PA minister: Israel poisons water, is responsible for high Palestinian disability rates

‎“[PA] Minister ‎ of Social Affairs Kamal ‎Al-Sharafi said it is no exaggeration to ‎speak of the occupation’s responsibility ‎for the high rates of disability. All indexes ‎and statistics confirm that the rates of ‎disability in Palestine are higher than the ‎general rate in the region, despite the fact ‎that many development indexes, such as ‎the education index, the distribution of ‎welfare and health services [index] and ‎the civil service organizations activity ‎‎[index] rank Palestine high relatively to the ‎region. The reason is linked to the high ‎rate of injuries caused by the occupation’s ‎activities and attacks, the environmental ‎pollution, the poisoning of water and the ‎dumping of waste in the occupied ‎territories. In addition, the occupation is ‎directly responsible for the high poverty ‎and unemployment rates, for restricting ‎the activities of the [Palestinian] Authority ‎and [its] institutions in providing services ‎to citizens, and for reducing their ability to ‎adopt preventative measures and ‎treatment to reduce the high disability ‎‎[rates]. All this and more makes the ‎occupation primarily responsible for the ‎fact that the disability rates in Palestine ‎are higher than those in the [other] ‎countries of the region.”‎