Humanitarian crisis deepens in Gaza

Biplabi Chhatra Front organised a programme in front of the National Press Club yesterday in protest against the Israeli aggression on Gaza. NN photo

Gaza is "on the cusp of catastrophe", a senior UN official currently in Gaza City has said. Aid agencies say the already fragile humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip has deteriorated dramatically since Israel began its military offensive.

Israel has imposed a crippling blockade on Gaza for the past 18 months, allowing little more than humanitarian basics into the coastal territory.

Health, energy and water infrastructure were already close to breaking point before the fighting broke out.

Now paramedics are struggling to secure safe access to the wounded. Hospitals are short of medical supplies and intensive care patients' lives are dependent on ageing back-up generators.

Much of the population is without electricity, about half are without running water, and food deliveries to 750,000 have been seriously disrupted.

On Wednesday Israel began daily three-hour lulls in the fighting to allow Palestinians to leave their homes and stock up on supplies. It also says it is allowing safe passage for the transportation of goods from the border to Gaza City, and for fuel to the power plant.

But the UN said a daily three-hour window would make "no difference" to its operations, because of the scale of the needs. Some 750,000 people - half Gaza's population - are dependent on food hand-outs from the UN relief agency, Unrwa.

Distribution has been hampered by security problems and was suspended for a day on Friday 9 January after a truck driver for the UN was killed. The UN blamed Israeli fire, which the Israeli military later denied.

In the month before the Israeli operation, Unrwa had to suspend distribution at times because it ran out of flour after Israel closed the border crossings into Gaza repeatedly. It has said throughout the operation that the supplies it has will last "days, not weeks".

During the hostilities about three times as many trucks of goods, mainly food, have entered Gaza than were doing so in November because of crossing closures.

But Unrwa stresses that the necessary volumes of grain cannot be shipped unless the conveyor belt at the Karni crossing - close to the scene of heavy ground clashes - is re-opened.

Early in the operation, Save the Children said there was a "severe shortage of food".

On 6 January, the UN said only nine of Gaza's 47 bakeries were operating because of shortages of flour and cooking gas, causing bread prices to double.

Israel's destruction of smuggling tunnels, used to bring in both weapons and other products, together with the fact that Israeli forces have blocked the main north-south road, has disrupted the flow of other food items.

The World Food Programme said there are shortages of rice, sugar, dairy products, milk, canned foods and fresh meat.

Prices for many food stuffs have risen - one shopper, for example, told Reuters the price of tomatoes had quadrupled since November.

And, because of the long-term economic impact of the blockade, plus shortages of bank notes, many Gazans cannot afford to buy much in the first place.

The UN says that if Israel gave permission for bakeries to access their 70 tonnes of cooking gas stored near the border, more bakeries could operate.

Gaza's health system is close to collapse, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Hospitals are overwhelmed and do not have enough intensive care beds or operating theatres, medical workers are exhausted from working round-the-clock, and urgently needed life-saving supplies are piling up at the border, the WHO says.

The UN says there are about 2,000 hospital beds in Gaza, including only 164 intensive care beds. Some 3,500 people have been wounded, many with serious injuries.

The WHO says the flow of trucks into the Strip has been insufficient, and there have been difficulties getting medical supplies to the places where they are needed.

Emergency workers are struggling to reach the wounded. Palestinian health officials say 10 have died trying. Electricity outages mean hospitals have been relying on back-up generators, many in need of spare parts and not designed for continuous use.

Fuel supplies for these are "precariously low", the UN said on 8 January. In Shifa hospital, Gaza's largest, some 70 patients' lives depend on machines powered by the generators.

Fuel shortages have already forced generators to shut down for a period at some ambulance stations and vaccine stores, the UN said.

Save the Children says it fears newborn and sick babies may be dying because their parents are unable to reach hospitals.

At the Rafah crossing, Egyptian and foreign doctors have been prevented from entering Gaza from Egypt. Egypt, with Israel, closed the border when Hamas came to power in 2007.

The UN says about two-thirds of Gaza's 1.5m people are without power.

Gaza's only power plant, which supplies much of Gaza City, has been shut down since 30 December because it ran out fuel.

As of 9 January, even though a small quantity of fuel had reached the plant, it was unable to operate because of a broken power line in the west of the Strip.

Several power lines from Israel and Egypt were damaged in the fighting, although all but one have now been repaired.

There have been severe shortages of cooking gas for many weeks. The UN says it has received reports of people burning their furniture to bake bread.

Israel says it has been working with international agencies to co-ordinate the delivery of fuel for hospital generators in the north of Gaza.

About half of Gaza's population are without running water, according to Unrwa. This means they are dependent on their own storage tanks, or risking leaving their homes to buy from private water sellers.

One Gaza resident told the BBC he and many other people had been forced to resort to drinking water from the toilet.

On Wednesday the World Bank said "nearly all" sewage and water pumps had stopped operating due to fuel and power shortages.

It said sewage was flowing into residential areas in the northern areas of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya.

The Bank also warned that an already fragile sewage lagoon in Beit Lahiya could burst because of nearby explosions and the failure of pumps that normally relieve pressure on it, which it said was putting 10,000 people at risk of drowning.

The UN says 21,200 people have fled their homes for shelters set up in UN-run schools, despite the fact that 43 people died when Israel bombed one of these on 7 January.

Israel says militants fired at its forces from the premises.

The UN says 80-90% of the mobile telephone network is down, and a "huge number" of landlines are not working because of damage and power cuts.

The humanitarian lull has allowed the Gaza phone company to refuel back-up generators powering its switchboards and mobile telephone masts, but this will last less than a week.
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