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Gaza: severe food shortage

Conal Urquhart

Aid cut off, Israel put the region on the brink of implosion

DIRE SITUATION: Palestinian women at the Al-Badan roadblock, set up by the Israeli army north of Nablus, on Sunday. — PHOTO: AP

Gaza City: An empty watchtower overlooks a deserted road lined with rusting vehicle parts. This is Gaza's economic lifeline, the Karni crossing into Israel, which is supposed to handle 1,300 containers of merchandise and food per day in order to sustain 1.3 million people.

But nothing is entering or leaving Gaza, and now the funds to purchase what is available there are also drying up, bringing the dire situation of its people to a new and febrile crisis.

Karni is officially closed because the Israeli army has declared a security alert for the Jewish Passover holiday. Yet it has barely been open this year. The effect is a paralysis of Gaza's commerce and severe shortages of basic foods. Not that the locals are in a position to buy what food there is. There is little money because the European Union, Canada and the United States have stopped funding the aid-dependent Palestinian Authority, which can no longer pay its staff's wages.

The result is that families are existing on tiny amounts of money and businesses are facing collapse. Palestinian areas in the West Bank face similar difficulties, but the situation in Gaza is much more severe. John Ging, Gaza director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, said while he did not expect people to starve, "the clock is ticking towards a crisis." —

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

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