3 June 2002

Birzeit University has a long-standing relationship, through community service, research and student enrollment, with the numerous Palestinian villages that surround the University. These relations are now joined by a common fate, as villagers suffer loss of livelihoods, markets and opportunity, as well as vital access to educational and health services due to the Israeli closure, invasions and siege of Ramallah and the closures and obstacles presented by checkpoints such as the one on the Birzeit-Ramallah road. Below is a summary from a rapid appraisal undertaken by the University’s Institute of Community and Public Health in mid- May 2002. It covers a number of villages specifically effected by the Birzeit-Ramallah checkpoint as well as others which have been cut off from the main market and service center of Ramallah by a checkpoint system similar to that which is effecting Birzeit University.

continue - public health crisis