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 Home News General
Break the Siege: the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip30 January 2008The human wave crossing the broken borders of the Gaza Strip in Rafah from Wednesday 23 January, highlights the humanitarian impact of the blockade of 1.5 million people, the majority officially registered with the UN as refugees. In the first day, over one fifth of the Gazan population crossed into Egypt to get medicines, fuel, food and supplies to bring home, or to meet with relatives they had been cut off from.
As Israeli commentator and former parliamentarian, Uri Avnery, wrote on 26 January: "It looked like the fall of the Berlin wall...It is impossible not to feel exhilaration when masses of oppressed and hungry people break down the wall that is shutting them in, their eyes radiant, embracing everybody they meet... The Gaza Strip is the largest prison on earth. The breaking of the Rafah wall was an act of liberation. It proves that an inhuman policy is always a stupid policy: no power can stand up against a mass of people that has crossed the border of despair. That is the lesson of Gaza, January, 2008." The world cannot passively stand by, with such a large number of people held behind borders they do not control, without supplies, and with no hope of ever leaving the small area of the Gaza Strip - 365 square kilometres, only 15% of the area of the Australian Capital Territory (2400 km2). The Gaza Strip is one of the most densely populated places on earth with 3,823 persons per km2. Half of the 1.5 million in the Gaza Strip are 16 years or under. In 2006, average GDP per capita per year in the Gaza Strip was less than US$1,130, the same as Mozambique and less than Papua New Guinea or Rwanda. Now, in 2008, GDP is much less. GDP per capita in Israel is USD $31,561 (both figures PPP - purchasing power parity). The Israeli blockade is exacerbated by the freeze by Western countries of official assistance to Gaza, following on from the majority vote for Hamas in the Palestinian Legislative Council elections. With employment in Israel and trade with other countries cut off, employment in the public sector in Gaza is ever more significant for hundreds of thousands of families. The international boycott has denied public servants - teachers, police, civil servants, nurses, sanitation workers - wages for months on end. The intensified and continuing Israeli closure and isolation of the Gaza Strip since June 2007 has brought the local Palestinian economy and community to virtual collapse. As trade goods, fuel, medicines and food are either banned by Israel or their access heavily restricted at Gaza's borders, all sections of the community have been affected. According to Eyad al-Sarraj of the Gaza Community Mental Health Program, and Sara Roy, senior research scholar at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University: "Since June, Israel has limited its exports to Gaza to nine basic materials. Out of 9,000 commodities (including foodstuffs) that were entering Gaza before the siege began two years ago, only 20 commodities have been permitted entry since. Although Gaza daily requires 680,000 tons of flour to feed its population, Israel had cut this to 90 tons per day by November 2007, a reduction of 99 percent. Not surprisingly, there has been a sharp increase in the prices of foodstuffs." The World Food Programme has recently reported shortages of meat, wheat flour and frozen food in Gaza. On 23 January, WFP were unable to provide 10,000 of the poorest Gazans with three out of the five foodstuffs they normally receive. The government of Israel ensures that at any given time Gaza has less than 24 hours reserves of fuel for transport, for generators and for water pumps, so "pressure" can easily be exerted against the population and their elected leadership in order to curtail the Qassam rockets being fired from northern Gaza into Israel. Union Aid Abroad-APHEDA's partner organisation in Gaza, the MA'AN Development Centre, which is itself without electricity, stationery or supplies, estimates 84 percent of the population live in poverty, with incomes of less than $2 per day, and prices for basic goods imported from (and taxed by) Israel similar to prices in Australia. The United Nations reports unprecedented numbers of Palestinian families - more than 80 percent - almost entirely dependent on food aid or direct assistance and estimates the unemployment rate in the Gaza Strip to exceed 50 percent by mid-2008 (UN OCHA, Dec. 2007). The UN has complained that the blockade by Israel has threatened its duty to supply basic foods to the 870,000 refugees under its protection in the Gaza Strip. As with Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and in neighboring Arab countries, most of the people in Gaza remain refugees because they have never been able to exercise their right to return to their places of family origin in what is now the State of Israel. Palestinian families are resorting to crisis measures to survive - such as selling off livestock or business and family assets, reducing their healthcare costs by not buying necessary medicines, and removing children from school when fees are unable to be paid. As the Gazan economy is starved of all but basic foods and medicines, the price of many basic items has risen sharply since July 2007, often outside the purchasing capacity of many families. Poverty, unemployment and lack of income or cash flow have consequently forced many Palestinian households into an unwanted dependence on food aid and other direct humanitarian assistance. The drastic reduction in fuel imports has threatened essential services such as electricity and water supply. The lack of fuel has seen Gaza's sole electricity supply station forced to cut power supplies for up to 12 hours per day. Water supplies are also threatened, with domestic supply often limited to 2-3 hours per day. Similarly, the banning of many imports has resulted in a lack of spare parts to fix and maintain necessary infrastructure machinery, including vital medical equipment. The humanitarian impact of collapsing essential services - sanitation, electrical and water supplies, hospital services - is catastrophic for the 1.5 million population of the Gaza Strip. Our partner, MA'AN Development Centre, reports that in the month up to 24 January, 79 people died for lack of essential medications in Gaza, and another 1500 patients are in immediate danger. With transfers of food, fuel, water, medicines, and funds to Gaza blocked, 70,000 people from businesses and non-government civil society organisations are newly unemployed. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), by the end of 2007 "all construction factories had shut down (13 tile-making factories, 30 concrete-making factories, 145 marble-making factories and 250 brick-making factories), causing the loss of 3,500 jobs. Nearly all public infrastructure and maintenance projects including foreign aid projects, private constructions and ministerial and municipal projects have been halted due to the closure of factories and the lack of building materials." The nutritional and health situation of the entire population is dire. The cuts to electricity impact on the sewerage plants, so raw sewage floods the streets and houses in many areas, and 30 million litres of untreated sewage per day contaminates the beaches and the coastal sea waters. The actions of the Israeli Government in its blockade of the Gaza Strip amount to collective punishment of a civilian population, an action which is illegal under international law. The Geneva Conventions make clear that the welfare of a population under military occupation is the responsibility of the occupier. Israel has evacuated its illegal settlements in Gaza, but Palestinians in the Gaza Strip do not have control over their borders, their sea coast, water, or airspace. Israeli missiles or armed incursions into the Gaza Strip take place frequently. People walking in the "security areas" or free-fire zones hundreds of metres wide alongside the borders with Israel can be shot by the Israeli military. Since 1 January over 50 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza by the Israeli military, they say in retaliation for rockets fired from the northern Gaza Strip towards the Israeli town of Sderot. The eminent Israeli conductor, Daniel Barenboim, commented in the Guardian (UK) (30 January 2008), that "the total number of Palestinians living within Israel and in the occupied territories... is already larger than the Jewish population...In any occupied territory, the occupiers are responsible for the quality of life of the occupied, and in the case of the Palestinians, the different Israeli governments over the past 40 years have failed miserably. The Palestinians, naturally, must continue to resist the occupation and all attempts to deny them basic individual needs and statehood." Israeli "pressure" on the 1.5 million people held captive in Gaza results in increased conflict. As the Israeli commentator, Bernard Avishai, argues, with reference to US General David Petraeus' work, Counterinsurgency, "expanding the war against Gaza" creates desperation that ensures larger and larger numbers of Palestinians have to actively resist the occupation. According to Israeli journalist, Amira Hass, in Israel's daily Ha'aretz, Israelis "who champion escalation ignore the fact that hermetic closure of all crossings into Gaza reminds the world what it loves to forget: Israel is the occupier. The aggressor. [They] do not see the moral - and not just security - bankruptcy of the escalation policy." MA'AN Development Centre, along with Palestinian NGOs, calls for an international protection force, to defend the basic human rights of the Palestinian people in the occupied territories, and Palestinian civil society organisations are calling for political and economical sanctions on Israel so as to comply with the international law. Union Aid Abroad-APHEDA calls on the Australian government to increase emergency and development aid via NGOs to the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and to the refugee camps in Lebanon. More importantly, the Australian government should take an active role with the government of Israel and within the UN to break the siege of Gaza.View Union Aid Abroad-APHEDA's Gaza Emergency Appeal Contact Details Union Aid Abroad - APHEDA Ph: (02) 9264 9343 Fax: (02) 9261 1118 office@unionaidabroad.org.au |
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