International Activity Report 2006

Palestinian Territories

International Staff: 18

National Staff: 62

Many people living in the Palestinian Territories experience direct violence, isolation, restrictions on movement, and difficulties accessing healthcare. The living conditions have psychological consequences for many individuals, manifesting as depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder or psychosomatic illness. MSF teams provide psychological and medical care and social work assistance to help.

In mid-2005, MSF readied for possible consequences of the Israeli government’s plan to dismantle Israeli settlements in Gaza, preparing an emergency program before the August withdrawal of nearly 8000 settlers. Ultimately, the army’s action was carried out without major clashes.

In 2005, MSF undertook a large water and sanitation project in a disadvantaged area of Gaza known as Al Fara Towers, located in the Tuffah neighborhood of Khan Younis. MSF carried out a scabies eradication program in coordination with the local municipality, while logisticians fixed leaking indoor plumbing, constructed septic tanks, and distributed food kits and household items such as mattresses and blankets.

Throughout the year, MSF worked in the city of Nablus in the West Bank, diversifying its referral network. Through these efforts, the team is now well known in this city of about 150,000 people.

Approximately 35 per cent of MSF’s patients in Nablus live in one of the three refugee camps, the majority live in the old city. Here the medical aspect of the program supports work done by the team’s psychologists. A social worker also plays a key role, referring patients to agencies for socioeconomic assistance.

In the West Bank district of Hebron, approximately 70 per cent of MSF’s patients experienced a traumatic episode in the past year. MSF gives home-based treatment and support for individuals or families using a team including a psychologist, a social worker and a doctor. MSF is also trying to improve access to health services by making regular visits to the Bedouin communities living in the south of the district, and to populations residing in areas where movement restrictions make it nearly impossible for them to reach health services.

When the January 2006 legislative elections brought Hamas to power, the US, Canada, European Union and Japan decided to suspend their bilateral financial aid to the Palestinian Authority. However, they promised to continue to help the population meet its basic needs by reallocating part of those funds to the UN and other international aid organizations working in the territories. On 13 April 2006, MSF publicly denounced this plan.

MSF emphasised that although it was a government’s choice to suspend aid, humanitarian actors could not be used in an attempt to veil retaliatory measures that would impact the entire population. It also pointed out that humanitarian aid groups lacked the competence, means and responsibility to act as a substitute for the Palestinian Authority. Instead, MSF said, meeting the basic needs of civilians living in the occupied territories was the responsibility of the state of Israel, as set out in the Geneva Conventions. MSF feared that this “instrumentalisation” of NGOs and confusion of roles and responsibilities would jeopardise NGOs’ independence and could put them in danger in an already unstable context.

MSF has worked in the Palestinian Territories since 1988.