the international humanitarian aid organisation has been rapidly increasing its assistance budget to Palestinians during the past 12 months to cope with the worsening situation. According to Dorothea Krimitsas, ICRC media relations officer, at the beginning of this year ICRC has marked about 43 million Swiss Francs for programmes to assist Palestinians under occupation in Gaza and the West Bank. Later in the year, ICRC decided to increase this budget to 53 million Francs, "simply because it was necessary". And for next year the budget tentatively earmarked has jumped to 71 million Swiss Francs. Given the high level of concern about the ongoing, and probably still to worsen, humanitarian catastrophe, Krimitsas says, ICRC might have to again increase its aid budget which is only part of a much larger assistance budget that is pooled by a large group of UN and other organisations. The endless race of these organisations to meet the basic demands of Palestinians under occupation has not been particularly successful, as they admit. "There is a [pressing] problem of health and a problem of impoverishment," Krimitsas said. These problems are unlikely to disappear anytime soon. "The sardine fishing season is coming up, but access to the sea in Gaza is restricted and fishermen are simply dependent on this income. If they cannot get this income they will have problems for three months," Krimitsas said. She added that given that each boat is shared by around 10 to 12 fishermen, and that each of these fishermen has over a six-member family to support, the impact of prohibiting one boat from going fishing will impact up to 200 people. "This is only one example," she said. The consequences go far beyond leaving families and children with malnutrition. They also include having women giving birth at home, or in the open, with no medical assistance whatsoever. Recently, the ICRC documented cases where doctors on strike because they go unpaid declined to provide medical assistance for individuals who had no means of accessing private sector health care. The result, in some cases, was the death of individuals and in other cases the infliction of permanent health handicaps. "This is all related to the problem of declining health conditions, worsening health services and impoverishment of the entire population," the ICRC official said. For the ICRC and other humanitarian organisations that have been working on the ground since the 1948 and 1967 wars, the situation in the West Bank and Gaza now is probably as bad as it has ever been in the long history of the Palestinian plight. "People are not in a position to meet their basic needs," Krimitsas said. According to many diplomats and humanitarian officials, the improvement of the situation would require more than increasing funds dedicated for humanitarian assistance. Some say it requires the resolve of the humanitarian community, especially the UN Human Rights Council, to issue clear and unequivocal directives on what the world needs to do to counter Palestinian suffering. Others suggest that it requires immediate political will from the UN Security Council to condemn the suffering of Palestinians and to impose action necessary to prevent a further deterioration. "The fact of the matter is that when we negotiate the language of resolutions to be issued by the Human Rights Council we are faced with opposition of certain Israeli-biased states to any strong language on the assumption that this language is not the language adopted by the UN Security Council," commented one Geneva-based Arab diplomat. He added that this "spill-over effect" of "transatlantic bias to Israel" is bound to allow "further humanitarian deterioration on the ground for Palestinians." So while the Human Rights Council is still issuing statements in support of Palestinians and opposing violations committed by Israel, whether against innocent civilians or through the construction of illegal settlements in occupied territories, their language has not been sufficient to prompt any change of attitude on the part of Israel. According to Ambassador Saad El-Fararguie, Arab League Permanent Representative to Geneva, Arab countries need to work on securing more political sympathy if they wish to garner more support. This year, El-Fararguie argued, Arab countries have had enough support from the Human Rights Council, given that a good number of its members happened to be of Arab and Islamic groups. But given the upcoming change of members of the Council there are no guarantees that the situation may not take a different turn. El-Fararguie argues there is a need for "a dedicated and consistent diplomatic effort to revive world support for the legitimate rights of Pal
