Closed Border Halts Food Aid From U.N.
By Linda Gradstein
Special to The Washington Post
Saturday, November 15, 2008
JERUSALEM, Nov. 14 -- A five-month-old cease-fire between Israel and the armed Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip has been strained by 10 days of violence, and residents are warning of a humanitarian crisis because Israel has sealed the territory's borders.
Israeli forces and Palestinian fighters have clashed repeatedly since early this month, leaving at least 10 Hamas gunmen dead. The United Nations said Friday that it had closed its food-distribution program because it cannot resupply its warehouses and that 750,000 Palestinians who depend on U.N. aid will have to wait until Israel lets more food enter the strip.
Gaza's main power plant also ran out of fuel because of the closure, and U.N. and other aid officials warned of mounting problems.
"It is unprecedented that the U.N. is unable to get its supplies in to a population under such obvious distress," John Ging, the senior U.N. official in Gaza, said in a telephone interview.
Israeli officials said the closure is a response to Palestinian rocket and mortar fire from Gaza into Israel, which continued Friday.
The military wing of Hamas launched 11 Soviet-style Grad missiles at the Israeli city of Ashkelon, Hamas member Ayman Taha told the BBC. Israeli rescue workers said that five rockets landed in Ashkelon but that there were no reports of casualties or damage.
One rocket or mortar shell hit a house in the southern Israeli town of Sderot, one of several such attacks Friday. An Israeli was slightly wounded.
Israeli aircraft fired missiles at a target in northern Gaza, according to an army spokesman, wounding two gunmen.
European Union External Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner called on Israel to reopen the crossings in keeping with international law requiring that civilians have access to essential services, such as electricity and clean water.
"I am profoundly concerned about the consequences for the Gazan population of the complete closure of all Gaza crossings for deliveries of fuel and basic humanitarian assistance," she told the Reuters news agency.
She said 20 European members of parliament were also denied entry into Gaza this week.
The Israeli blockade has disrupted a U.N. program that feeds about half of Gaza's 1.4 million residents. Food distributed by the body's Relief and Works Agency includes flour, oil, rice, sugar and canned meat, and is meant to provide 60 percent of daily caloric needs.
"Many of these families have been subsisting on this ration for years, and they are living hand-to-mouth," Ging said. "This is a disastrous situation, and it's getting worse and worse. Even during the cease-fire we were prohibited from building up our reserves, which could have prevented the current crisis."
Israeli Defense Ministry spokesman Peter Lerner said Israel had planned to open the border crossings to allow fuel for the power plant and food aid to enter Gaza. But he said officials maintained the closure after Israeli intelligence warned that Palestinian gunmen planned to attack the crossings.
Lerner also rejected Ging's criticism of Israel.
"Instead of blaming Israel, they should be blaming Hamas," Lerner said. "We hope the Palestinians will stop firing rockets and we can get the crossings opened again."
Foreign journalists based in Israel have not been allowed to enter Gaza for 10 days. The Foreign Press Association has complained to the Israeli government that access to Gaza is an essential part of covering the region, but Lerner said no change was expected in the next few days.
Most of Gaza City has been dark since Thursday night, when Gaza's main power plant, which supplies a third of the territory's electricity, ran out of fuel. More than half of Gaza's power enters on lines from Israeli plants, and that supply has not been affected by the blockade.
Awni Sawafiri, a 37-year-old taxi driver and father of three, said the blackout began about 6 p.m. Thursday. The electricity resumed for a few hours in the middle of the night but went off again at 8 a.m. Friday. He said there is also no cooking gas available in Gaza.
"When I look around, it looks as though people have gone back in time," he said. "With no electricity, more and more people are burning wood to make a fire to cook."
What he does have is gasoline for his taxi, which is being smuggled in from Egypt through tunnels. But with the economic situation so dismal, he said, he has few customers.
Hana Bardawi, who lives in the Shati refugee camp with her seven children, says she is completely dependent on the U.N. aid. Her husband, who is ill, does not work.
"If the U.N. assistance stops, I will have to take my two oldest sons out of university, because I won't be able to afford it," she said. "Now with winter coming, we also need jackets and warm clothes for the children."
Palestinian parliament member Jamal al-Khodari said that 80 percent of Gazans live below the poverty line and that the average per capita income is $2 a day.
"This is an illegal collective punishment," he said. "There is a shortage of medicines in the hospitals, and the cutting of electricity is further pushing the situation deeper toward a crisis."
Ahmed Abu Hamda, a Palestinian journalist in Gaza, said the Israeli closure was the main talk of Palestinians at Friday prayer in the mosques.
"People just feel hopeless; we don't see any solution to this situation," he said in a telephone interview. "They say, 'What the hell is going on here? I just want to live.' "
Special correspondent Samuel Sockol contributed to this report.
View all comments that have been posted about this article.