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By Heather Sharp
BBC News, Jerusalem
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The Gaza Strip has been under a heightened Israeli blockade for two years since the militant group Hamas seized control in June 2007. Israel wants to weaken Hamas, end its rockets attacks against Israeli towns and get back captured soldier Gilad Shalit. But many aid agencies say the policy serves only to punish civilians. What gets in and out of Gaza, and what impact has it had?
OVERVIEW: WHAT GETS IN
Since Hamas took control of Gaza, its 1.5m people have been relying on less than a quarter of the volume of imported supplies they received in December 2005. Some weeks, significantly less than that has arrived. In the wake of the Hamas takeover, Israel said it would allow only basic humanitarian supplies into the Strip. It has a list of duel use items such as steel pipes and fertiliser which it says could be used to manufacture weapons. These are not allowed in, with the exception of "special humanitarian cases". Other than that, no specific list of what is and is not allowed in exists, and items gaining entry vary over time. Permitted items generally fall into four categories - human food, animal food, groceries (such as soap and washing-up liquid) and medicines. The UN relief agency for Palestinian refugees Unrwa's list of household items that have been refused entry at various times includes light bulbs, candles, matches, books, musical instruments, crayons, clothing, shoes, mattresses, sheets, blankets, pasta, tea, coffee, chocolate, nuts, shampoo and conditioner. Many other items - ranging from cars to fridges to computers - are generally refused entry. Crucially for reconstruction in the wake of the January 2009 Israeli military operation, building materials such as cement, concrete and wood are nearly always refused. During the six month truce between Israel and Hamas, which began in June 2008, the volume and range of goods increased with, for example, a few truckloads of shoes, clothes and gravel entering Gaza. Israel says Hamas has diverted aid in the past, and could appropriate building materials for its own use. Aid agencies say they have stringent monitoring systems in place.
FOOD
Aid agencies operating in Gaza say they have largely been able to continue to transport basic supplies such as flour and cooking oil into the territory. But UN agencies still consider between half and two-thirds of Gazans "food insecure".
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GAZA CROSSING POINTS
1. Erez: Closed to all but diplomats, aid workers and medical cases with special permits. Hit by mortars and rockets more than 200 times in past year (IDF).
2. Nahal Oz: Fuel crossing - closed occasionally after attacks targeting it, and at times during Operation Cast Lead
3. Karni: Commercial crossing. Closed for much of 2008, apart from conveyor belt for grain and animal feed.
4. Sufa: Small crossing, used for all truck deliveries during periods when Karni and Kerem Shalom closed
5. Kerem Shalom: Closed from 19 April, when a suicide attack damaged crossing and injured 13 soldiers, until autumn 2008.
6. Rafah: Crossing to Egypt, currently closed. A 2005 agreement to allow Egypt and the PA to manage it with EU monitors no longer operating. The crossing is now controlled by Egypt and Hamas. Special cases, usually medical, are sporadically allowed through. Hundreds of thousands of people are thought to have crossed when it was breached in January 2008.
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Half the 1.5m population rely on the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa, for their staple foods. Unrwa food distribution has been suspended several times since June 2007 as a result of border closures or fuel shortages. Israel usually says crossings are closed for security reasons, pointing to occasions when Palestinian militants have attacked the crossings or fired barrages of rockets into Israel. The Unrwa rations provide about two-thirds of dietary needs, and so need to be supplemented by dairy products, meat, fish and fresh fruit and vegetables. Some of these items are grown locally, some allowed in from Israel, and some smuggled in through tunnels under the Egypt-Gaza border. But aid agencies say availability of is reduced and sporadic, prices have risen and many Gazans simply cannot afford a balanced diet. A UN survey in 2008 found more than half Gaza's households had sold their disposable assets and were relying on credit to buy food, three-quarters of Gazans were buying less food than in the past, and almost all were eating less fresh fruit, vegetables and animal protein to save money. The Israeli military operation in December and January 2009 disrupted food aid transfer and distribution significantly, as well as causing what the UN FAO estimates at $180m of damage to the agricultural sector. According to the World Health Organization, one third of children under five and women of childbearing age are anaemic. The Gazan organisation Ard al-Insan is treating 4,000 malnourished children, and says it has seen increases in signs of malnutrition under the blockade.
FUEL AND POWER
In September 2007, the Israeli government declared the Strip a "hostile entity" in response to continued rocket attacks on southern Israel, and said it would start cutting fuel imports. At times, petrol and diesel shortages have caused major problems. Donkey carts are a common sight in Gaza, and some drivers run their cars on cooking oil. Vehicle fuel enters from Egypt through the tunnels. No petrol or diesel for cars has been allowed in from Israel since November 2008, except for UN cars, and in June 2009 the UN said only half the cooking gas needed was allowed in.
ELECTRICITY
Gaza's electricity supply is made up of 144MW from Israel, 17MW from Egypt and the rest from an EU-run power plant in Gaza which can generate up to 80MW. The power plant's fuel is usually brought in through the main fuel entry point, the Nahal Oz crossing. The plant has shut down completely several times after running out of fuel because the crossing was closed. It was out of fuel for most of the Israeli operation in January 2009, leaving two-thirds of Gazans without power at the height of the crisis. For much of the past 18 months, the power plant has received enough fuel to operate at only about two-thirds of its capacity - in line with an Israeli Supreme Court ruling which set a minimum amount of fuel that Israel must allow into Gaza. Figures monitored by international agencies show fuel deliveries dropped even below these minimums at several points in the first half of 2008. Power cuts remain frequent. Research by Oxfam shows houses across Gaza without power for between 4% and 33% of the time.
SEWAGE AND WATER
The blockade has taken its toll on Gaza's water and sewage network. Lack of spare parts has made repairs difficult. Intermittent power supplies have made pumps reliant on generators, which in turn have lacked spare parts and fuel. Even a flagship sewage project backed by the international community's Middle East envoy Tony Blair has been jeopardised by the blockade, with the entry of crucial components delayed since March, a World Bank memo obtained by Reuters said in June 2009. The WHO says Operation Cast Lead worsened an already bad situation. Before the operation, it says Gazans had only half the water they needed according to international standards, and 80% of water supplied did not meet WHO drinking standards. At the height of the January fighting, half of Gaza's population had no access to piped water. In early June 2009, 28,000 people were still without piped water. Gaza's sewage body said less than 40% of the fuel required was available in the first half of 2008, and estimated it was releasing 50-70m litres of raw or poorly-treated sewage into the sea daily. Some of Gaza's sewage is stored in huge lagoons, one of which burst in 2007 causing at least five deaths. There have been period fears that others would burst, especially during Cast Lead.
BUSINESSES
Overall, the UN says the blockade has caused the economy "irreversible damage". Unemployment has soared from 30% in 2007 to 40% in 2008, according to the World Bank. The UN says that when aid is discounted, 80% of Gazans are living in poverty. The closures have devastated the private sector. Nothing, apart from a small number of trucks of strawberries and flowers, has been exported since June 2007. Before the closure, up to about 750 trucks of furniture, food products, textiles and agricultural produce left Gaza each month, worth half a million US dollars a day. Even production for local needs has come to a virtual standstill because raw materials are usually refused entry - for example, according to Israeli rights organisation Gisha, small containers of margarine are allowed in for household consumption, but not large buckets, which might be used for industrial food manufacturing. Before the blockade, 3,900 industrial premises were operating, employing 35,000 people - by June 2008, only 90 were still functioning, employing only 860, according to the Palestinian Trade Center. The situation improved slightly during the truce. An estimated $140m of damage was done to Gaza businesses during the December and January military operation, according to a Palestinian business body, the Palestinian Private Sector Coordinating Council. The World Bank says this resulted in the closure of "many" of the businesses that were still functioning.
AGRICULTURE
Agriculture is also an important employer, but with exports at almost zero, thousands of tonnes of flowers, fruit and vegetables have been destroyed or sold at a loss on the local market. Other food production has also been affected - for example, rising fishermen's fuel costs pushed up the price of sardines, and one poultry farmer had to slaughter 165,000 chicks because he did not have the fuel for the incubators to keep them alive. The UN's FAO says $180m of trees, fields, livestock, greenhouses and nurseries were destroyed during operation Cast Lead. The Palestinian Authority estimates 15% of agricultural land was destroyed. The FAO says the closed borders are a major obstacle to reconstruction, with fertilizer, livestock, seedlings and agricultural equipment in short supply.
CONSTRUCTION
Restrictions on construction materials, particularly cement, and spare parts for machinery, have had a big impact on projects ranging from water treatment to grave digging. Reconstruction of buildings and infrastructure destroyed in the 2009 Israeli operations in Gaza has been virtually impossible. The UN says 52,400 houses, 800 industrial properties, 204 schools, 39 mosques and two churches were damaged or destroyed in the fighting. Some of these just had windows blown out - but in June 2009, Unrwa said not one pane of glass had entered Gaza from Israel since the fighting ended. Even before operation Cast Lead, all factories making construction materials had shut down (13 making tiles, 30 concrete, 145 marble and 250 making bricks), and the building of roads, water and sanitation infrastructure, medical facilities, schools and housing was on hold. During the truce, some trucks of cement and gravel began to enter Gaza, but the volume was well below the need, and the flow stopped as the truce fell apart.
MEDICAL CARE
The World Health Organization says the blockade has lead a general "worsening of the health conditions of the population" and "accelerated the degeneration" of the health system. Israel allows medicines into Gaza. The WHO says that shortages of drugs are a problem, with 100 of 459 essential drugs out of stock at the start of the January conflict. But it blames problems in the supply chain, including the rift between Fatah and Hamas, rather than the blockade. However it says the blockade is a major factor in the "dire state" of much of Gaza's medical equipment, with extensive delays in approval of machines and spare parts, and engineers denied access to fit them. The medical system has also struggled with lack of spare parts and, at times, fuel for back-up generators, and lack of building work because of the shortage of materials. Before Operation Cast Lead, Gaza had only 133 hospital beds per 100,000 population, compared to 583 in Israel, and it lost some of that capacity in the fighting. Six hospitals suffered damage, including one that had a new building completely destroyed, another lost two whole floors. The only repairs done so far, according to the WHO, are the covering of blown-out windows with plastic sheeting, because of the lack of building materials. Gaza is simply not equipped to treat many severe cases. During the conflict, more than 1,000 injured people were transferred to Egypt, and at least 68 patients were transferred to Israel, the West Bank and Jordan. Rafah crossing into Egypt has been closed since June 2007, although special medical cases are sporadically allowed to pass through it. Human rights organisations say dozens of people have died in the past 18 months while waiting for - or after being denied - security clearance to enter Israel for medical treatment. The proportion of referred patients who were denied entry increased from 10% in 2006 to 44 % in the first 6 months of 2008. Israel says extensive security screening is necessary, as it says three people with permits to leave for medical reasons have been found to be planning attacks in Israel. It also says it has offered to facilitate passage through Israel to Jordan for Palestinians it refuses permits to on security grounds.
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