Starving Gaza

"Open another line!" demanded young men banging on the doors of a Gaza City bakery with their fists Monday night as bread queues spread throughout the city. Bakeries had run out of wheat and flour supplies, and rice and sugar selling at double price was difficult to find in stores.

The humanitarian crisis the Gaza Strip faced this week as supplies of grains, dairy products, baby formula, and other essential goods dwindled has been building for weeks. Karni, the only commercial crossing for imports and exports of goods to Gaza, opened for less than 40 minutes Monday afternoon after being sealed for nearly two months. About six trucks carrying flour and sugar, along with several containers of chips and coca-cola were allowed in, and then Israel again ordered the crossing shut.

Palestinian officials say the food delivery falls well short of what is needed to supply Gaza's 1.4 million residents, while Israeli officials blame the Palestinian Authority (PA) for the lack of food supplies. US Ambassador to Israel Richard Jones hosted Palestinian and Israeli officials at his residence on Sunday. Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert acceded to American urgings and agreed to the limited re-opening.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said, "this is a textbook example of Israel's penchant for blaming the victim. Only weeks ago, Dov Weissglas openly declared Israel's intention to impose a 'diet' on our already impoverished population. We hope that the current bread shortage in the occupied Gaza Strip is not the first phase of this plan."

The Israeli Army claims the reason for Karni's closure is the suspected presence of tunnels dug by Palestinian militants leading to the crossing. It threatens to keep the crossing closed until the PA digs several trenches to intercept militant-dug tunnels. Palestinian security services have dug four trenches, totalling more than 1.5 kilometres in length around the crossing, in an effort to find these tunnels. So far, none have been found, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Despite Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in September they have retained tight control over Karni in violation of the "Agreement on Movement and Access" brokered between the PA and Israel by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Quartet envoy James Wolfensohn 15 November, which stipulated that "passages will operate continuously." Indeed, Karni has been closed 60 per cent of this year, and the price of food products has risen 30 per cent since January, according to the OCHA. Every day Karni remains closed results in economic losses of exported goods of approximately $600,000, according to the Palestine Trade Centre (PalTrade).

Food shortages, an economic crisis coupled with rampant unemployment, and a breakdown of law and order have created an unbearable environment for Palestinians in Gaza and for foreign workers who have almost completely evacuated due to the most recent wave of violent abductions executed by the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). The PFLP began targeting British and American citizens after leader Ahmed Saadat was seized during an Israeli raid of a PA prison in Jericho 14 March.

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http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2006/787/re3.htm