Commentary: How to avert more death and despair in GazaReuters, May 15, 2018, Galen Guengerich
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As the peace process has stalled, living conditions in Gaza have grown increasingly desperate: only an average of five hours of electricity per day, dwindling supplies of food and medicine, staggeringly high unemployment rates (nearly 45 percent overall, and over 60 percent among young people), rising levels of water pollution (more than 90 percent is contaminated) and disease (sewage pumps need electricity), and an economy that has virtually come to a halt.
What must be done? First, Gaza needs electricity 24/7. Electricity has been an issue in Gaza since the Israel Defense Forces destroyed Gaza City’s only power plant in 2006 in retaliation for the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier by Hamas – a savagely disproportionate response. Even so, the power can be fully restored. Egypt and Israel can supply fuel to existing power plants, and both can turn on electric lines into Gaza. They have done so in the past in limited measure, and they could readily do so now. This would bolster public and private collaborations currently underway to provide Gazans with water and sanitation.
Second, Washington needs to restore full funding to USAID and to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which provides education, medical care, and food aid to more than half of Gaza’s 2 million people. The United States, UNRWA’s largest donor nation, gave $355 million to UNRWA in 2017 for Gaza, but the Trump administration has pledged only $125 million in 2018 — and has thus far announced it is withholding $110 million of that commitment. A senior official told me during my visit that unless full funding is restored by the end of May, UNRWA will further curtail its stretched-thin medical and food programs, and also lay off 9,000 teachers and close 275 schools, leaving 273,000 children and youth without classes to attend after summer break.
Without education, the children and youth of Gaza will increasingly have nothing left to lose – a lethal incubator of anger and violence within Gaza, and a potentially overwhelming security risk to Israel. UNRWA funding could be restored now.
Third, 12 years of restrictions on border crossings have had devastating consequences. More than 90 percent of Gazan children under the age of 12, who make up one-third of the population, have never left Gaza; the only Israelis most have ever seen are pointing tanks and guns their way. Also, workers from Gaza can no longer cross the border to work, shortchanging both Gaza and Israel. In addition, two senior hospital officials in Gaza City told me that there are no CT scanners, MRI machines, or radiation equipment (and relatively little chemotherapy medication) in Gaza.
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https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-guengerich-gaza-commentary/commentary-how-to-avert-more-death-and-despair-in-gaza-idUKKCN1IG24T
