A LEAKED UN report has warned that Israel’s continued economic blockade of Gaza and lengthy delays in delivering humanitarian aid are “devastating livelihoods” and causing gradual “de-development”.
For more than two years, Gaza has been under severe Israeli restrictions, preventing all exports and confining imports to a limited supply of humanitarian goods.
Now, eight months after the end of the Gaza war, much reconstruction work remains to be done because materials are either delayed or banned from entering the strip.
The UN report, obtained by the Guardian, reveals the delays facing the delivery of even the most basic aid. On average, it takes 85 days to get shelter kits into Gaza, 68 days to deliver health and paediatric hygiene kits and 39 days for household items such as bedding and kitchen utensils.
Among the many items delayed are notebooks and textbooks for children returning to school. As many as 120 truckloads of stationery were “stranded” in the West Bank and Israel due to “ongoing delays in approval”.
There were “continued difficulties” in importing English textbooks for grades four to nine – affecting 130,000 children – and material used to print textbooks for several subjects.
Government schools were reported to lack paper and chalk, while the UN relief and works agency, which supports Palestinian refugees and runs many schools in Gaza, was still waiting to import 4,000 desks and 5,000 chairs.
The UN says the current situation contravenes a UN security council resolution passed during the war in January, which called for “unimpeded provision and distribution” of humanitarian aid for Gaza.
“The result is a gradual process of de-development across all sectors, devastating livelihoods, increasing unemployment and resulting in increased aid dependency among the population,” says the report from the UN office of the humanitarian co-ordinator.
Israel began putting restrictions on Gaza after Hamas won the Palestinian elections in early 2006 and imposed the blockade in June 2007, after the party seized control of the strip.
A spokesman for Israel’s co-ordinator of government activities in the territories did not respond to calls for comment on Thursday.
– (Guardian service)