Life in Gaza 'at its worst since Israel invaded 40 years ago'

Published on Wednesday 5 March 2008 20:54

GAZA is experiencing "a humanitarian implosion" and life for its embattled citizens is at its worst since the beginning of Israeli occupation in 1967, a coalition of British human rights groups and charities said yesterday.

Poverty and unemployment are rising, hospitals are suffering power cuts for 12 hours a day and the water and sewage systems are close to collapse, according to a report by groups including Amnesty International, Care International UK, Oxfam and Save the Children UK.

It called on the UK government and the European Union to urgently redress this by pressuring Israel to lift its blockade on the impoverished coastal enclave and talk to Hamas.

The report came three days after an Israeli attack on northern Gaza left 120 Palestinians dead. Hamas has been escalating its attacks on Israel, killing a civilian last week and extending its rocket-fire range to include the coastal city of Ashkelon.

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, had threatened not to resume negotiations with Israel until it reached a truce with Hamas, but he yielded to US pressure and backed down.

That pressure had come from Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, who yesterday concluded a two-day visit to Israel and the West Bank that she said was aimed at prodding the two sides towards a peace agreement by the end of President George Bush's term in January 2008.

The UK groups' report on Gaza said the severity of the humanitarian situation had "increased exponentially since Israel imposed extreme restric-tions on the movement of people and goods in response to the Hamas takeover (last June] and to indiscriminate rocket attacks against Israel".

It added: "The Gaza economy is no longer on the brink of collapse; it has collapsed."

During the past six months, the majority of private businesses in Gaza have shut down and 95 per cent of its industrial operations have been suspended due to an Israeli ban on imported raw materials and the blockage of exports. The report said poverty and unemployment had deepened dramatically and that 1.1 million people out of a population of 1.5 million were dependent on food aid.

Israeli restrictions had also hit patients in need of medical treatment unavailable in Gaza. Israel granted only 64 per cent of applications for care outside Gaza in December, compared with 89.3 per cent in January 2007.

A spokesman for Ehud Olmert, Israel's prime minister, said economic strictures were in place because of rocket attacks. "In Gaza, a hostile regime took power that is shooting rockets into Israel on a daily basis. You don't have to have normal economic relations with a country that is shooting at you," he said.