Gaza Families Down to a Meal a Day

By Erin Cunningham
IPS News, Inter Press Service
May 13, 2009

Um Abdullah cannot remember the last time she was able to feed meat to her eight children. She does know that for the past week the single meal she cooked for them each day consisted only of lentils. And that on one day, she had received aid coupons from the United Nations, which she subsequently sold to buy tomatoes and eggplant at the local market.

Um Abdullah is a 42-year-old dressmaker and hails from Jabaliya, a cramped refugee camp on the outskirts of Gaza City. Stories like hers are commonplace across the Gaza Strip, where years of sanctions, siege and now war have battered the territory's economy and put many essentials out of reach for the majority of the population.

"We live day to day, nothing more," says Um Abdullah, who made less than three dollars in profit over the last three days. "If we can eat once a day, that is good enough for us."

While the prices of food and other goods have cooled off from the record highs they hit during Israel's three-week assault, the World Food Programme (WFP) reports that a number of items, many of them basic, remain more expensive for Gaza's residents than they were before Operation Cast Lead.

Sugar, rice, onion, cucumber, tomato, lemon, pepper, chicken, meat, fish and garlic were all more expensive for Gaza's residents in March 2009 than they were in December 2008, the WFP says.

The price of pepper per kilogram doubled, while the cost of onions jumped 33 percent. Fresh chicken is now 43 percent more expensive than before the war, a result of the destruction of a number of poultry farms across Gaza throughout the assault.

The decimation of wide swathes of agricultural land, as well as cattle and sheep farms, has added to Gaza's growing food insecurity.

But the war only intensified an already dire humanitarian situation, economists say, which has its roots in Israel's economic siege that hermetically sealed Gaza's borders in June 2007.

The shortage of all but "essential" goods and a flow of only a trickle of fuel have sent prices of food and other products skyrocketing over the past two years, making them unaffordable to many households in the Gaza Strip.

According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the food portion of Gaza's consumer price index (CPI) - an economic indicator used to measure the average price of goods and services purchased by households - rose 28 percent in 2008.

In Israel, by comparison, the CPI's food segment increased by less than 5 percent from March 2008 to March 2009, Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics reports.

"A negative economic growth rate coupled with an extreme shortage of goods is causing what we call stagflation in Gaza and that is what is behind the high prices," says Dr. Ibrahim Hantash of the Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute.

"The rampant smuggling also sends prices of basic goods through the roof, because there is no control. It's all black market."

After the war, the majority of Gazans are now living below the income poverty line, says the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). It defines the line as a family of six subsisting on 500 dollars per month.

More than half of those families living below the poverty are living in extreme hardship, on less than 250 dollars each month, or approximately 1.35 dollars per person per day.

And because Gaza's households spend most of their dwindling monthly income on food, the IMF says, 75 percent of the population has been forced to reduce the quantity of food they buy, while 89 percent reduced the quality.

This has meant many households, like Um Abdullah's, have had to forego certain sources of protein, including meat and eggs.

"Gazans face an acute shortage of nutritious, locally-produced and affordable food," says a report released by the WFP and the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) in March.

Gazans have consequently reduced their daily calorie intake, mainly by no longer eating items like red meat, rice, oils and fats, and fruits and dairy products – leading to nutritional deficiencies like anaemia, the report says.

Jalal Ataf Al-Masari has been running a fruit stand at the heart of the crowded Beach refugee camp in Gaza City for ten years, and he says he has never seen prices so high and business so low.

"At the beginning of the siege, it was only the poor that stopped buying fruit," Al-Masari says. "Now, nobody buys fruit. Life has become increasingly worse."

To read the entire article > http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46824

Gaza: Not nearly back to normal

Apr 30th 2009 | GAZA CITY
From The Economist print edition
Three months after Israel’s war ended, life for Gazans is still dismal

MUHAMMAD KHADER places some rugs and blankets amid the ruins of his house. Sometimes he goes there to rest when the tent he shares with his wife and six of their daughters gets too crowded. They ran away from their home earlier this year when it was hit by a missile during Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip, and fled to their only married daughter’s house in Jabaliya, a Palestinian refugee camp originally built for villagers fleeing in 1948 from what is now Israel. The daughter did not have enough blankets or mattresses for everyone but the neighbours helped out.

As soon as the Israeli troops pulled out of Gaza in mid-to-late January the Khader family went home—to find a pile of rubble. Even their chicken pen had been bulldozed. It had been their sole source of income since Mr Khader, along with thousands of other Gazan men, lost his permit to work in Israel after the second Palestinian intifada (uprising) started in 2000. Now he sits amid the debris and gazes at the green tents with Rotary International logos which an Arab charity has pitched on a muddy, desolate field on Jabaliya’s eastern edge. Before the war, olive and citrus trees grew there. “We used to work in Israel,” he says, lighting another cigarette. “We worked for them, built their houses. And now look what they’ve done to us.”

Mr Khader is one of tens of thousands of Palestinians who became homeless in the recent Gaza war. UN agencies estimate that 4,100 houses were destroyed and 15,000-plus damaged; 50,000-odd people sought refuge in UN schools during the fighting. Most went home after the truce or found other places to live. But thousands are still huddling in tents in makeshift refugee camps.

A mining bulldozer noisily clears away the ruins on the fringe of Jabaliya but there is virtually no reconstruction anywhere in Gaza. At an international donors’ conference in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh in March, $4.5 billion was pledged for reconstruction. But three months after the ceasefire, repair work has yet to begin.

Israel is still enforcing the sanctions it imposed on Gaza after the Palestinian Islamist movement, Hamas, took over the strip in June 2007, violently ousting its secular rival, Fatah. The Israelis still refuse to let in most imports except food and vital medicine. They still bar building material such as concrete, steel and pipes, as well as industrial equipment. They say they fear that Hamas and other militant groups would use them to build bunkers or weapons, such as the home-made rockets they still sometimes fire at nearby Israeli towns.

Supplies for repairing the water and sewage system and the electricity networks damaged during the war are also stuck at the border terminals. A good 90% of the people suffer from power cuts; the rest have no electricity at all. While 32,000 people in a population of 1.5m have no running water, 100,000 or so get water once in every two or three days. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which looks after Palestinian refugees across the Middle East, says that the rate of infectious diseases, including diarrhoea and viral hepatitis, which result from bad water and sanitation, has risen.

To read the entire article, go to: http://www.economist.com/world/mideast-africa/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13578934

Gaza needs more aid

By Mel Frykberg,
The Electronic Intifada, 12 April 2009

RAMALLAH, occupied West Bank (IPS) - John Ging, head of the UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) in Gaza, has urged Israel to ease aid flow restrictions that are having a devastating effect on the 1.5 million inhabitants.

Ging says the amount of aid being allowed into Gaza at present is "wholly and totally inadequate. It's having a very devastating impact on the physical circumstances and also the mindset of people on the ground," Ging told IPS.

According to a report released last month by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), on average 127 aid trucks a day are entering Gaza.

OCHA stated that this was insufficient and way below the 475 that entered daily one month prior to Hamas's takeover of Gaza in June 2007.

"We need access," Ging said. "It's the number one issue. It's the number two issue. It's the number three issue, and so on. Until we get it, there's nothing as important as solving the access issue."

... "Eighty percent of the goods that are allowed in comprise food," Mike Bailey, an Oxfam spokesman told IPS. "The rest is medical and other relief supplies. However, agricultural products such as seedlings, water pipes and fertilizer essential for reviving the agricultural sector have either been denied or delayed."

... "The education sector has also been crippled. Computers, books, stationery and other educational accessories are also being denied entry," said Bailey.

"Additionally, concrete, cement, steel and glass are barred, thus preventing the tens of thousands of homes that were destroyed and damaged during the Gaza war from being rebuilt and repaired," he added.

Antoine Grand, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) sub-delegation to Gaza, says that the ICRC is still negotiating with the Israelis to allow waste water and water plant spare parts and repair equipment into Gaza.

"We have been waiting for several months but so far we have not been permitted to import this equipment which is essential for the projects we have under way to repair sewage and water plants damaged during the Gaza war," Grand told IPS.

... About 150,000 Gazans are still deprived of access to sufficient quantities of safe drinking water, while 90 percent experience intermittent power cuts. Gazans in need of medical attention abroad are struggling to get permits.


To read the entire article: http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10459.shtml

Young Gaza couple begin married life in a tent

Live from Palestine Reports
Rami Almeghari
March 2, 2009

Last Thursday, relatives, friends and local community representatives attended an unusual wedding party in Gaza. The celebration was held in a newly-erected refugee camp, in the northern Gaza Strip town of Jabaliya.

"My wife and I planned to marry at my house, where we furnished an apartment, just shortly before Israel's war on Gaza. Yet, as you see, we were forced to stay at this tent in the al-Rayyan refugee camp," said newly-married Ahmad al-Hersh of Jabaliya refugee camp.

"We had no other option; after the war, there have been so many difficulties to find a house to rent, as the demand is higher than before. My wife Eman initially objected but later on she agreed as we don't have any other choice. And thanks to those who helped furnish this marriage set," recalled Ahmad while sitting at his tent's bedroom.

Ahmad used to live in a three-story house in the al-Khulafa neighborhood inside the town of Jabaliya, before it was bombed by Israeli warplanes during the 22-day siege of Gaza. The tent where the newly married Palestinian couple will live has a bed, table, cupboard and a small bathroom.

Ahmad explained that "I am not totally pleased but what can I say. But I look forward to the reconstruction of Gaza soon, so I and many others like myself get relief. I am a victim of the Israeli war."

According to the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Palestine Red Crescent Society, Israeli shelling and missiles during the 22-day-long siege destroyed more than 2,800 homes completely and damaged an additional 1,900, leaving tens of thousands homeless. To accommodate the large number of internally displaced Palestinians, a number of small refugee camps have been erected in different parts of the Gaza Strip, mainly in northern Gaza, through assistance by international organizations such as the UN agency for Palestine refuees, UNRWA. Ahmad's special tent was funded by a local charity in Jabaliya, via a Kuwaiti grant.

To read the entire article go to: http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10361.shtml

Gaza Children Traumatized by War - UN

UN envoy: Gaza's children traumatized by war, despite ceasefire
Ha'aretz, February 10, 2009

Children in the Gaza Strip continued to suffer and feel insecure despite a ceasefire that has mostly ended three weeks of intense fighting between Israel and Hamas, the UN special envoy for children and armed conflict said Monday.

Radihika Coomaraswamy said grave violations of child rights had been committed during the fighting that began on December 27 when Israel Defense Forces launched airstrikes against Hamas militants who had been firing rockets and mortars into southern Israel.

She said those violations included killing and maiming, and denial of humanitarian access. Fifty-six per cent of Gazans are children under 18.

"During the recent hostilities, there were no safe space for children and the crossings out of Gaza were, and remain, virtually sealed," she said.

The fighting killed more than 1,300 people in Gaza, one-third of them children and women. Thousands of people were injured.

Turning to children in Israel, Coomaraswamy said: "There is no doubt that children live in constant fear of missile attacks in southern Israel. The need for psycho-social support has increased recently."

Coomaraswamy, who recently visited Ashkelon in southern Israel, said the indiscriminate firing of rockets by Hamas against Israel clearly violated international humanitarian law and should not be ignored simply because it was less severe than the Israeli airstrikes against Gaza.

She said children in both Gaza and Israel have expressed "anger and despair as a manifestation of their desire for accountability."

She supported an international investigation into the killing.

The UN Development Programme (UNDP) released Monday a telephone survey of 1,815 households in Gaza, those that still have landline phones, showing that 75 per cent of those surveyed expressed insecurity because of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and border closing.

The survey said 45 per cent of households that still have a telephone reported war-inflicted damage to their homes, ranging from artillery shells to shattered windows.

Two-thirds of households polled said they needed assistance, identifying emotional and psychological aid as a top priority (28 per cent), followed by unemployment (16 per cent) and financial support (14 per cent).

The survey said half of respondents considered emotional and psychological aid as a priority for children because of their signs of stress such as bedwetting, nightmares, aggressive behaviour and anxiety.

What you don't know about Gaza

By Rashid Khalidi
January 7, 2009, The New York Times

Nearly everything you’ve been led to believe about Gaza is wrong. Below are a few essential points that seem to be missing from the conversation, much of which has taken place in the press, about Israel’s attack on the Gaza Strip.

THE GAZANS Most of the people living in Gaza are not there by choice. The majority of the 1.5 million people crammed into the roughly 140 square miles of the Gaza Strip belong to families that came from towns and villages outside Gaza like Ashkelon and Beersheba. They were driven to Gaza by the Israeli Army in 1948.

THE OCCUPATION The Gazans have lived under Israeli occupation since the Six-Day War in 1967. Israel is still widely considered to be an occupying power, even though it removed its troops and settlers from the strip in 2005. Israel still controls access to the area, imports and exports, and the movement of people in and out. Israel has control over Gaza’s air space and sea coast, and its forces enter the area at will. As the occupying power, Israel has the responsibility under the Fourth Geneva Convention to see to the welfare of the civilian population of the Gaza Strip.

THE BLOCKADE Israel’s blockade of the strip, with the support of the United States and the European Union, has grown increasingly stringent since Hamas won the Palestinian Legislative Council elections in January 2006. Fuel, electricity, imports, exports and the movement of people in and out of the Strip have been slowly choked off, leading to life-threatening problems of sanitation, health, water supply and transportation. The blockade has subjected many to unemployment, penury and malnutrition. This amounts to the collective punishment — with the tacit support of the United States — of a civilian population for exercising its democratic rights.

THE CEASE-FIRE Lifting the blockade, along with a cessation of rocket fire, was one of the key terms of the June cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. This accord led to a reduction in rockets fired from Gaza from hundreds in May and June to a total of less than 20 in the subsequent four months (according to Israeli government figures). The cease-fire broke down when Israeli forces launched major air and ground attacks in early November; six Hamas operatives were reported killed.

WAR CRIMES The targeting of civilians, whether by Hamas or by Israel, is potentially a war crime. Every human life is precious. But the numbers speak for themselves: Nearly 700 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed since the conflict broke out at the end of last year. In contrast, there have been around a dozen Israelis killed, many of them soldiers. Negotiation is a much more effective way to deal with rockets and other forms of violence. This might have been able to happen had Israel fulfilled the terms of the June cease-fire and lifted its blockade of the Gaza Strip.

This war on the people of Gaza isn’t really about rockets. Nor is it about “restoring Israel’s deterrence,” as the Israeli press might have you believe. Far more revealing are the words of Moshe Yaalon, then the Israeli Defense Forces chief of staff, in 2002: “The Palestinians must be made to understand in the deepest recesses of their consciousness that they are a defeated people.”

Rashid Khalidi, a professor of Arab studies at Columbia, is the author of the forthcoming “Sowing Crisis: The Cold War and American Dominance in the Middle East." http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/08/opinion/08khalidi.html?th&emc=th

Palestinian poll: 40 percent of Gaza residents wish to emigrate

From the AP:

A Palestinian poll released on Thursday showed that most residents of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip wish to emigrate, compared to 25 percent in the West Bank.

The coastal territory is currently under an Israeli blockade, imposed by Israel in response to cross-border attacks by Gaza militants. According to the poll, 74 percent of Gazans support continuing the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in the Strip that is set to end next week.

The poll was released Thursday by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research. Pollsters surveyed 1270 Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. The margin of error was 3 percentage points.

Gaza Border Crossings are closed for 27th consecutive day

On December 2nd, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights reported that the Gaza Border Crossings had been closed for a 27^th consecutive day. Among the effects of this closure have been:

• The Gaza power plant has been forced to shut down due to lack of fuel, and Gazans are now totally dependent on electricity generated from Israel, and to a lesser extent, from Egypt.
• There are also chronic severe shortages of domestic cooking gas.
• Israel has not permitted any consignments of flour to enter the Gaza Strip for one week (not including UNWRA supplies), and current stocks are sufficient for just less than three days. Five of the six flourmills in the Gaza Strip have been forced to close.
• Patients who require urgent medical treatment outside the Gaza Strip are facing immense travel restrictions, with an average of just seventeen patients a day currently permitted to leave Gaza in order to access emergency medical treatment in Israel.
• Civilians are enduring power cuts for up to ten hours a day across the Gaza Strip, which is severely affecting every aspect of life in Gaza. Local emergency health services are teetering on the brink of collapse as they try to respond to critical cases amidst constant and severe shortages of electricity, medication and other vital, life-saving equipment. In addition, many Gazan families are being denied access to drinking water, as there is insufficient fuel for the electric water pumps that supply domestic drinking water.

Read the entire report here >

BBC Guide on the Blockade

The BBC has published a very useful guide on Israel's siege of Gaza. The guide includes an overview of the siege, data on how it has impacted Gaza's residents, and links to stories it has published on humanitarian conditions in the Strip.

To access the guide, visit this link >

UN report: At 45%, Gaza unemployment is highest in the world

From Ha'aretz:

The unemployment rate in the Gaza Strip now stands at 45 percent, higher than anywhere else in the world, according to a report released recently by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration.

Nearly 95 percent of all factories operating in Gaza have been closed down in recent years, says the report. Israel's year long economic blockade on the coastal territory and repeated closure of electricity and fuel sources have also contributed to the humanitarian crisis.

According to a separate report published by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the unemployment rate in the West Bank reached 25 percent between July and December 2007 - double the average rate in the Middle East and North Africa region.

With economic siege comes malnutrition

From Electronic Intifada:

The crippling economic blockade of the Gaza Strip colors all aspects of life there. According to the Hamas-run Palestinian Health Ministry, 70 percent of Gaza's 1.5 million residents suffer from anemia, including 44 percent of pregnant women.

Malnutrition among Palestinian children has also increased over the past 11 months, affecting more than 10 percent of Gaza's children under the age of 18, according to the Gaza City-based Ard al-Insan health organization.

A recent survey conducted by Ard al-Insan revealed that around 10.4 percent of households in Gaza City and in the northern and southern Gaza Strip suffer from chronic malnutrition. Stunting and low birth weights are also affecting children there.

"The inability of the majority of Palestinian households to purchase basic food items has increased the magnitude of this health problem," explained Dr. Adnan Abdel Aziz al-Wahadi, the head of the health care unit of Ard Al-Insan.

Read the entire article here >

Gaza fuel cuts paralyze education, health and transport sectors

Published in Electronic Intifada: "The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) is extremely worried about the continued Israeli ban on fuel supplies required for civilian life in the Gaza Strip. The stoppage in fuel supplies has paralyzed 50 percent of the educational sector as half the students in all educational levels are unable to reach their schools and universities. In addition, educational sector employees have been unable to reach their work. Furthermore, the transportation sector has nearly stopped functioning throughout the Gaza Strip. As a result, all basic functions of civilian life have come to a near standstill, including drinking water delivery, sewage water disposal, and garbage collection. In addition, healthcare facilities registered a 25 percent drop in clients due to the transportation crisis. Furthermore, hundreds of healthcare professionals are unable to reach their work places."

Read the entire article here >

World Health Organization: Gazans Die Avoidable Deaths

The World Health Organization held a press conference on the denial of travel permits to Palestinians with critical health conditions. AFP covered the press conference:

The World Health Organization lashed out at Israel on Tuesday for denying or delaying travel permits for critically ill Gaza Strip residents, saying the right to health appeared to be optional for Palestinians.

Ambrogio Manenti, who heads the WHO's West Bank and Gaza office, said case studies of patients who died while waiting for permits to travel to Israel for treatment "show nonsense, inhumanity and, at the end, tragedy".

"The right to health appears to be optional for Palestinians," he added.

The UN agency cited the case of Amir al-Yazji, nine, who died of meningeal encephalitis at a hospital in Gaza in November after his family faced one hurdle after another to get a travel permit only to have authorities deny the documents to the ambulance team at the last minute.

Read the full story here >

Openness; The Sewage Crisis; Farming

Here are some samplings from various news agencies, blogs, and non-profits:

From Catholic Relief Services:

What struck me were the words of two of the students – a young woman named Amani from Beit Hanoun (where the homemade rockets are launched and the Israeli missiles strike in response), and a young man named Sari. Amani said that the most pressing need in Gaza was openness: the opportunity to have a broad discussion about their society, to challenge ideas and question everything. Sari said that Gaza's youth need to draw from the strength and health of their community, without being corrupted by politics. Right now, they said, it is too hard for young people to engage each other and the society around them to build their lives and act in the world... Read the full post here >

Commentary on the sewage crisis from the editor of PalestineChronicle.com:

In a place just a few miles from sandy beaches and soaring sky-scrapers, white stone villas and sky-blue swimming pools, it seems the epitome of irony and injustice that over 1.5 million people would be subjected to drinking sewage-contaminated water. When there is such a fine line bordering wealth and poverty, privilege and need, how unsettling to realize that just a stones throw away, mothers and fathers must nourish their families with poison. As if the occupier could not find one more creative way to torment his victim... Read the full post here >

News piece from The Palestinian International Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza's website. It first appeared on Islam Online:

GAZA CITY -- While much of the media focus is justifiably on the lack of electricity, food stuff and medical supplies, Gaza farmers and their dying business continue to be a silent victim of the never-ending Israeli siege... Read the full story here >

Gaza Sewage System in Crisis

• "30,000-50,000 cubic metres of partially treated waste water and 20,000 cubic metres of raw sewage end up in rivers and the Mediterranean Sea."
• "10,000-30,000 cubic metres of partially treated sewage end up in the ground, in some cases reaching the aquifer."
• "Gaza's power woes have exacerbated the situation. When power is limited, pumping sewage away from homes takes priority, leaving little left over for treatment."

The UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs released this story on the state of Gaza's sewage system:

Design errors, a fast growing population, the halting in recent years of development projects, and restrictions on imports have rendered the Gaza Strip's sewage system incapable of handling the enclave's waste, experts said.

The result is the pumping of partially treated or untreated sewage directly into the sea, and the seepage of dirty water into the ground and groundwater.

"The environmental situation in Gaza is bad and getting worse," an International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) expert on water and sanitation said in an interview with IRIN.

Read the full story here >

Latest from the U.N.: Statistics from the invasion of Gaza, 27 February – 4 March 2008

From the UN OCHA report Protection of Civilians Weekly Report, 27 February – 4 March 2008:

Gaza Strip: IDF Operation “Warm Winter” (27 February – 4 March 2008):

• 120 Palestinians, including six women and 34 children, were killed by the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) and 269 Palestinians, including 12 women and 63 children, were injured. The operation came following an increase in hostilities between the Gaza Strip and Israel.
• The Israeli Air Force carried out 82 air strikes.
• 224 rockets and 49 mortars were fired towards Israel by Palestinian armed groups. As a result, one Israeli man was killed and 14 others (including 1 child) were injured. 78 additional mortars were fired at IDF soldiers inside the Gaza Strip.
• Twenty-four demonstrations and two sit-ins were organised in various part of the Gaza Strip to protest against the Israeli military operation.
• 11 structures were demolished and over 55 damaged.
• Hamas and the Egyptian authorities agreed to allow up to 250 Palestinian patients to cross to Egypt through Rafah crossing to receive medical treatment. 25 patients reportedly crossed on 3 March and 40 on 4 March.

Read the entire report here >

Key Gaza statistics from the report "The Gaza Strip: A Humanitarian Implosion"

Published on the Oxfam GB website:

Poverty

• 80% of families in Gaza currently rely on food aid compared to 63% in 2006. This amounts to approximately 1.1 million people (OCHA, 2007).
• In 2007, households were spending approximately 62% of their total income on food compared with 37% in 2004 (WFP, 2007).
• During the period of May-June 2007 alone, commodity prices for wheat flour, baby milk, and rice rose 34%, 30% and 20.5% respectively (WFP, 2007).
• During the period June-September 2007, the number of households in Gaza earning less than $1.2 per person per day soared from 55% to 70% (WFP, 2007).

Economic collapse

• In September 2000, some 24 000 Palestinians crossed out of Gaza everyday to work in Israel (World Bank, 2006). Today that figure is zero.
• Unemployment in Gaza is close to 40 percent in Gaza and is set to rise to 50 percent (OCHA, 2007).
• In the months before the blockade began around 250 trucks a day entered Gaza through Sufa with supplies, now it is only able to accommodate a maximum of 45 trucks a day. In most cases, this number is barely reached.
• 95% of Gaza's industrial operations are suspended due to the ban on imported raw materials and the block on exports (World Bank, 2007).

Basic services

• 40-50 million litres of sewage continues to pour into the sea daily (Oxfam, 2008).
• As a result of fuel and electricity restrictions, hospitals are currently experiencing power cuts lasting for 8-12 hours a day. There is currently a 60-70 percent shortage reported in the diesel required for hospital power generators.

Health

• 18.5% of patients seeking emergency treatment in hospitals outside Gaza in 2007 were refused permits to leave (WHO, 2007).
• The proportion of patients given permits to exit Gaza for medical care decreased from 89.3% in January 2007 to 64.3% in December 2007, an unprecedented low (WHO, 2007).
• During the period October-December 2007, WHO has confirmed the deaths of 20 patients, including 5 children (among people awaiting visas) (WHO, 2007).

Download the full report here >

Latest from the U.N.: Gaza Humanitarian Situation Report - Escalation in Violence

Key observations from Gaza Humanitarian Situation Report - Escalation in Violence (February 27 - March 3):

• Israeli air strikes on Gaza and rocket attacks on Israeli towns from Palestinian militants in Gaza continued during the reporting period.
• Between 27 February and 2 March, 107 Palestinians were killed by the IDF and 250 were injured. During the same period two Israeli soldiers and one Israeli civilian were killed and 25 injured, mainly by Qassam rockets and Grad missiles fired by Palestinian militants towards Israel.
  
• The IDF operation exacerbated an already deteriorating humanitarian situation emanating from the near total blockade on Gaza since June 2007. Essential services, including water and sanitation, are close to breakdown. Because of the combined lack of electricity, fuel, spare parts and inability to upgrade networks, the Gaza Coastal Municipality Water Utility is forced to continue dumping daily 20 million litres of raw sewage and 40 million litres of partially treated water into the sea.
• The IDF operation has worsened conditions for an already stretched medical system.

Read the entire report here >

B'Tselem: "Contrary to Israel's Chief of Staff, at least half of those killed in Gaza did not take part in the fighting"

From the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem:

According to B'Tselem figures, from 27 February to the afternoon of 3 March, 106 Palestinians were killed in the Gaza Strip. Contrary to the Chief of Staff’s contention that ninety percent were armed, at least fifty-four of the dead (twenty-five of them minors) did not take part in the hostilities. In addition, at least forty-six minors were wounded.

Given the heavy fighting that only ended this morning, B'Tselem has not been able to conduct a thorough examination of the events. However, initial examination of a few of the many incidents in which civilians were killed raise the grave concern that the Israeli army used excessive and disproportionate force, and failed to distinguish between uninvolved civilians and Palestinians who took part in the fighting. Such attacks may constitute a breach of the laws of war.

Read the entire statement here >

50 dead in Gaza brings death toll to 81 since Wednesday

From the Ma'an News Agency:

As the ongoing Israeli incursion into the Gaza Strip reaches its fourth day, the number of people killed in the coastal sector rose to 50 with more than 150 injured on Saturday. Palestinian medical sources have warned of a fuel shortage both in hospitals and for the ambulances that are ferrying the dead and injured to the morgues and operating theatres.

Dr. Mu'awya Hassanain, director of ambulance and emergency services in the Palestinian Health Ministry said that the number of people killed in the offensive on the northern Gaza Strip since Wednesday has reached 81, including 50 killed on Saturday.

Hassanain added that 19 children have been killed since Wednesday, including a 2-day-old baby. Seven children were killed on Saturday alone.

More than 30 civilians died in bombing raids on their homes on Saturday.

Medical sources also confirmed that more than 200 citizens have been injured since Wednesday, 150 of whom were wounded in the ongoing Israeli aggression on Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip that began early on Saturday morning.

Hassanain said that several ambulance crews have come under Israeli fire as they try to evacuate the dead and injured.

Journalists have also been targeted as they cover the ongoing events. An Al-Jazeera correspondent and her crew were shot at and journalists from the Palestinian news agency Ramatan were targeted by the Israeli army in the northern Gaza Strip.

Read the entire article here >

Also See: Hamas slams 'int'l silence' over Gaza; Abbas urges UN debate