Gaza Will Be Unlivable by 2020

Palestinian children hold candles as they sit on the rubble of a house destroyed during Israeli airstrikes in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on May 7, 2019. Photo credit: Abed Rahim Khatib / Shutterstock.com.

By Ellen Rosser
WILPF US Middle East Committee

The situation in Gaza is almost unlivable. Indeed, the UN predicts it will be totally unlivable by 2020. Already, ninety percent of the water is not drinkable due to sewage and ocean seepage. Babies therefore are dying of diarrhea, and a disease called “blue baby Syndrome” is increasingly being seen due to contaminated water. Many older children are also sick with diarrhea.

More than 500,000 Gazans are children, more than 50% of that area’s population. Between 2000 and 2013, Gaza’s population grew by over 687,000. By 2020, the region is projected to have 2.1 million people who will increasingly be attempting to survive without food and safe water (watch a PBS News Hour report about this dire situation).

Since Egypt destroyed the tunnels through which Gaza got its food and other supplies, people have been unable to rebuild houses destroyed in Israel’s 2014 attack on Gaza. Building materials are in short supply. And there are only about four hours of electricity a day, since the Palestinian Authority (PA) is not paying for electricity in Gaza since the split between the PA and Hamas.
    
As a result, some hospitals have had to close, and the remaining ones have been overwhelmed by the number of wounded. Israeli soldiers shoot across the border and kill or wound Palestinian demonstrators weekly at their Friday demonstrations. Indeed, at least 252 Gazans have been killed by Israeli sharpshooters, including 31 children, the youngest aged four. Three medics and two journalists have been killed, while 25,522 people have been injured, many of them intentionally shot in the knee. Due to the overwhelming number of injuries and the closure of many hospitals, the leg ends up requiring amputation in many of these cases.   

Moreover, recently the PA announced it would no longer send drugs to Gaza hospitals. And access to medical care outside Gaza is very restricted; Israel denies 40% of those applying for medical visas to enter Israel for treatment, and Egypt also restricts entry.

The US facilitates these atrocities by giving Israel $3.8 billion a year in aid while eliminating aid to Palestinian refugees. In Gaza, 70% of the people (1.4 million) are refugees, and since the US cut its funding for UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which was established to provide aid to Palestinian refugees), Palestinian refugees in Gaza and elsewhere have been hurt.

What can we do? Call your representative and ask that she/he support H.R. 2839, a bill that would restore US funding for UNRWA and that will also provide necessary appropriations to the State Department and support other needed programs such as the U.S. Institute of Peace and the Israeli Arab Scholarship Program.

For more information, contact ellen.rosser@gmail.com