Italian

Palestine is an area of 27000 km², which at the moment includes Israel (its borders are now the ones settled after the ’47-’48 war), Jerusalem and its outskirts, West Bank and Gaza Strip.

About 1,215,000 Palestinian live in the Israeli territory; about 2,102,360 in West Bank; more than 1,300,000 in the Gaza Strip, and all the rest of them (about 4.5millions) in other countries of the Middle East, in Europe and in North America.

One third of the occupied territories inhabitants lives now in refugee camps. In Gaza the population density is of 3,165 persons per km²(in Padua the density is 401 per km²). [PCBS data, june 2001]

History

In 1947, after the immigration due to the Nazi persecution in Europe, the General Assembly of UN decided a division of the Palestinian territory between Arabs and Jews. In order to force the Palestinians to leave their lands, some Hebrew groups resorted to terrorist acts: 400 Palestinian villages were destroyed, and 750,000 Palestinians became refugees.

In 1948, Israel proclaimed itself, unilaterally, an independent state and, with other wars in 1956, in 1967 and in 1973, finally occupied the whole Palestinian territory.

At present Israeli state owns 78% of Palestine’s territory and militarily and illegally controls East Jerusalem and West Bank. In summer 2005 Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip: on these territories the Palestinian people should build their own state.

Since 1967 Israeli policy is directed to prevent any form of development of the Palestinian economy and to create for Palestine a state of complete dependence from Israel.

Since the beginning of the second Intifada (September 2000), the repressive and restricting measures imposed by Israel brought Palestinian economy to a fast collapse, and this will have consequences in the long run. Israel is the only trading partner Palestinians living in the occupied territories can have, and so they are going to lose the possibility to trade with other countries and in particular with other Arabian markets.

Of course these limitations have strong repercussions on the Palestinian people: the level of poverty grows (70% of the population), the unemployment rate is now more than 50% and the income per capita is half the income before the Intifada.

A Palestinian ONG, the PARC, has enough experience to valorize the know-how of the population and started a program for credits to the women farmers, to substain their activities and to ensure an income to their families.

A.C.S. has been working in Palestine since 2002, when the collaboration with PARC began with the aim of carrying out activities in the rural areas.