Child malnutrition remains high in West Bank and Gaza says UNRWA

JERUSALEM (IRIN) - At a glance, the latest data on food security in the West Bank and Gaza Strip — released by the Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Food Programme and the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in July — seems to warrant optimism.

The year 2011 was the second straight year in which the number of those living in food insecurity declined in the West Bank and Gaza. In the Gaza Strip, the percentage dropped from 60 in 2009 to 44 in 2011; in the West Bank, food insecurity rates have decreased 5 percent in the same two-year period to 17 percent.

But, as UNRWA itself admits, a deeper look into the numbers is less encouraging.

In the West Bank, Palestinians who live in refugee camps have actually experienced a rise in food insecurity — from 25 percent in 2009 to 29 percent in 2011. One quarter of Palestinian households in Israeli-controlled Area C are food insecure — 8 percent more than the West Bank average. Herders’ families in Area C (which covers more than 60 percent of the West Bank) are in a precarious situation, with 34 percent suffering from food insecurity.

And while food insecurity stands at just under 30 percent in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip combined, the World Health Organization reported in May 2012 that 50 percent of infants and children under two in the West Bank and Gaza have iron deficiency anemia. According to the same WHO report, malnutrition and stunting in children under five “is not improving” and could actually be “deteriorating” (“Health conditions in the occupied Palestinian territory” more

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