Gaza facing humanitarian crisis

"My husband waited for 3 hours to buy a bag of flour so we can bake at home, and all the bakeries have closed in our town, we don't know what we will do in a few days" said 50-year-old Um Ramadan, of her 8 member-family.

Bread is the staple food for 1.3 million Palestinians in Gaza, which requires 450 metric tonnes of wheat each day to maintain bread supplies, according to the World Food Programme. The UN says the usual 30-60 day wheat stock has been exhausted, and other basic food commodities, such as dairy products and fruit, are in extremely short supply.

Rice and sugar are selling at more than twice their normal price and are also very difficult to find in stores, while prices of locally-grow vegetables marked for export, such as tomatoes and green peppers, have plummeted. Desperate farmers disposed of several tones of rotting vegetables earlier in the week, while others attempted to sell their harvest on donkey carts throughout the city in bulk, with 20 kilograms of tomatoes going for 5 shekels (a little more than a dollar).

Israeli Prime Ministerial advisor Dov Weisglass recently described the Israeli sanctions policy in the wake of the democratic Hamas victory as one in which Palestinians would be put on a diet but not starved to death. "It's like an appointment with a dietician. The Palestinians will get a lot thinner, but won't die," Weisglass was reported as saying.

The United Nations has condemned the closure, noting that 40% of children in the Gaza Strip suffer from malnutrition and that under the fourth Geneva Convention, Israel, as an occupying power, is responsible for the welfare of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

A UN official said, on the condition of anonymity, that the closure was very obviously political in nature, since it had become clear that there were no direct security threats to Israel on the crossing.

Israel authorities say the crossing has been closed due to "security threats", specifically, fears that tunnels had been built under the crossing. The most recent closure coincided with the Israeli siege of the Palestinian-controlled Jericho prison, in which PFLP leader Ahmed Saadat-in jail for four years without standing trial- and five others were taken into Israeli custody.

At the request of the Israeli army, Palestinian security services dug four trenches, totaling more than 1.5 kilometres in length around the crossing, but no tunnels were ever found, Israeli and PA sources say.

Israeli spokespersons say they offered the PA an alternative crossing at Kerem Shalom, a still-not-functional terminal located on the south-eastern tip of the Gaza Strip, but that the PA refused.

Palestinians have so far rejected this option, citing reasons both political and practical in nature.

The alternative crossing is being imposed upon the Palestinians as a substitute where it was supposed to function alongside al-Mintar (Karni), say PA officials, adding that in any case, it is not equipped to handle large amounts of imports and exports.

According to the UN, the crossing has only a fraction of the capacity of al-Mintar, and in particular does not have the facilities to handle the approximately 450 MT of wheat needed in Gaza.

"Only 4-8 trucks would be allowed out per day, and at most this can be pushed to 30 with the proper infrastructure, which is likewise insufficient. It's also very obvious that the al-Mintar closure is a political decision as there are no direct security threats," said a senior PA civil servant who is overseeing the implementation of the access and movement agreement from the Palestinian side.

"The Agreement talked about Kerem Shalom being a redundant border, open at the same time as Karni, not a substitute border," said the official, adding that Palestinian control over the Rafah Crossing as brokered by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is "an illusion".

The US-brokered Agreement on Movement and Access forbids the PA from importing goods through the Rafah Crossing, with Israel insisting that all goods must be subject to Israeli oversight and control, as they would in the Kerem Shalom Crossing. Limited amounts of supplies have nonetheless been transported through Rafah, which likewise lacks the technical capabilities for large-scale shipments enough for over one million Palestinians.

A PA source formerly involved in the negotiations over the crossing said Palestinians want full sovereignty over Rafah for both goods and people, but attempts to institute this unilaterally have failed because Egypt has been succumbing to Israeli pressure to prevent this from happening, and EU monitors have threatened to leave their posts, which would annull the agreement and shut down the crossing, and possibly result in a Jericho-type Israeli siege. Further, the source added, even if they pass through Rafah, goods will still have to be re-routed to Kerem Shalom for Israeli inspection, a roundabout and slow process that would be costly and highly inefficient. Israel also attached to the Agreement a series of "security protocols" which render Palestinian control over the Crossing moot.

In a press conference held today at the Rafah Crossing, President Mahmud Abbas told reporters that the PA will meet with Israeli, Egyptian, and American delegates in a mammoth session to be hosted by the Americans in their Tel Aviv embassy this afternoon in order to try and resolve the humanitarian crisis. The meeting will attempt to resolve "all outstanding issues relating to security protocols and imports" Abbas said.

"The meeting will have to do with all issues related to Rafah, and imports and exports. We realize there is a serious problem now in Gaza in regards to food shortages, and that will also be examined today, and we hope to find a solution to it. We will also take a serious look at security protocols, so this border can be opened continuously," Abbas told reporters.

Last week, James Wolfensohn, the Middle East special envoy to the Quartet, said the Palestinian Authority faces "financial collapse", adding that a reduction in financial support by the US, EU, UN and Russia could trigger a sharp rise in unemployment and send personal incomes plummeting.

Laila El-Haddad is a journalist based in the Gaza Strip.

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