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Mr. Shearer first gave an overview of the responsibilities of his office, which primarily consisted of coordinating monetary emergency assistance as well as collecting and identifying information concerning the Palestinian humanitarian situation. Mr. Shearer then presented a regional map of the deteriorating economic conditions in the Palestinian Territories. He also provided statistics that showed an increase in the poverty rate from 23% in 1998 to 67% in the most recent research conducted; he noted that the poverty rate in Gaza alone had reached 88%. Mr. Shearer added that the national GDP had declined by 40% since the beginning of the crisis and that currently about 1.8 million Palestinians receive food aid.

Mr. Shearer then provided a chart tracking the violence between Palestinians and Israelis, which demonstrated a larger number of deaths of the former group compared to the latter in recent years. According to Mr. Shearer, the Palestinian Authority fiscal crisis was largely due to the fact that aid was channelled through many different sources in an inefficient and disorganized manner.

Mr. Shearer then discussed access and movement issues for the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, who are hindered by checkpoints, roadblocks, barriers, trenches, earth mounds, flying checkpoints, road barriers, and road restrictions. He explained that the trenches are built around checkpoints in order to “slow down movement.” Earth mounds require Palestinians to climb over the man-made rubble to a taxi, then to a checkpoint, and then to a final taxi. The flying checkpoints, he continued, are temporary: about 160 per week (25-30 per day) are erected. Mr. Shearer’s data pointed to a 46% increase in flying checkpoints since disengagement. He then discussed how the West Bank barrier — constructed at an accelerated rate starting in June 2002 after an escalation in suicide bombings — impacts Palestinians. Four hundred and forty nine miles in length, the barrier is 56% complete and 10% under construction, with plans for future construction. He also pointed out the discrepancy between the Green line and the barrier through satellite maps of the regions. He noted that about 10.2% of the West Bank lies west of the barrier and not the Green line.

Mr. Shearer then offered several concrete examples of the repercussions of the barrier: the once important trading town of Qalqiliya had been stultified by the barrier due to restriced access to water wells; in Jerusalem, the barrier impeded Palestinian access to specialty hospitals. Mr. Shearer concluded that although the fragmentation created by the barrier perhaps assisted Israeli security efforts, it was not a sustainable situation, on either an economic or humanitarian level, for the Palestinians.