In Palestinian Children, Signs of Increasing Malnutrition
A study under way for the United States Agency for International Development is finding that malnutrition among Palestinian children in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip has increased substantially during the conflict with Israel, according to diplomats and government officials knowledgeable about the survey.

Preliminary results of the study, which is due to be finished and released in 10 days, are causing alarm within the Israeli government and the Bush administration, which has been pressuring Israel to alleviate Palestinian suffering.

One senior Israeli official said that Israel had learned through diplomatic channels of two forthcoming American studies detailing a rise in malnutrition.

"This is going to be disastrous for Israel," the official said. The Israeli government, already anticipating international criticism over conditions among Palestinians, has recently stepped up talks with Palestinian representatives to address the needs of those in the West Bank.

At the urging of the Bush administration, the Israelis have shelved a demand that the Americans supervise any transfer to Yasir Arafat's Palestinian Authority of Palestinian tax revenue that Israel has withheld during the conflict, Israeli officials said on Thursday. Shimon Peres, the Israeli foreign minister, said that Israel would begin transferring part of the money to the Palestinian Authority next week.

The shift came as Israeli officials engaged in a third day of damage control over the decision to drop a one-ton bomb into a densely populated neighborhood in Gaza City on Tuesday morning.…

Israeli ground forces have seized control of seven of eight major Palestinian cities and towns in the West Bank and have imposed 24-hour curfews that they lift only intermittently. Israel started the military operation after back-to-back suicide bombings a month ago in Jerusalem, and political and military officials have said they have no choice but to retain this grip on the West Bank until the threat of Palestinian violence ends.

Few Palestinians can leave their homes to work, and the costs and difficulties of transporting goods have become prohibitive, aid workers say.

The preliminary results of the Agency for International Development malnutrition survey have been widely discussed in diplomatic and aid donor circles here. Palestinian officials have also learned of the results, and some of the early findings have been posted on a Palestinian Web site, http://www.miftah.org.

The survey, conducted by Johns Hopkins University on contract with the agency, is of 1,000 households in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The preliminary results were based on about a third of that sample, one diplomat here said.

The preliminary results overstate the current findings of the survey, according to Western diplomats who have seen more recent conclusions. The preliminary findings indicated that 30 percent of children were suffering from chronic malnutrition, and another 21 percent from acute malnutrition, said diplomats who were briefed on the results.

As the researchers broadened their study to the bigger sample, those numbers declined. But the figures continue to show a substantial rise in malnutrition, according to people familiar with the survey.

Two years ago, a survey done for the same agency that was described by diplomats as somewhat less rigorous found that 7 percent of Palestinian children were chronically malnourished and 2.5 percent were acutely malnourished.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/26/international/middleeast/26MIDE.html