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Gaza's Moribund Economy
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By Khaled Mohammed**
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January
2, 2006
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Amnah Audeh's family has never had the money to buy meat or chicken.
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It
is one o'clock on a cold winter night in Rafah. A young man is
huddled on the doorstep of a shack. The night gets colder. It's now
three o’clock, and he is still sitting outdoors. Is he an amateur
astronomer? Or is he a self-appointed watchman to warn of
Israeli spy drones?
No. Hani Al Najjar, 23, is awake at such a late hour because his
19-year-old brother Mahmud has the "early shift" in the
bed they share. Actually, Western readers wouldn't call the
thin mattress on the floor a "bed," but western-style beds
are an impossible luxury for most families in Gaza. When Mahmud
leaves for school, Hani gets some sleep indoors. "There is no
room for both of us to lie down inside," he explains. The
"house" of the family — a family of eight — was
originally built long ago to shelter goats, but the Al-Najjar family
was grateful to rent it after their house was bulldozed by the
Israeli Army during an incursion in 2003.
In the same ramshackle neighborhood, Amnah Audeh, a 53-year-old
housewife, says she has one simple, but perhaps impossible goal.
"The dream of my family is to taste beef or chicken. We have
never had the money to buy meat, or any really good meal. We simply
can't afford it," she says sadly. Open a refrigerator in any
refugee camp home: Most often you will find bottles of water and
little else. The lack of potable tap water means everyone in Gaza
must purchase bottled water, or else they will risk serious disease.
Of course, that means less money for a nutritious diet.
A UN report said that 64 percent of the entire population were surviving on less than 2.20 US dollars a day, and half of them fit the UN definition of "extreme poverty cases." |
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Gaza — despite the existence of one border crossing now operating
to Egypt under joint Egyptian and Palestinian control — is still
the biggest prison in the world. Poverty in Gaza is steadily
worsening as the Israeli military continues its stranglehold on all
crossing points for cargo. Materials to rebuild destroyed houses
cannot enter; Gazan goods cannot reach market; Gazans cannot seek
employment across the border.
The
same is true for the Palestinians trapped behind the closed borders
in the West Bank, and in many cases, cut off from their land, jobs,
and schools by the illegal apartheid wall.
Today, more than three quarters of the 1.3 million Palestinians in
Gaza live below the poverty line, the United Nations announced last
week. In the five years since the start of the Intifada,
unemployment throughout Palestine has risen from 10 percent to over
30 percent. A UN report, compiled by all UN agencies working in the
region, said that 64 percent of the entire population were surviving
on less than 2.20 US dollars a day, and half of them fit the UN
definition of "extreme poverty cases" with less than 1.6
US dollars. In Gaza, 78 percent live below the poverty level.
Filippo Grandi, Deputy head of the UN agency for Palestinian
refugees, UNRWA, said, "The situation has been exacerbated
by the Israeli Army's constant closures in the occupied West
Bank and in Gaza, even though the last troops were withdrawn from
Gaza in September."
Ironically, despite the extreme poverty, Palestine is rich in
talent. Literacy rates, especially among younger Palestinians, are
high, and many poor families make enormous sacrifices to send their
children to Gaza's universities. On graduation, however, the young
men and women discover they cannot put their skills to work in a
salaried job. As Nigel Parry, head of the World Bank mission to the
Palestinian territories recently pointed out, the local economy is
in such disarray that even the Palestinian Authority can no longer
pay its civil servants and government employees.
Nigel
Roberts placed the blame for Palestine's desperate poverty
and stagnant economy squarely on the Israeli restrictions,
closures, and continuing occupation. |
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Palestinian
cabinet minister Hind Khuri said that international assistance is
vital. "The situation is so bad that the government cannot
possibly solve it on its own," she said. "In previous
years, we received billions of dollars in financial aid, but due to
the continuing occupation, the humanitarian situation is constantly
worsening, and I cannot realistically foresee improvement without
international aid," she added.
The
Palestinian Authority had made significant progress in
infrastructure and health care before the Intifada, but the Israeli
Army's systematic destruction of water and sewer systems during the
last five years wiped out virtually all the gains. Illness and
malnutrition rates have risen.
In a phone interview, Nigel Roberts, the World Bank representative
in the Palestinian territories, placed the blame for Palestine's
desperate poverty and stagnant economy squarely on the Israeli
restrictions, closures, and continuing occupation. When there is no
movement of people, no flow of goods and services, there can be no
viable economy.
"Stagnant" seems almost too mild a word for Gaza's
moribund economy. But as long as the powerful forces in the First
World refuse to apply serious pressure on Israel to ease its
stranglehold on Palestine, Mrs. Audeh, and hundreds of thousands of
other mothers in Gaza, will dream in vain of serving a few grams of
chicken to their children.
**Khaled
Mohammed A young journalist from Rafah, Gaza
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