Living conditions for Palestinians in Gaza are at breaking point, Karen Abuzayd, head of the UN Relief and Works Agency warned yesterday.
She said Israeli military action in Gaza over recent weeks has created suffering and mass despair, rather than any desire for political compromise.
Abuzayd said that Gaza was becoming increasingly isolated by financial sanctions, the Israeli siege of the territory and daily targeted killings.
‘It would be great to have an international presence, civilian, military, whatever,’ she said, adding that an international force of peacekeepers could offer Gaza’s 1.5 million people some protection.
‘The strangulation of commerce and trade has ruined the economy, it has brought the institutions of government to a point of near-meltdown and badly shaken the society,’ she said.
‘These pressures and tactics have not resulted in a desire for compromise on the part of the government or the people, or yet the fall of the government, but rather have created mass despair, anger and a sense of hopelessness and abandonment.’
Between late June, when Israeli Cpl Gilad Shalit was captured in a cross border raid by Palestinian fighters, and the end of August, Israeli security forces killed 226 Palestinians, 54 of them minors, in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli Human rights group, B’Tselem has reported.
• Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said Israel would be willing to discuss the status of the disputed Shabaa Farms if Lebanon disarms Hezbollah, Israeli media reported yesterday.
The Shabaa Farms is Lebanese and has been occupied by Israel since it captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war.
