Beit Hanun, June 02: One day after Israel’s bloody raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla, Hazem Juha returned to the fields of rubble along the territory’s border with Israel where he collects the detritus of years of conflict.
“I am trained as an electrician but there has been no construction in Gaza for three years and my family needs money to live,” he said, while gathering scrap metal and breaking down concrete chunks in the scorching heat.
He can make 12 dollars (10 euros) for each half ton of scrap, which will be used in the limited rebuilding efforts following the 2008-2009 Gaza war.
“What are we supposed to do, just wait until we die?” he said.
The so-called “Freedom Flotilla”, loaded with hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists and 10,000 tonnes of building supplies and other goods, had been hoping to break the blockade imposed by Israel in 2006 and which Egypt – under US-Israeli pressure – has largely backed.
Although Israel has promised to deliver all the fleet’s supplies to Gaza through its land crossings, the Palestinian territory remains largely cut off from the world, with most people relying on international aid and goods smuggled through cross-border tunnels from Egypt.
Israel says the blockade is vital to pressure democratically elected Hamas – a resistance movement – in Gaza, and prevent it from arming against the Israeli occupation.
But the border closure has been counterproductive.
“The strengthening of the blockade has failed to bring down the Hamas government and has not rallied the people against Hamas. Instead, it has made them more sympathetic,” says Omar Shaaban, a Gaza-based economist.
The effects of the blockade have fuelled radicalism, in a territory where more than 80 percent of the population relies on foreign aid and virtually all the goods on sale are brought in through smuggling tunnels.
Israel says the supplies the flotilla sought to bring in were not needed and insists sufficient humanitarian aid is allowed into the Gaza Strip.
Humanitarian agencies adamantly reject the claim.
“There is an urgent need immediately to get nearly 20 million dollars worth of medical aid and supplies into Gaza,” said Chris Gunness, spokesman for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA.)
“The suggestion that there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza is just not based on reality, as the list of medical equipment that has been waiting to go into Gaza makes abundantly clear.”
A World Health Organisation document shows hundreds of items procured by WHO and other organisations have been waiting for clearance to get into Gaza for up to one year. These include CT scanners, X-rays and laboratory equipment.
Reconstruction is also a huge problem, with building materials generally not being allowed in.
Hardly any of the more than 6,000 homes severely damaged or destroyed during Israel’s devastating 22-day assault on Gaza which ended in January 2009 have been repaired because of the lack of building materials.
UN agencies refuse to use materials brought in through the tunnels, the UN Development Programme said in a report last week.
Shaaban estimates that a third of the organisations now providing aid in Gaza are Islamic, including the IHH, the Turkish charity heavily involved in the doomed aid flotilla.
—Agencies