A week back three-health organisations, Médecins du Monde from France, Physicians for Human Rights in Israel and the Palestine Red Crescent Society released a report about the health impact of the Wall-the fence that the Israelis are building to separate Israel from the Palestinian territory of the West Bank. Since 2002, the construction of the Wall has added layers of obstacles and as a consequence, isolated, weakened, and dispersed the Palestinian health care system.

The report titled the 'Ultimate barrier, impact of the Wall on the Palestinian health care' doles out some basic facts, some of it well known, but the rest on the impact to health is basically new.

• 622 kilometres is the full length of the planned Wall--twice the length of the Green line (the international boundary between Israel and the Palestinian territories established in 1967). 255 kilometres have already been completed and they are in the process of being put up. 85 percent of the planned Wall encroaches into the West Bank Territories or territory not belonging to Israel.
  

• 93,200 Palestinians will live in areas between the Wall and the Green line.
  

• 32.7 per cent of the West Bank villages will suffer from lack of access to health system in each region, once the Wall is completed. This number will rise to 80.7 percent in the enclaves.
  

• 10,000 chronic patients suffer from lack of access to essential health services. 117,600 pregnant women, out of whom 17,640 are high-risk pregnancies, may suffer from the lack of access. 133,000 children under the age of 5 may not be able to get all vaccination necessary on time or at all.
  

• 26 local clinics have already been cut off from the general Palestinian health system. Upon completion of the Wall, the number of isolated clinics will rise to 71, out of over 500 local clinics throughout the West Bank. 52% of the doctors working in these clinics are delayed on their way to work, or are not able to reach work at all due to the Wall.

The Wall appears as the final and most visible part of a network of barriers, both physical and administrative, which restricts Palestinians' right to life and freedom of movement in the occupied Palestinian territories. Since it does not follow the Green Line and encroaches within the West Bank, the tracing of the Wall is both disproportionate in its health impact and illegal. It violates both International Humanitarian Law and Human Right Law.

The report itself is based on 83 testimonies collected in the field from patients and medical staff. In order to take the cause further, the three organisations are also producing a booklet of artwork on the Wall.

Laure Weisgerber of Médecins du Monde says, "We are working with 14 leading Israeli and Palestinian artists to produce a booklet of artwork on the subject. The curators for this project are Miki Kratsman, an Israeli photographer and Amer Derbas, a Palestinian photographer and painter. Their artworks present different expressions of the Wall. They also underline the collaboration between civil societies, as a way to bring positive change to the region."

The booklet has already been published in some Israeli papers and now travels to Europe in an exhibition format.

Of course, another reason for the impact on health has been the draconian restrictions on free movement of people caused by the curfews across towns in Palestinian areas. Just to reel some statistics from the Palestinian Red Crescent: between June 2002 and October 2004 the towns of Ramallah, Nabulus, Jenin, Hebron, Qalqilia, Bethlehem and Tulkarem saw a total curfew of 1093 days out of 4,772 days. That is, for nearly 25 per cent of the time you cannot move out of your houses in these cities!

Where this restriction of movement hurts the most is, when residents need urgent medical treatment. A few instances:

• According to Oxfam, while prior to the Intifadah, 95 per cent of Palestinian births used to take place in hospital, since September 2002 that figure had come down to 50 per cent.
  

• According to B'Tselem, 40 Palestinians have died after IDF soldiers "denied them passage at checkpoints, seven of those deaths were of newborns whose mothers were prevented from reaching the hospital in time".
  

• In 70 per cent of calls to the Palestinian Red Crescent, the ambulance is unable to reach the patient's house, and the individual has to make his or her way to a checkpoint to meet the ambulance.

The latest report from Médecins du Monde buttresses these statistics.