Living Conditions Deteriorating in Gaza under Israeli Siege
GAZA CITY (Tasnim) – Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip has led to a dramatic decline in the standards of living as well as substantial levels of unemployment and poverty in the impoverished Palestinian coastal enclave.
According to Tasnim dispatches, the situation in the Gaza Strip is very bad and it is getting even worse as poverty and unemployment rates are growing on a daily basis.
It seems that a UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution censuring Israel for its illegal settlement construction in occupied Palestinian territories could be of no help as it cannot put an end to the pain and suffering of the Palestinians caused by the long-term blockade.
In fact, such resolutions have tuned into a leverage for the Zionist regime of Israel to mount pressure on people in Gaza.
According to Pierre Krahenbuhl, head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the most immediate concern is 6,500 families in Gaza that rely on UNRWA cash support for their temporary shelter, until the agency can rebuild their homes.
“As of next January we will be forced to stop assisting them, unless we receive $5 million in the weeks ahead,” he says.
Krahenbuhl’s senior adviser in media affairs told Tasnim that UNRWA is facing a nearly $5 million budget shortfall and that it has so far been able to pay the rent of only three-fourth of the refugees.
The Gaza Strip has been under an Israeli siege since 2007.
Israel has also launched several wars on the Palestinian sliver, the last of which began in early July 2014. The 50-day military aggression, which ended on August 26, 2014, killed nearly 2,200 Palestinians, including 577 children. Over 11,100 others — including 3,374 children, 2,088 women and 410 elderly people — were also wounded in the war.
Israel continues to carry out singular attacks on the Palestinian enclave from time to time.
Israeli soldiers also target Palestinian lands in the northern and eastern parts of the blockaded coastal territory on a rather regular basis, preventing farmers from working on their own lands.
