Impoverished Gazans Angry Over Israeli Blockade Vows
They were hoping to receive 500 electric wheelchairs for paralyzed children.
CAIRO June 4, 2010— -- Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, desperate for medical and other supplies, are watching the high seas confrontation between Israel and blockade runners with a combination of sadness and anger.
In the hours after Israeli commandos captured a flotilla of six ships in a bloody fight that left nine people dead earlier this week, Palestinians were furious.
Streets were ''packed with Palestinians, many headed out to the harbor where the ships were due to dock," Amjad Shawa, coordinator for the Palestinian Non-Governmental Organizations, told ABC News. "There was anger, sadness and shock. No one expected the Israelis to attack and commit such bloodshed.''
Shawa said that among the tons of supplies on the ships that were intercepted were 500 electric wheelchairs destined for paralyzed children.
''They didn't even want the chairs anymore when they heard what was happening. They just wanted the safety of the civilians on the ships,'' Shawa said.
Another attempt to run the blockade loomed today as a ship named the Rachel Corrie neared the blockade zone and Israel vowed to stop it from reaching Gaza's shore too.
Gaza's 1.5 million residents have been isolated and increasingly impoverished by an Israeli blockade since the Islamic group Hamas won election in 2006 and then forcibly took complete control of the enclave in 2007.
With virtually no economy, Gaza suffers with a 44 percent unemployment rate, and economic aid, food and medical equipment are desperately needed.
Tunnels on the border with Egypt are used to smuggle in goods which in the past have included sheep and even cars. But with a 15 percent tax on these items that make it across the border underground, many cannot afford it.
U.N. relief agency UNRWA's spokesperson Chris Gunness said that ''80 percent of the population is aid dependant on international systems such as UNRWA [ United Nations Relief and Works Agency] and the WFP [World Food Program]. "The number of people we call the poorest, people who cannot feed their families, has gone up from 100,000 to 300,000 in one year alone. Tell me, where else in the world that this would not be a humanitarian crisis?''
The Gaza Strip's public health system that finds it difficult to function under the blockade.
Gunness says that they are trying to get $20 million worth of medical equipment into Gaza. ''In the second largest hospital in Gaza the Gaza European hospital, only one lift (elevator) works. Can you imagine that in a hospital in North America where you have life and death situations?''
