Ramallah, West Bank, Aug 14: UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's special envoy on humanitarian issues met today with Yasser Arafat in his battered West Bank headquarters. Catherine Bertini and the Palestinian leader discussed the deepening humanitarian crisis in the West Bank, which has been reoccupied for nearly two months, and the Gaza Strip.
Top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told reporters that Arafat briefed the UN envoy on "the situation in the territories and the continuous Israeli aggression in Palestinian villages, cities and camps."
"The world should understand that the human disaster the Palestinians are suffering from now is not the result of an earthquake but of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's policies," Erakat said. In April, the UN Middle East coordinator caused an outcry in Israel by describing the devastation of Jenin, in the West Bank, during heavy fighting as "horrific beyond belief" and comparing it to the scene of an earthquake.
Bertini was sent to the conflict-torn region "to assess the nature and the scale of the humanitarian crisis and to review humanitarian needs in the light of recent developments," a statement from Annan's office said last week.
A report commissioned by the US Agency for international Development (USAID) and published on August 5 revealed that more than one in every five Palestinian children, 22.5 per cent of them, suffer from malnutrition.
Bertini met over the weekend with Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres, who is expected to hold talks with a Palestinian delegation headed by Erakat later today. Bureau Report