Trapped between Israel, PA and Egypt

The UN human rights agency has expressed “deep concern” over the horrendous and deteriorating situation in the Israel-besieged and blockaded Gaza Strip, ruled since 2007 by Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. UN humanitarian agencies which had warned Gaza would be “uninhabitable” by 2020 have revised their assessment and said the strip is “uninhabitable” now!

Since Hamas won the Palestinian legislative election in 2006, the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority (PA), dominated by Hamas’ rival Fatah, has adopted punitive policies toward Gaza with the objective of forcing the Hamas administration to stand down and permit Fatah to return.

Meanwhile, Israel has tightened its punitive siege and blockade, imposed in stages since 1991. Casting around for allies, Hamas has recently exacerbated its rift with the PA by forging an alliance with former strongman in Gaza, Muhammad Dahlan, a Fatah renegade whose 2007 failed coup against Hamas precipitated it into power in Gaza.

The PA, under the direction of Palestine President Mahmud Abbas, has cut funding for Israeli fuel for Gaza’s sole power plant and convinced Israel to reduce by 40% its direct supply of electricity to the strip. Consequently, the power plant has closed down and the vast majority of the two million Palestinians who dwell in the impoverished Gaza have less than four hours of electricity a day at the height of summer, when temperatures soar to 40 degrees Celsius.

Before the crisis, Gazans received only 7-8 hours of power daily. Only the wealthy can afford to make up the difference by using private generators. Eighty per cent of Gazans live below the poverty line and depend on foreign aid to provide them with food.

Water distribution has been affected and the sewage treatment plant has ceased to function, spilling raw effluent into the Mediterranean sea, polluting beaches where families have, traditionally, camped at night to escape sweltering homes. Fish caught off the Gaza coast are unsafe for consumption. Hospitals have had to shut down wards and postpone operations and other treatment.

Patients’ lives are put at risk by severe shortages of essential medicines, which the PA refuses to pay for and transfer to Gaza. The PA has also dramatically cut the number of permits for patien-
ts to be treated in West Bank, Israel or abroad, a policy that cost more than a dozen lives, including of several infants. In May and June, the number of referrals had been cut to 10 a day when there had been 120 requests.

Israel, which controls Gaza’s imports and exports, blocks the entry of medical equipment, increasing the number of people seeking to leave for treatment. This month, Israel has imposed new restrictions on Palestinians permitted to travel to or through Israel to Jordan and elsewhere.

Laptops, hard-shell suitcases, shampoo and toothpaste have been put on the banned list. The inclusion of computers impacts Palestinian journalists, engineers, and businessmen who need to take data with them. Transmission by e-mail is difficult due to the lack of electricity.

Nowhere to go

Egypt — once the main route out of Gaza for Palestinian residents — has imposed severe limits on entries and exits since 2013, following the ouster of President Muhammad Morsi, a Brotherhood stalwart who backed Hamas. Since the PA issues permits for departure thro­ugh Egypt, thousands remain stranded. Students accepted for study abroad and doctors seeking to learn new medical techniques are, like the overwhelming majority of Gazans, trapped.

Most of the tunnels beneath Gaza’s southern border with Egypt have been destroyed. For years, commercial tunnels provided Gaza with food, medicines, fuel, cement, and other goods Israel did not allow into the strip. Israel is building an above-and-below ground wall around Gaza to prevent smuggling and infiltration, sealing off the strip.

Arguing that Hamas uses cement to build tunnels for smuggl-ing weapons into Gaza and fight-
ers out of it, Israel bars the import of cement, except for UN proj-
ects. This has meant that 50% of the buildings destroyed by Israel in its 2014 offensive have not been rebuilt and 75,000 Palestinians remain homeless.

Following the 1993 Oslo accord with Israel and the 1994 return of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to Gaza and the West Bank, Palestinians had hoped for Israeli withdrawal from these territories and the emergence of a Palestinian state. Gaza, where Arafat initially based his government, was seen as a potential IT zone, industrial engine, and exporter of fruits, vegetables and flowers. High rise blocks of luxury flats and hotels expecting an influx of tourists were built along the waterfront.

But after withdrawing its troops and 8,000 settlers in 2005, Israel retained full military control on two of Gaza’s land borders as well as the sea and airspace, while Egypt held the southern border. Israel waged two devastating wars on Gaza in 2008-9 and 2014 and kept up military pressure on the strip.

Gaza was not permitted to prosper but was diminished, trapped by Israel citing its need for “security” and subjected to Egypt’s boycotts. Instead of developing, Gaza has de-developed and slid, ineluctably, into the doomsday scenario predicted by UN experts.