UN Warns of ‘Catastrophic’ Situation in Gaza amid Zionist Siege

The United Nations warns that the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is “catastrophic” due to a decade-long “economic siege” imposed by Israel on the densely-populated Palestinian coastal enclave, Press T.V reported.

“The situation in Gaza is becoming less and less livable,” Isabelle Durant, the deputy head of the United Nations development agency (UNCTAD) said on Wednesday.

The UN agency said in an annual report that unemployment in the occupied Palestinian territories rose to more than 27 percent overall in 2017, the world’s highest, while around 44 percent in Gaza alone.

It noted that the adverse conditions imposed by the Tel Aviv regime disproportionately affected women and young people, saying that half of Palestinians under the age of 30 are out of work.

 The report said that the widespread Israeli restrictions on the movement of people and goods, confiscation of land and natural resources, and the accelerating expansion of settlements were also damaging.

The UNCTAD said that removing restrictions on the besieged territory was particularly important, warning that the strip had been “reduced to a humanitarian case of profound suffering and aid dependency.”

Lifting some of the Israeli restrictions on Palestinian trade and investment could allow the territory’s gross economy to swell by up to 10 percent, the UN agency said.

The UN agency further said that a sharp drop in international support to the Palestinians, “a freeze in the reconstruction of Gaza and unsustainable credit-financed public and private consumption paint a bleak picture for future growth.”

International development assistance to the Palestinians shrunk by more than 10 percent compared to a year earlier.

That dramatic drop in donor support came before US President Donald Trump’s administration decided to completely halt its funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), part of a policy to impose maximum pressure on the Palestinians to satisfy the Israeli regime’s interests and Zionist constituencies in the US.

Last month, the Trump administration decided to cancel all US funding to UNRWA, which had previously stood at around $350 million a year.

Washington also scrapped around $200 million in aid for the West Bank and Gaza, and at the weekend said it would cut $25 million more in direct aid to six hospitals that primarily serve Palestinians in al-Quds.

Mahmoud Elkhafif, who coordinates UNCTAD’s Assistance to the Palestinian People Unit, said that US cuts would certainly result in “more misery” in Gaza.

Israel has been enforcing an all-out blockade of the territory since 2007.

The UN has warned that the blockade on Gaza would render it uninhabitable by 2020, but on Wednesday the UN agency said conditions “are worse” than when they made that prediction.

The UNCTAD said that a decade-long siege and three Israeli-imposed wars have “eviscerated” Gaza’s productive capacity.

The Israeli regime denies about 1.8 million people in Gaza their basic rights, such as freedom of movement, jobs with proper wages as well as adequate healthcare and education.

Israel has also launched several wars on the Palestinian sliver, the last of which began in early July 2014 and ended in late August the same year. The aggression killed nearly 2,200 Palestinians and injured over 11,100 others.

Israeli military sends reinforcements to Palestinian village to begin its demolition

In another development, the Israeli military has sent reinforcements to Khan al-Ahmar as the regime prepares to demolish the Palestinian village in the occupied West Bank in defiance of international warnings and criticisms.

The Palestinian Information Center reported on Thursday that Israeli forces had completely besieged Khan al-Ahmar, situated east of al-Quds, and deployed bulldozers to the village.

Last week, Israel’s Supreme Court rejected appeals against the demolition of Khan al-Ahmar and said a temporary injunction that had put the move on hold would expire within seven days.

The Tel Aviv regime claims the village is built illegally, but Palestinians say the demolition plan is part of the regime’s forcible displacement policy to make room for its settlement construction activities on occupied land.

The United Nations urged Israel not to demolish the village, home to 180 Palestinians, adding that the planned move violates international law.

Saeb Erekat, Secretary General of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), said on Tuesday that he had filed a complaint against Israel with The Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC).

The dossier submitted “included a focus on the war crimes facing Khan al-Ahmar, specifically the crimes of forcible displacement, ethnic cleansing and the destruction of civilian property,” Erekat said.

However, US National Security Adviser John Bolton attacked the ICC, threatening to sanction judges and other officials should the court conduct any probe into Israel or other US allies.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) condemned the Israeli court’s “illegal” decision, saying it was meant to isolate Israeli-occupied al-Quds. Italso stressed that the demolition plan is part of the regime’s attempts “to try to legalize the crimes of the Israeli occupation and its policies which are based on the forcible settlement and ethnic cleansing of Palestinian residents of their land and property.”

The PA further called on Palestinians to come to the streets of Khan al-Ahmar to protest any attempt to demolish the village.

Responding to that call, dozens of protesters marched in the village carrying Palestinian flags.

Esam Abu Baker, coordinator of the Palestinian National and Islamic Forces in Ramallah, who took part in the protest, expressed confidence that the demonstrators “are staying on the land of our ancestors and we will not leave this place.”

Khan al-Ahmar is located eight kilometers from Jerusalem al-Quds between the Israeli settlements of Ma’ale Adumim and Kfar Adumim, which Tel Aviv wants to expand.

About 600,000 Israelis live in over 230 settlements built illegally since the 1967 occupation of the Palestinian lands.

Emboldened by US President Donald Trump’s all-out support, Israel has in recent months stepped up its settlement construction activities in the occupied territories in defiance of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334.

The resolution, approved in December 2016, states that Israel’s establishment of “settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law and a major obstacle to the achievement of the two-state solution and a just, lasting and comprehensive peace.”

R.S