Behind the Spotlight on Gaza
by Ushani Agalawatta JERUSALEM, Aug 19 (IPS) – As the cameras focus on the few Israeli settlers being moved out of Gaza, some are asking the world to look at the plight of the Palestinians living there, and what that means for peace. "Poverty and the lack of basic infrastructure are the key obstacles to a reasonable peace in the Middle East," Mohammed Zeidan, executive director of the Arab Association for Human Rights based in the West Bank city Nazareth told IPS. "Almost 73 percent of the population in the Gaza strip and about 60 percent of the population in the West Bank live below the poverty line (under two dollars a day)," he said. "It is really outside the cities that you find the worst amount of poverty — in the refugee camps and small villages." There are about 1.3 million Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip and about 2.4 million in the West Bank. "The Gaza Strip is one of the most densely populated places on earth," says a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) report. The UNDP Programme of Assistance to the Palestinian People (UNDP/PAPP) adds in a report that "with a total area of 365 square kilometres and a population of over 1.3 million, Gaza has suffered immensely under an Israeli military occupation that has lasted for 38 years." The report says: "Infrastructure in the Gaza Strip has been severely affected by lack of funds for upgrades and rehabilitation, in addition to destruction incurred during military operations. From electricity and sewerage networks to access to roads and clean running water, basic daily requirements have not been maintained. Particularly over the past four years, municipal buildings and schools have been occupied, damaged or destroyed and roads rendered inoperative. This has necessitated greater action on the part of international organisations." In an attempt to acknowledge the harsh conditions Palestinians endure, and to deal with a critical security situation for Israeli settlers, Israelis are pulling out of the Gaza Strip and four settlements in Northern Samaria, the heart of the northern West Bank. In the face of glaring inequalities, Israel is negotiating 2.2 billion dollars in aid from the United States. "Is it not enough that the U.S. has been funding the Israeli occupation for the past 38 years," Josh Ruebner from the U.S. campaign to end the occupation told IPS. "U.S. aid money would be of better use to reconstruct and redevelop the Gaza Strip as a result of damage done by U.S. aid over the past four decades." The United States has pledged 200 million dollars for Palestinians, of which 50 million dollars is earmarked for improving security measures. Sarit Michaeli, spokesman for B’Tselem, the independent Israeli information centre for human rights in the occupied territories believes that compensation packages to Jewish settlers and the enduring poverty of the Palestinian people are separate issues. "Settlers, who were encouraged by the Israeli government to move to settlements, are entitled to compensation," Michaeli told IPS. But B’Tselem acknowledges the many difficulties faced by the Palestinian people, particularly in moving goods through the Karni checkpoint. The checkpoint is the border crossing close to the city of Gaza through which agricultural and manufactured goods pass between the Gaza Strip and Israel and the West Bank. It is the only crossing through which Palestinians in Gaza can import and export goods. "The restrictions on the movement of goods and labourers has created a deep recession, the loss of work, and a dramatic deterioration in living conditions," B’Tselem said in a report in March this year. "Over the past four and a half years, the poverty rate has increased by more than 40 percent." The Israeli disengagement does not include the right to movement, Zeidan says. "But this is essential to poverty alleviation and reconstruction in the Gaza strip…The Palestinians in Gaza need to be able to establish links with Egypt, the West Bank and the international community through their own airport and ports."