Post by sublime92 on Jul 14, 2017 20:22:06 GMT
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A decade after the Islamist group Hamas seized Gaza, the Palestinian enclave is effectively unliveable for its 2 million people, with declining incomes, healthcare, education, electricity and fresh water, the United Nations said.
In a report examining humanitarian conditions in the territory, which Hamas took over in June 2007 after a brief conflict with forces loyal to the Palestinian Authority, the United Nations concludes the situation in Gaza is deteriorating "further and faster" than was forecast only a few years ago.
"Across the board we're watching de-development in slow motion," Robert Piper, the UN Coordinator for Humanitarian Aid and Development Activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday.
"Every indicator, from energy to water to healthcare to employment to poverty to food insecurity, every indicator is declining. Gazans have been going through this slow motion de-development now for a decade."
Immediately after Hamas took power, Israel moved to isolate the militant group by restricting the flow of goods and people in and out of Gaza, limiting access to the sea and working with Egypt to enforce a blockade.
At the same time, Hamas has been in near-constant dispute with the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, prompting the PA to limit financial transfers to Gaza and, in recent weeks, asking Israel to cut back electricity supplies.
The upshot is that Gaza's population, which is projected to grow by another 10 percent in the next three years, is being squeezed on all sides, even as resources become more scarce.
"I see this extraordinarily inhuman and unjust process of strangling gradually two million civilians in Gaza that really pose a threat to nobody," said Piper.
In a report examining humanitarian conditions in the territory, which Hamas took over in June 2007 after a brief conflict with forces loyal to the Palestinian Authority, the United Nations concludes the situation in Gaza is deteriorating "further and faster" than was forecast only a few years ago.
"Across the board we're watching de-development in slow motion," Robert Piper, the UN Coordinator for Humanitarian Aid and Development Activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday.
"Every indicator, from energy to water to healthcare to employment to poverty to food insecurity, every indicator is declining. Gazans have been going through this slow motion de-development now for a decade."
Immediately after Hamas took power, Israel moved to isolate the militant group by restricting the flow of goods and people in and out of Gaza, limiting access to the sea and working with Egypt to enforce a blockade.
At the same time, Hamas has been in near-constant dispute with the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, prompting the PA to limit financial transfers to Gaza and, in recent weeks, asking Israel to cut back electricity supplies.
The upshot is that Gaza's population, which is projected to grow by another 10 percent in the next three years, is being squeezed on all sides, even as resources become more scarce.
"I see this extraordinarily inhuman and unjust process of strangling gradually two million civilians in Gaza that really pose a threat to nobody," said Piper.
