Prepared by The University of Iowa Center for Human Rights (UICHR)*

4 & 5 — Ages of two Israeli boys shot dead in their beds, along with their mother by a Palestinian gunman claiming retaliation for the Israeli army’s killing of a senior Palestinian militant (The Daily Telegraph, UK, 2002)

10 — Age of ‘Ala Hamdan ‘Abd-al-‘Aziz, a Palestinian girl from as-Sawiya, when she died of a ruptured appendix after Israeli soldiers prevented her father from taking her to a hospital in Nablus (B’Tselem: The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, 2003)

14 — Percent of Israelis who in 2002 said they would leave their home and emigrate if possible due to fear from mounting Israeli-Palestinian violence and notwithstanding that they then would bear the negative Hebrew label yordim (“those who go down”), the opposite of olim (“those who go up”) to Zion; in 2001, Jewish immigrants from North America to Israel totaled 1,159, a drop of 11% from the previous year (Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 2003)

22 — Percent of children of Arab origin in totally segregated Israeli public school system during 1999-2000 but receiving only 14% of all teaching hours that school year (Human Rights Watch, 2001)

36 — Years of Israeli military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza (hereinafter “the Occupied Territories”) since the 1967 “Six Day War” between Israel, on the one hand, and Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, on the other, surpassing Japan’s 34 years of occupation of Korea to become the longest military occupation in modern history (The Washington Post, 2002)

55 — Years it has taken since the beginning of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for an international peace plan to recommend officially the establishment of a viable Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with Israel (Israeli Studies, 2003)

65 — Percent to which Palestinian unemployment has risen between the al-Aqsa Intifada beginning September 29, 2000, to June 2003, with approximately 80,000 Palestinian jobs lost in Israel and 60,000 lost in the Occupied Territories (The Health Development Information and Policy Institute, 2003)

75 — Percent of the Palestinian population in the Occupied Territories living under the poverty line of $2 per person, more than 2/3 of them children under age 18 (The Health Development Information and Policy Institute, 2003)

87 — Number of Israeli children (age 16 and under) killed “by Palestinian civilians” in the Occupied Territories and in Israel (31 age 13 and under) from the First Intifada beginning December 9, 1987, to “the end of December 2002″) (B’Tselem: The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, 2003)

92 — Number of Israeli children (age 17 and under) killed “by Palestinians” in the Occupied Territories and “inside the Green Line” from the al-Aqsa Intifada beginning September 29, 2000, to May 31, 2003 (The Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, 2003)

137 — Number of Palestinian “suicide bombers” targeting Israeli persons and property from the al-Aqsa Intifada beginning September 29, 2000, to April 2, 2003 (B’Tselem: The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, 2003; The Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, 2003)

270 — Number of West Bank rural communities estimated to be without access to a regular drinking water supply in early 2003 due to Israeli water diversions and supply restrictions (International Committee of the Red Cross, 2003)

284 — Number of Palestinian homes between October 2001 and April 2003 claimed by Israel to have harbored suspected perpetrators of attacks against Israelis and for this reason demolished by the Israeli Army without giving the homeowners opportunity to petition Israel’s High Court of Justice to contest the demolitions (B’Tselem: The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, 2003)

430 — Number of Palestinian children (age 18 and under) killed “by Israeli security forces and civilians” in the Occupied Territories (228 age 14 and under) from the al-Aqsa Intifada beginning September 29, 2000, to May 31, 2003 (The Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, 2003)

568 — Number of Palestinian children (age 16 and under) killed “by Israeli security forces and civilians” in the Occupied Territories (176 age 13 and under) from the First Intifada beginning December 9, 1987, to “the end of December 2002″ (B’Tselem: The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, 2003)

720 — Number of Israeli adults (age 18 and above) killed “by Palestinians … inside the Green Line” (307 of them civilians) and “by Palestinians” in the Occupied Territories (187 of them civilians) from the al-Aqsa Intifada beginning September, 29, 2000, to May 31, 2003 (The Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, 2003)

1,142 — Number of Israeli adults (age 17 and above) killed “by Palestinian civilians” in Israel (484 of them civilians) and “by Palestinian security forces and civilians” in the Occupied Territories (281 of them civilians) from the First Intifada beginning December 9, 1987, to “the end of May 2003″ (B’Tselem: The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, 2003)

1,500 — Number of olive trees destroyed by Israeli soldiers and settlers in the Palestinian village of Hares, trees that have been the economic and ecological backbone of the town’s existence for centuries (The Jewish Unity for a Just Peace Campaign: “Break the Silence”, 2002)

2,136 — Number of Palestinian adults (age 19 and above) estimated killed “by Israeli security forces and civilians” in the Occupied Territories (1,986 of them civilians) from the al-Aqsa Intifada beginning September 29, 2000, to May 31, 2003 (The Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, 2003)

3,544 — Number of Palestinian adults (age 17 and above) killed “by Israeli security forces and civilians” in the Occupied Territories (3,399 of them civilians) from the First Intifada beginning December 9, 1987, to “the end of May 2003″ (B’Tselem: The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, 2003)

13,000 — Approximate number of Israelis and Palestinians killed in civil strife between the founding of the State of Israel in 1948 to 1996, according to a 1997 report of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Twentieth Century Atlas, 2003)

15,000 — Estimated number of Palestinians detained by Israeli authorities between March 2002 and June 2003, including 6,000 of them currently in prison (350 of them children), of which 1,700 are under administrative detention (including 30 children) without charge or trial and many of them subjected to torture, suffering psychological traumas, and deprived of adequate medical care (The Health Development Information and Policy Institute, 2003)

41,000 — Palestinians who went to health centers for injuries sustained from September 29, 2000, to March 17, 2003, during the al-Aqsa Intifada, 7,000 of them children, according to the UN Special Rapporteur of the UN Commission on Human Rights (The Health Development Information and Policy Institute, 2003)

208,300 — Number of Israeli settlers in the West Bank and Gaza in 2001, compared to 169,400 in 1998 and 1,500 in 1972 (The Foundation for Middle East Peace, 2003)

45,000,000,000 — Estimated U.S. dollars required (exclusive of interest) to compensate Palestine for water consumption and damages to water resources by Israel between 1967 and 1999 (Report of International Water Compensation Expert to Applied Research Institute, Jerusalem and Bethlehem, 1999)

1,600,000,000,000 — Dollars spent by the U.S. during 1973-2002 to support Israel in its ongoing dispute with the Palestinians, twice the amount spent on the Vietnam War and exclusive of $4 billion requested by Israel during 2003 (Christian Science Monitor, 2003)

*First published in The Iowa Review (Volume 33, Number 2) Fall 2003. Copyright © 2003 by The University of Iowa Center for Human Rights. For further information on human rights generally, please visit the UICHR web site.