15. Giacaman,R., and Husseini, A. Life and Health during the Israeli Invasion of the West Bank: The Town of Bethlehem. Birzeit: BZUICPH, 2002: 8pp.

This is the fifth and final brief statistical report focusing on the daily life and environmental conditions of families living under curfew and in fear and danger, during the latest Israeli invasion of the West Bank. In this report, we will review the responses obtained from the Bethlehem households. The surveyed households include Bethlehem town and its three refugee camps (Dheisheh, lying at the outskirts of town, Aida, joining Bethlehem with Beit Jala town and Azza, inside Bethlehem proper) the responses obtained in this survey are generalizable to the entire population of Bethlehem and its refugee camps, estimated by PCBS in 1997 to be around 32,510 persons and 6,157 households. Bethlehem was invaded more than once during the recent period. The first invasion took place on the 8th of March, 2002 and continued till the 15th of the same month. The second invasion, the subject of this report, began on March 29th, and continued until the 11th of May, 2002, placing Bethlehem in first place, compared to the other towns that we have studied, in relation to the number of days it has suffered under curfew and occupation (44 continuous days). The third invasion began on May 27th of 2002, with curfew, arrests, and destruction taking place as usual, and continues as we write this report. The impact of long periods of occupation and curfew, as well as repeated experiences of such events for shorter periods of time, can only translate into a heavy toll paid the people of Bethlehem in social and humanitarian terms, perhaps heavier than the other towns that we have reviewed so far.