Childhood anemia in Gaza?

The great Gaza anemia hoax - more and better ways to lie with figures

Anemia rates and high infant mortality among children in Gaza are cited by NGOs and UN agencies as evidence of a humanitarian crisis caused by the "Gaza siege." Examination of the actual data however shows that anemia rates have probably not changed much in Gaza and the West Bank since 1990, that childhood anemia is endemic among Palestinians outside of the occupied territories, and that higher anemia rates are found in other parts of the world. Infant mortality rates have declined slightly since 2000 and are less than infant mortality rates in Turkey, Syria and Egypt.

A UNICEF announcement of April 2008 which has been widely cited as evidence of the humanitarian crisis caused by the Israeli "siege," actually states that the situation is little changed since 2000. This suggests that there is no acute humanitarian crisis at all in Gaza as regards child health care and nutrition, relative to other parts of the world, and certainly no crisis caused by Israeli measures taken in recent years. Judging from these data, the Gaza "humanitarian crisis" appears to be a hoax. Health statistics have been deliberately and cynically manipulated for political purposes.

In 2002, widely quoted and quite alarming figures supposedly showed that about 19% of Gaza and West Bank children suffered from anemia, attributed to the malevolence of the cruel Zionists by diverse sources (for example see electronicintifada.net/v2/article616.shtml and lutheranworld.org/What_We_Do/OIAHR/Documentation/ELCJ-Newsletter_August-2002.pdf). By 2008, headlines were claiming anemia rates of 50% or more.

 

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