TEL AVIV, Feb 11: Israel’s Physicians for Human Rights petitioned the country’s High Court on Tuesday to order authorities to supply gas masks to all Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the event of a US war on Iraq.

The Israeli army, in charge of gas mask distribution, has said it would issue 60,000 masks to Palestinians who live in West Bank areas designated by interim peace accords as under total Israeli control.

But Physicians for Human Rights, a non-partisan organization set up in 1988, said in a statement that Israel effectively controlled all Palestinian areas following its reoccupation last June of West Bank cities in the wake of suicide attacks.

Calling for gas masks to be distributed free of charge “to every resident of the occupied territories”, the group said it was joined in its petition by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society. Some 3.5 million Palestinians live in the West Bank and Gaza.—Reuters