THE UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has condemned Israel’s oppressive occupation and its damaging effects on Palestinians’ everyday lives, expressing concerns about the regime’s forces’ use of lethal force against Palestinians.
In its 2016 annual report released on Wednesday, OCHA estimated that some 4.8 million Palestinians were affected by the Israeli occupation, two million of them ‘in need of humanitarian assistance and protection’.
‘The prolonged occupation, with no end in sight, cultivates a sense of hopelessness and frustration that drives continued conflict’ in the region, the report said. The occupation denies Palestinians control over basic aspects of daily life … Their ability to move unimpeded within their own country, to exit and return, to develop large parts of their territory, build on their own land, access natural resources or develop their economy is largely determined by the Israeli military,’ it added.
The report came days ahead of the 50th anniversary of the Tel Aviv regime’s occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem al-Quds during the 1967 war. Last week, thousands of Israelis staged a protest rally in Tel Aviv to voice their support for an independent Palestinian state and call for an end to the Israeli occupation.
• While the Palestinian Foreign Ministry welcomed the OCHA annual report it nevertheless said the report was too little, too late. The ministry said that the report, even though it came late, ‘reflects only a part of the great suffering of our people as a result of the occupier’s policies, practices and crimes’.
It said that the difficulty of the political and humanitarian situation experienced by the Palestinians seems to have forced the UN to openly talk about them in spite of its earlier silence regarding most of the Israeli violations of international law.
‘It appears that the United Nations either is no longer able to bear the level of those violations that have reached serious stages that led it to issue its report, or is obliged due to the time factor to issue this periodic report,’ it said.