Middle East: Punishing children is not an effective policy

Israeli attacks on Beirut, Hezbollah's attacks on Haifa and the continuing Israel-Hamas struggle indicate a widening of the region's conflict that will be difficult to reverse. And while President Bush asked for Hezbollah "to lay down its arms and to stop attacking Israel," Russian President Vladimir Putin, in urging a more restrained policy, said that apparently Israel is pursuing wider goals than the return of the abducted soldiers.

In only four days of the Israeli offensive, the Lebanese death toll reached 106, mostly civilians, while 24 people, both civilian and military, had been killed in Israel. In the meantime, Israel's actions are worsening a humanitarian situation that already had been critical for all, but particularly in how it was affecting children's health and quality of life in the disputed territories.

Despite a formidable set of international laws protecting children's rights, including the Convention of the Rights of the Child signed by Israel, Palestinian children are still paying a high price in the current conflict. Several factors are important in determining children's health in the region, notably the socio-economic situation, the intifada and the punitive reaction of the Israeli Defense Forces against civilian lives and infrastructure.

As a result of the current conflict, the Palestinian economy has been devastated. More than half of the population is now living below the poverty line. Poverty has led to acute and chronic malnutrition in children as well as anemia both in children and in women of reproductive age. In June, the World Food Programme estimated that 51 percent of Palestinians — 2 million people — couldn't meet their food needs without aid, and warned that the situation in Gaza was becoming critical.

According to a Palestinian Ministry of Health report issued in June of 2006, the Israeli occupation forces and paramilitary Jewish settlers have killed 951 Palestinian children and youth, and have provoked varied degrees of injuries in almost 20,000 since September of 2000.

The impact of the conflict on children is not limited to the Palestinians. Both Israeli children and adults also suffer from the continuous threat posed by the Kassam missiles fired by the Hezbollah guerrillas. Having to flee their homes in terror to avoid being hit by those missiles is also going to leave in them long-term psychological scars.

The situation has deteriorated even further in recent days by Israel's bombing of power plants, roads and other civilian infrastructure on the two fronts.

Twenty-two hospitals in Gaza don't have electricity, and hundreds of operations had to be postponed. The lack of refrigeration has damaged not only food but also drugs and vaccines.

Accessibility and availability of quality primary health-care services have been seriously compromised. Health-care providers face serious constraints to properly treat patients, particularly those with chronic conditions and those in need of physical rehabilitation.

According to the United Nations, checkpoints, closures and curfews severely hinder access to medical care, education and employment.

The latest Israeli punitive actions have been severely criticized both from within and from outside Israel. Gideon Levy, a writer for the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, wrote, "A state that takes such steps is no longer distinguishable from a terror organization."

According to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, "a food and health crisis now threatens more than 1.5 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip." The center also states that the Israeli Defense Forces have prevented the free flow of fuel, food and medical supplies. Presently, more than 100,000 Palestinians in need of medical attention are deprived of it.

The Israeli government's brutal retaliation against Palestinian civilians constitutes a form of collective punishment specifically prohibited by several international treaties and regulations. As Marjorie Cohn, president-elect of the National Lawyers Guild and U.S. representative to the executive committee of the American Association of Jurists, has indicated, collective punishment violates Article 50 of the Hague Regulations and is also prohibited by the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Is there a way out of this present escalation of violence that threatens to engulf the whole Middle East? There is, but it requires a balanced outside intervention that is presently lacking, particularly by the U.S., which has maintained its unwavering support for the actions carried out by the Israeli government.

Peace now is as elusive as ever in the Middle East. And it will continue to be so as long as innocent civilians, on both sides, are made to be pawns in a larger political game.

Dr. César Chelala is an international public-health consultant in New York City who writes extensively on public health and human-rights issues.