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Human rights groups: Gaza humanitarian crisis worst in 40 years
 Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip has created the worst humanitarian crisis since the Israeli occupation began in 1967, aid and rights groups said on Thursday.Food shortages, crumbling health services and a water and sewage system close to collapse are all part of the daily misery facing 1.5 million Palestinians in Hamas-controlled Gaza, a report by a coalition of British relief groups said. Didn't all those fat, sweaty Gazans blow international funding for an improved sewage system? "As we speak, sewage is literally pouring into the streets," said Geoffrey Dennis, head of CARE International, one of the eight non-governmental organizations behind the report. "Over the past three weeks we've only been able to send in food and medicine and the aid dependency is rising." It's a cultural thing. They'll take everything you have to offer until you figure it out. This "crisis" is merely an enabling vehicle, nothing more. They could stop shooting Kassams any moment they so choose. Israel imposed restrictions on the flow of people and goods and virtually froze economic activity last June when Hamas Islamists seized control of Gaza. It tightened the blockade in January, limiting supplies of fuel and other goods in what it described as a response to cross-border rocket fire by militants. You mean the fuel that accounts for about 10% of their power generating needs? The report painted a picture of an enclave held hostage by the embargo, which it said had worsened poverty and unemployment, crippled education services and made 1.1 million people -- 80 percent of the population -- dependent on food aid. Try looking behind the painting. Of course if you did, there would be no pity and no need for rights groups in Israel. It said the health system was in tatters, with hospitals facing daily power cuts lasting eight to 12 hours a day due to fuel and electricity restrictions. Talk to Hamas about that. They could give the fuel they do get to hospitals instead of using it to drive around and sow conflict. Almost 18 percent of patients seeking emergency treatment outside Gaza last year were refused permits to leave, it said. Did they try going to Egypt?
Apparently the conditions aren't "dire" enough to warrant Gazans turning in the terrorists. Squeeze harder. "It would be devastating," John Ging, director of United Nations Relief and Works Agency in Gaza, told Reuters by telephone. It won't stop them. You watch. I'd say look deeper than the surface because this terrorism is something they do not need to be doing to survive. "The whole infrastructure is in a state of collapse, whether it's water, sanitation or just the medical services... If there's a further military offensive it will again just add and compound an already desperate situation." Why? Are Israelis taking out the hospitals or medicine stockpiles? Aid groups and legal experts have called Israel's blockade illegal under international law because it constitutes "collective punishment" of the entire population. You'll find legal experts on both sides of the fence. What do the courts have to say about this? "It's grossly disproportional," Geoffry Binder, an expert on international humanitarian law in London, told Reuters. Note: Geoffry doesn't live in Israel. Nor will he ever. "What we're dealing with here is a few rockets coming from presumably one small corner of Gaza. And the response is the blockade and the destruction of hundreds of lives and the impoverishment of the whole area." Weren't there like 40 in one day? If it's only a few criminals who represent an extreme minority, then why don't they get outed? Posted by: gorb 2008-03-06 |
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