JERUSALEM, January 12, 2007, (WAFA)- International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said that four citizens were killed and 34 injured during an Israeli military assault in Ramallah city on January 4.

According to a bulletin No. 17 / 2007 which published in Friday, ICRC revealed that Israeli closures and other restrictions on movement continued to affect the daily lives of Palestinians, saying that getting to school or to work, seeing a doctor or simply doing the shopping has become increasingly difficult.

ICRC pointed out that in the West Bank (WB), the number of checkpoints and roadblocks remained unchanged despite news of a possible easing of restrictions on movement for the residents, adding that there was no significant reduction in closures in the northern WB, especially in Nablus and Tulkarem districts, which are the areas most severely affected by the measure.

It made it clear that some 100,000 Palestinian families depend to some extent on the olive harvest for their livelihood, saying that the productivity of the olive trees located behind the West Bank Apartheid Wall, where it was impossible to tend the orchards, has dropped in certain cases by up to 80%.

In Gaza Strip (GS), ICRC said that the Rafah terminal between Gaza and Egypt has been open for Palestinians returning from the Hajj pilgrimage for only three days, adding that among the 1.4 million Palestinians living in the GS, fewer than 1,000 can cross into Israel each week. About half of them are family members who, under the ICRC's family visits programme, are going to see relatives held in Israeli prisons.

H.M (21:11 P) (19:11 GMT)