Gazans are losing their last drops of faith to the international community reacting to Israel’s illegal siege that has left them digging their soil to reach a helping hand offering them something to be able to strive more.
The Egyptian army has boosted its attacks on smuggling tunnels near the Rafah crossing, which were almost the only sources of getting humanitarian aids fro Palestinians.
The tunnel crackdown has gathered pace since the Egyptian military removed president Mohamed Morsi from power earlier this month.
A UN report on July 23 said about 80 percent of tunnels used by Palestinians to transfer goods into the Gaza Strip from Egypt are "no longer functioning" due to a crackdown by the Egyptian military .
One Palestinian told al-Alam reporter that, people in Gaza have been gravely suffering from the Israeli imposed siege and now with Egyptian military’s siege on the Rafah crossing and their attacks on the tunnels, supply exchange is completely cut.
He said the Egyptian army has joined the Israeli forces and they control every move around the borders and Palestinians can’t even provide their basic needs.
“The condition is really grave and Egyptians should rethink what they are doing,” he said.
Gaza blockade
Residents of Gaza are blockaded by land, sea and air by the Israeli regime forces.
The blockade is denying the Palestinian people access to medical supplies and food.
Hospitals face critical shortages, with 40 percent of all essential medicines at zero stock level, according to a report by the Canada-based Global Research.
Out of the 1.7 million Palestinians living in Gaza 54 percent are food-insecure including 428,000 children.
Israel’s illegal blockade has also led to a massive shortage of building materials to repair the homes, hospitals, schools and water/sanitation infrastructure that have been destroyed/damaged by the regime in the last 5 years.
Most of Gaza’s water supplies are polluted and unsafe to drink. There are power cuts every day as well.
The International Red Cross and the United Nations have found the Israeli regime’s siege of Gaza to be illegal under international law.
In September 2011, five independent UN rights experts made a report to the UN Human Rights Council which said that Israel’s siege of Gaza amounted to collective punishment of the Palestinian people and was a “flagrant contravention of international human rights and humanitarian law” under the Fourth Geneva Convention.
Prominent political thinker Noam Chomsky has described the Gaza Strip as “the world’s largest open air prison.”
SHI/SHI