[News] Gaza unemployment soars as medicine stocks hit zero

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Tue Jun 18 11:15:07 EDT 2019 

https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/gaza-unemployment-soars-medicine-stocks-hit-zero 



  Gaza unemployment soars as medicine stocks hit zero

Maureen Clare Murphy 
<https://electronicintifada.net/people/maureen-clare-murphy> - 17 June 2019

------------------------------------------------------------------------

As Qatar delivered $20 million in cash 
<https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/qatar-delivers-20-million-cash-infusion-to-gaza-to-aid-over-100-000-families-1.7374935> 
to aid impoverished families in Gaza on Sunday, a shortage of essential 
medicines threatens the lives of patients in the occupied territory.

Gaza’s health ministry has less than a month’s supply of more than half 
of the medicines in its stocks, spokesperson Ashraf al-Qedra stated 
<https://twitter.com/press221/status/1140130638588084224> on Sunday.

The depleted stocks include <https://pchrgaza.org/en/?p=12540> 
therapeutic milk for infants, as well as medicines for patients with 
cancer, kidney failure, diabetes and hypertension.

Some 8,000 cancer patients are affected, according to the health 
ministry, as well as nearly 1,200 patients who receive dialysis – among 
them 39 children.

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights called on the Palestinian 
Authority in the West Bank “to shoulder its responsibilities and 
urgently intervene to ensure the supply of medicines and medical 
disposables” to Gaza health facilities.

The medicine crisis is just the latest setback for Gaza’s long-suffering 
healthcare system, which the United Nations warned 
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/violence-relative-calm> 
earlier this year was on the “brink of collapse.”

Thousands of elective surgeries at Gaza hospitals were postponed over 
the past year as Israel used massive amounts of live ammunition 
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/who-sanitizes-israeli-responsibility-gaza-killings> 
and other weapons against protesters in the territory, killing 200 and 
injuring 28,000 more.

Chronic electricity shortages in Gaza, which has been under 
Israeli-enforced land, sea and air blockade for 12 years, has come close 
to seeing hospitals shut down altogether 
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/gaza-hospitals-about-run-out-fuel>.

Israeli restrictions on the entry of medical supplies and equipment into 
Gaza has left hospitals “severely hindered in providing care,” according 
to 
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/siege-stops-chemotherapy-gaza> 
Al Mezan, a human rights group in the territory.

The siege has all but destroyed Gaza’s economy, causing unemployment and 
poverty to skyrocket.


    Fishers denied access to sea

Gaza’s coastal waters have been closed by Israel for five consecutive 
days, the group Gisha, which monitors Israel’s siege on Gaza, stated on 
Monday.

“The full maritime closure, imposed arbitrarily and repeatedly by Israel 
since March this year, causes severe damage to the livelihoods of 
fishermen and to Gaza’s economy,” the rights group added. “It must end now.”

    Today was the 5th consecutive day of a full maritime closure in
    Gaza's territorial waters. The full maritime closure, imposed
    arbitrarily & repeatedly by Israel since March this year, causes
    severe damage to the livelihoods of fishermen and to Gaza's economy.
    It must end now. pic.twitter.com/1xMiBqIUP0 <https://t.co/1xMiBqIUP0>

    — Gisha גישה مسلك (@Gisha_Access) June 17, 2019
    <https://twitter.com/Gisha_Access/status/1140637221155999744?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>

COGAT, the bureaucratic arm of Israel’s military occupation, stated 
<https://twitter.com/cogatonline/status/1138905375497969666> on 
Wednesday that the measure was “due to the launching of incendiary 
balloons and kites” from Gaza towards Israel.

That same day a spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin 
Netanyahu tweeted a photo of Egyptian soccer star Mohamed Salah holding 
a large fish. The tweet admonishes Palestinians in Gaza for letting 
“terrorists” deprive them of sustenance “because burning the fields 
means reducing the fishing distance”:

    يا سكان غزة! ما بتسمحوا للإرهابيين اللي بيطلقو البالونات الحارقة
    لحرق الحقول بإسرائيل بحرمانكم من مصدر رزقكم لأنو حرق الحقول يعني
    تقليص مسافة الصيد.

    شوفوا #محمد_صلاح
    <https://twitter.com/hashtag/%D9%85%D8%AD%D9%85%D8%AF_%D8%B5%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%AD?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>
    @MoSalah <https://twitter.com/MoSalah?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw> - ما بدكم
    تكونوا زيو؟ ما بتستأهلو صيد نفس الأسماك الكبيرة؟ أكيد, بس هذا مش
    ممكن لو استمر الإرهاب. pic.twitter.com/h0LU3OEGoE
    <https://t.co/h0LU3OEGoE>

    — Ofir Gendelman (@ofirgendelman) June 12, 2019
    <https://twitter.com/ofirgendelman/status/1138756085966430208?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>

The closure “is the third time this year that Israel has outright denied 
fishermen’s access to the sea,” Adalah, a Palestinian human rights 
group, and Gisha said last week.

Israel’s sanctions “in response to actions over which fishermen in Gaza 
have no control constitute illegal collective punishment, and must end 
immediately,” the groups added.

Under the Oslo accords signed by Israel and the Palestine Liberation 
Organization more than 25 years ago, Palestinian fishers are permitted 
access up to 20 nautical miles out from Gaza’s coast.

Israel has never allowed Palestinians access beyond 15 nautical miles, 
however, and that expanded limit was only introduced for part of Gaza’s 
coast on 1 April this year.

Fish caught off Gaza’s coastal waters are a major source of nutrition 
<https://www.ochaopt.org/content/restricted-livelihoods-gaza-fishermen> 
for Palestinians in the territory, though one that fewer and fewer can 
afford.


    Economy “at all-time low”

Gaza’s economy “is at an all-time low,” the human rights group B’Tselem 
recently stated 
<https://www.btselem.org/gaza_strip/20190606_forced_unemployment>.

That deterioration has been caused by 12 years of blockade, and Israel’s 
severing of Gaza from the West Bank and the revocation of permits from 
Palestinian laborers working in Israel nearly 20 years ago.

In 1999, more than 15 percent of all employed Palestinians in Gaza 
worked in Israel. Two years later, according to B’Tselem, that number 
was less than two percent.

Unemployment jumped to more than 40 percent in 2008, after Israel 
imposed its blockade on Gaza.

Last year, the unemployment rate in Gaza was 52 percent, “reaching as 
high as 69 percent in the under-26 age bracket, and 78 percent among 
university-educated young adults,” according to B’Tselem.

The isolation of Gaza has brought about its “economic collapse and 
trapped its residents in a small, closed job market, with no prospects 
of development and no future,” B’Tselem added.

“Israel could change this stifling reality right now. Instead, it 
chooses to force Gaza residents to live in a state of poverty, 
stagnation and hopelessness.”


      Tags

  * Qatar <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/qatar>
  * Gaza health care system
    <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/gaza-health-care-system>
  * Gaza siege <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/gaza-siege>
  * Gaza fishing industry
    <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/gaza-fishing-industry>
  * COGAT <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/cogat>
  * Gisha <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/gisha>
  * B'Tselem <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/btselem>
  * Adalah <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/adalah>
  * Palestinian Center for Human Rights
    <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/palestinian-center-human-rights>
  * unemployment <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/unemployment>
  * economy <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/economy>

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