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| Volume XVI, Summer 2009, Number 2 |
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EXCERPT
Negative Impact of Policy on the Delivery of Humanitarian Assistance in the Gaza Strip
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| Martha Myers |
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Ms. Myers is the country director for CARE in the West Bank and Gaza.
Israel effectively controls all assistance going into Gaza, limiting the kind and quantity, thereby limiting the effort severely. Efforts to turn that assistance to one political end or the other can cause tremendous harm to the people who need it most. In the context of Gaza, international assistance organizations are squeezed between the competing agendas of Israel, Fatah and Hamas. Hamas and Fatah, ever jealous of the other’s powers and prerogatives, seek to exert their authority by controlling the flow of assistance and the movements of humanitarian aid workers. As an example, The matter of medical referrals has become fraught, with the ill and injured paying the price as Israel, Fatah and Hamas attempt to exert hegemony.
While Israel has narrowed the corridor to medical treatment outside Gaza, Fatah and Hamas have made a bad situation worse.As part of the siege policy, no building materials — cement, steel, wood or glass — are allowed into Gaza. Nor are pipes or spare parts for the water, sanitation or electrical grids. Fuel and cooking gas have also been restricted, leading to power outages and contributing to the further debilitation of the private sector. Leading up to the December 2008 Israeli attack and during much of “Operation Cast Lead,” most bakeries in Gaza had to close for lack of both flour and cooking gas. The World Food Programme stepped in to supply flour to commercial bakeries that still had access to cooking gas, to avert catastrophic bread shortages. The policy of prohibiting all pipes — just because some pipes are used to manufacture the crude Qassam rockets fired at Israel by Hamas and other groups in Gaza — has been particularly disastrous to the water system.
As already noted, the 1.4 million people trapped in the Gaza Strip are wholly dependent on international humanitarian assistance to meet their basic needs. In such an environment, and where there are ongoing disputes, it is necessary that all parties adopt policies that protect a neutral and impartial humanitarian space in which assistance can be delivered.
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