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Closed Crossings Pushing Gaza into Disaster, Says UN
GAZA CITY - UN officials issued warnings yesterday about the dire collapse of Gaza's economy and called on the international community to open crossing points for trade.
At least 68,000 Palestinians have lost their jobs in the past month since Israel closed the crossings out of the narrow, highly populated strip of land, according to the latest Palestinian figures. The closures came after the Islamist movement Hamas seized full security control of Gaza in mid-June after months of near civil war with its rival Fatah.
Around 85% of Gaza's private-sector employees are out of work, according to Nasser el-Helou, a prominent business leader. Thousands of factories have closed as imports and exports have halted.
The warnings come before a meeting today in Lisbon of the Quartet of Middle East negotiators - the US, the EU, the UN and Russia - which Tony Blair, the Quartet's new special representative, will also attend. Included in his remit is the task of promoting Palestinian economic development but in Gaza most say the economic crisis has never looked so bad.
The isolation of Gaza has highlighted its growing division from the West Bank, where the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, has installed an emergency government after sacking the Hamas-led authority which was elected into power last year. Yesterday Mr Abbas said he would call early elections. Hamas has already said it will not take part.
Karen AbuZayd, head of the UN Relief and Works Agency (Unrwa), which helps Palestinian refugees, called on Mr Blair to visit Gaza to see the problem for himself. Mr Blair is expected to visit Jerusalem and Ramallah from Monday, but there appear to be no immediate plans for him to travel to Gaza.
"First he has to see what is going on and the best way would be if he came down to Gaza, at least to talk to those of us who live here," said Ms AbuZayd, who has worked in Gaza for seven years. "It is a time of great worry about the future." Her agency feeds 825,000 refugees in Gaza. It has had to stop $93m (£45m) worth of construction projects, employing thousands of people, because no cement can be imported.
Although Israel withdrew its settlers from Gaza two years ago, it maintains control of the sea, the airspace and all the crossings for people and goods with Israel and with Egypt.
Under an agreement arranged by the US in late 2005, Israel is committed to opening the crossings to allow trade in and out of Gaza. However, since Hamas consolidated its control of Gaza a month ago Israel has said the crossings must remain closed for security reasons. Several have been attacked by Palestinian militants in recent weeks. But supplies of fuel and electricity continue to be delivered as well as the food aid from the UN.
"If the present closures continue we at Unrwa anticipate that Gaza will become a nearly totally aid-dependent population that will be robbed of the possibility of self-sufficiency and also of the dignity of work," said John Ging, the agency's director of operations in Gaza.
In Gaza many business people have watched their livelihoods collapse. Mr el-Helou, the spokesman for Gaza's Borders and Crossings Crisis Committee, said he had fired 45 of his 75 employees.
He appealed to the Quartet and to Mr Blair. "Please lift the siege on Gaza, Mr Blair. The siege is destroying our economy, our community and our sense of hope in the future.
"It is radicalising the people of Gaza and making your vision of bringing peace to the Middle East an ever-more distant dream."
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007
27 Comments so far
Show AllI don't mean to offend....I know times are sensitive and no one likes to share.
So whats next Isreal? A Final Solution? Smoke stacks on the horizon, and the sickening stench of burning long pig?
I'm sorry to say this and it has no bearing on the people of Israel and my heart goes out to the people of Palestine as well.
Since the government of Israel believes it is gods will to take over the area and create the heaven on earth for only the Jewish people, why does it not just Nuke the Fuck out of the Palestinians because the fallout can't hurt them, the Jewish. Then one can just walk on over and pick the fruit of the land, irradiated, deadly yet un-scarring to the godly Jew. DU fruit will be proclamed wonderful, spicy even. Peace will then be upon us, with 130 degree days in winter and acid rain making sanitation easy.
There's a very fine line between those whom Bush tars as "terrorists" and the Hamas resistant fighters whose party is the legitimate elected government of the Palestinians.
Now once again Israel is finding all kinds of "tests" the Palestinians must excel in before any serious talks can begin, they must show they can govern themselves, etc., etc., and if they should succeed to the satisfaction of US-Israel, there's sure to be a new hurdle they must first jump over. Remember when Palestine had to stop terror attacks first? And the did. Then Sharon decided Arafat couldn't be a partner for peace talks but when he died, or was otherwise dispatached, the democracy test had to be passed with free and fair elections. And they did.
It's hopeless with all these people in power and I'm appalled tha Blair is not going to visit Gaza. So many hoped the might just be able to do something constructive but I suppose he's still Bush's poodle and whomever Bush calls a terrorist, Tony won't touch. Sickening!
More than anything else, the Palestinian problem amplifies the west's and especially America's hypocrisy about supporting democracy. To the U.S., democracy means Palestinians have to elect what America and Israel want: some subservient lackey like Mahmoud Abbas, the new PLO corrupt leader.
Funny how Guardian, another western mouthpiece, names Hamas " Islamist movement Hamas" instead of the Democratically elected Hamas. Did Christianist movement elect those in the British House of Commons?
The Quartet's new special representative, aka, Tony the ex-lapdog, the war criminal No. 2, is biased and is doomed to fail, and fail the Palestinians.
Israel can kill, incarcerate, and starve the Palestinian people to death, but the real perpetrator behind all this cannot hide itself from the world. Pull your head out of the sand America!
It's illegal to starve an occupied people!
Israel taxes Palestinians and withholds it until its demands are met? Kind of like our government withholding tax money from states until they pass stupid laws like "Drive 55". The PEOPLE are stupid for allowing this. Where's the law?
Here it's starvation by the Israelis for political control over the democratic process.
White Rose, you are right. This is part of the extermination project.
And the "international community" does nothing.
It is time to step up!
Its a new neighbourhood the Isrealis have devised, based on their old getto in Warsaw, with the same results in mind.
They learned well from the Germans.
Which is the "international community" that UN is appealing to? How can UN expect anything other than war and holocaust from "the rogue nations" that are part of the Quartet of MiddleEast Peace Negotiators, with a "war criminal" as its envoy??? UN has become an impotent institution and a tool in the hands of these bunch of "mafia dons", who care less about human value and human rights. UN no longer represents all the nations in the world but is an EMPLOYEE of the US and the EU. It is time that the nations in Asia, Africa, and Latin America come up with an alternative "International Organisation". Then only justice will be done to the "victims".
gandhi, you are right about many things, but i think with some important reforms the UN still could act by the principles it was created for, the problem is that those reforms are unlikely to happen
More people have been killed in the name of religion than anything else.
I would favor removing veto power from members of the UN's security council. If the full assembly were to vote on whether or not to call Bush/Cheney/Blair et al to account for illegally invading and occupying Iraq AND, in the case of the US, to fund Israel's half-century-long illegal occupation of Palestinian lands and the false imprisonment of 10,000 of its people and its Summer 2006 illegal and merciless invasion of Gaza and Lebanon, such illegalities would be judged by the International Criminal Court and the miscreants put away for a long time.
Gaza is now a large prison for the Palestinian people and a shooting gallery for the Israeli Offensive Forces.
The people in the Israel occupied land are pawns. With the friends they have they don't need enemies. Their 'friends' provide plenty of money for weapons and agitate for violence from a comfortable distance.
This doesn't excuse any of the behavior of the Israel government, the USA, or especially the outside agitators egging Israel on.
This genocide by proxy needs a term like the holocaust to express a shadow of how evil it is.
You are so right, Ezeflyer!
I wish we'd all get over our need to invent magical dragons and fairies and Santa-like gods and get on with real life!!!
What they teach.......
http://jacobisrael.us/talmaticteachings.htm
When you want peace ,you talk to your enemy not your friend. Moshe Dayan,israeli general.
The present israeli regime does not seem too bright. They should remember that a cornered rat can be a deadly animal, tearing out your throat when cornered.
And if they did finish annihilating the palestinians, what will we call it Holcaust 2?
As for Tony Blair ,diplomat extraordinaire, he fits the role perfectly as the world's supreme liar for 5 years.
But can diplomats solve the Israeli-Palestine equation. Nobody but the protagonists themselves ALL of them can do that. No diplomat especially not a British one could inspire ANYONE confidence.
John Stewart is a Likudnik.
I have lost all respect for Israel as a nation! They are no better than the two bit terrorist's they rail against.
The Palestinians have the added indignity of seeing their occupiers consistently portrayed as victims while they themselves must defend against the terrorist label.
I wish I knew a solution...
as was suggested recently we must at least commit to personally supporting food dependent children, our couple dollars a monthcan make a difference & signal how many ordinary people are aware of the zionist hypocracy & brutality.
It's a shame. The West Bank includes some of the most important historical and religious sites in the World. Gaza has beautiful beaches. The Palestine country could make a go of it on tourism alone. The wealthy gulf states need to quit crying crocodile tears for the palestinians and start offering some concrete help. A few less Rolls Royces wont hurt them.
It's the Stockholm syndrome writ large. The Nazis terrorized and killed the Jews in WWII. Now the Israelis in psychotic sympathy with the Nazis are becoming Nazi-like. And doing quite well at it, too. Himmler would be proud.
Perhaps we should consider giving no more money and weapons to the Israelis, and giving money, guns, and food to the Palestinians until the two sides are equal. Then both sides can have a forever war, or one side can kill off the other, or they can make peace, and the rest of the world can get on with the shitstorm that's heading everybody's way via climate change, which will make this whole Mideast issue look like a pissing contest between bratty little three-year-old children.
Too easy to blame religion, Millie and Ezeflyer, it is ideology which is responsible. The atheist communists don't have such a great track record either and they are fairly new on the scene. Religion is part of us. It is like saying if there wasn't sex we wouldn't have rape. At some level the overwhelming majority of us know right from wrong -we just use ideology to excuse bad behavior.
People don't seem to understand that HAMAS are a radical extremist muslim organization. Stop feeling sorry for them! Not only are such governments a threat to the world, but to their own people mostly.
The Palestinians are in their worst shape since Hamas was "elected!" Why is there a Fatah movement against it? Because some Palestinians are not completely brainwashed.
Israeli Prime Minister Olmert has spoken multiple times about fostering peace agreements... But Iran is not interested, and Hamas bows to Iran.
Blame Iran for using the Palestinian people for their own political agendas...
Israel is not without fault, but the world just keeps missing 75% of the picture here... look North (Hezbollah) and East (Iran).
Inform yourself!
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad pledged to help Syria conduct nuclear research during a visit to Damascus earlier this week...
Iran will also supply Syria's navy with missiles, and provide the Syrian army with Iranian-made tanks and armored vehicles.
In exchange, the Syrians agreed to continue supporting Iran's position on affairs concerning Lebanon.
In addition, the source said that Tehran realizes that Syria currently has no allies in the Arab world, other than Qatar, or in Europe.
Additionally, the same source quotes that Syria promises Iran not to enter any peace negociation with Israel.
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DO you understand now that Palestinian's well being in Gaza in not really in Israel's hands?! Iran/Syria/Hezbollah/Hamas have NO interest in Peace, and those who suffer the most are the Palestinian people.
The Palestinian misery is a good marketing tool to convince fools around the world that Israel is this barbaric country.
Get real!
I feel bad for the miserable people of Gaza.
Israel should lift its control over the Gaza sea and Egyptian Gaza borders.
Why is there a Fatah movement against it?
Because it is a creation of U.S. & Israel.