Peace and Justice Post

• Ian Black, Middle East editor
• The Guardian,
• Thursday March 6 2008

Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are living through their worst humanitarian crisis since the 1967 war because of the severe restrictions imposed by Israel since the Islamist movement Hamas seized power, a report says today.Movement is all but impossible and supplies of food and water, sewage treatment and basic healthcare can no longer be taken for granted. The economy has collapsed, unemployment is expected to rise to 50%, hospitals are suffering 12-hour power cuts and schools are failing – all creating a “humanitarian implosion”, according to a coalition of eight UK humanitarian and human rights groups.

The data was collated before the recent escalation in Hamas rocket fire and Israel’s incursion, which saw 106 Palestinians, at least half of them civilians, killed in five days alone. One Israeli civilian and two soldiers were killed in the same period.

The situation in Gaza is “man-made, completely avoidable, and with the necessary political will can be reversed”, say the groups, which include Oxfam, Amnesty and Save the Children.

Continued . . . 

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