SherriMunnerlyn
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UNRWA calls Gaza 'disaster area,' pleads for end to Israeli blockade
UNRWA calls Gaza 'disaster area,' pleads for end to Israeli blockade | Maan News Agency
BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- "UNRWA spokesperson Chris Gunness said that large regions of the Gaza Strip are a "disaster area" and called on the world community to lift the Israeli blockade in order to allow recovery efforts to proceed, in a statement sent to Ma'an."
The statement from UNRWA reads:
"Large swathes of northern Gaza are a disaster area with water as far as the eye can see. Areas around Jabalia have become a massive lake with two meter high waters engulfing homes and stranding thousands.*Four thousand UNRWA workers are battling the floods and have evacuated hundreds of families to UNRWA facilities. Our sanitation, manintenance workers, social workers and medical staff have been working through the night and round the clock to assist the most vulnerable, the old, the sick, children and women."
The statement from UNRWA continues, "Any normal community would struggle to recover from this disaster. But a community that has been subjected to one of the longest blockades in human history, whose public health system has been destroyed and where the risk of disease was already rife, must be freed from these man made constraints to deal with the impact of a natural calamity such as this. And of course it is the most vulnerable, the women and children, the elderly who wil pay the highest price of failure to end the blockade."*
Gaza has been without a functioning power plant since the beginning of November, when the plant ran out of diesel fuel as a result of the tightening of a 7 year blockade imposed on the territory by Israel, supported by Egypt.
The power plant itself was only reopened last year after it was targeted by an Israeli airstrike in an assault in 2006 on Gaza.
The power plant generates around 30 % of the Gaza Strip's electricity supply, while the rest comes from Israel and Egypt.
Until July , the tunnels to Egypt provided a vital lifeline for the territory amidst the otherwise crippling Israeli blockade.
The blockade of Gaza by Israel has been in place since 2006, and it has limited imports and exports and led to a major economic decline and wide-reaching humanitarian crisis.
It is certainly way past time the Blockade on Gaza, an act of collective punishment and defined as an Israeli war crime by the IRCR and other international legal authorities, be permanently lifted.
What better time than NOW in this time of increasing humanitarian crisis in Gaza for the international community to insist Israel lift this unlawful Blockade of Gaza and allow all humanitarian assistance the people in Gaza need enter her borders.
UNRWA calls Gaza 'disaster area,' pleads for end to Israeli blockade | Maan News Agency
BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- "UNRWA spokesperson Chris Gunness said that large regions of the Gaza Strip are a "disaster area" and called on the world community to lift the Israeli blockade in order to allow recovery efforts to proceed, in a statement sent to Ma'an."
The statement from UNRWA reads:
"Large swathes of northern Gaza are a disaster area with water as far as the eye can see. Areas around Jabalia have become a massive lake with two meter high waters engulfing homes and stranding thousands.*Four thousand UNRWA workers are battling the floods and have evacuated hundreds of families to UNRWA facilities. Our sanitation, manintenance workers, social workers and medical staff have been working through the night and round the clock to assist the most vulnerable, the old, the sick, children and women."
The statement from UNRWA continues, "Any normal community would struggle to recover from this disaster. But a community that has been subjected to one of the longest blockades in human history, whose public health system has been destroyed and where the risk of disease was already rife, must be freed from these man made constraints to deal with the impact of a natural calamity such as this. And of course it is the most vulnerable, the women and children, the elderly who wil pay the highest price of failure to end the blockade."*
Gaza has been without a functioning power plant since the beginning of November, when the plant ran out of diesel fuel as a result of the tightening of a 7 year blockade imposed on the territory by Israel, supported by Egypt.
The power plant itself was only reopened last year after it was targeted by an Israeli airstrike in an assault in 2006 on Gaza.
The power plant generates around 30 % of the Gaza Strip's electricity supply, while the rest comes from Israel and Egypt.
Until July , the tunnels to Egypt provided a vital lifeline for the territory amidst the otherwise crippling Israeli blockade.
The blockade of Gaza by Israel has been in place since 2006, and it has limited imports and exports and led to a major economic decline and wide-reaching humanitarian crisis.
It is certainly way past time the Blockade on Gaza, an act of collective punishment and defined as an Israeli war crime by the IRCR and other international legal authorities, be permanently lifted.
What better time than NOW in this time of increasing humanitarian crisis in Gaza for the international community to insist Israel lift this unlawful Blockade of Gaza and allow all humanitarian assistance the people in Gaza need enter her borders.
