United Nations Radio

People in Gaza are increasingly sinking into despair, says a new report by the International Committee of the Red Cross, the ICRC. Six months after the end of Israel's military operation that destroyed thousands of homes, the continued closures of Gaza's crossings are making it impossible to rebuild and seriously ill patients wait months for treatment. UN Radio's Donn Bobb found out more from Antoine Grand, who heads the ICRC office in Gaza.

Grand: Since June 2007, since Hamas took over the Gaza strip, there's been a very tight closure imposed on this small piece of territory. And basically since then, there's been no exports allowed, very limited imports allowed into Gaza, the economy has collapsed, the living conditions of the people are deteriorating, more and more people are falling into poverty and living in misery, and even after the military operation in January, six months ago, where thousands of houses have been destroyed, the construction materials have not been allowed yet into Gaza to allow those people to reconstruct their house and their life.

Bobb: What are the other findings in the report?

Grand: It's a whole range of issues, because this closure is basically affecting every aspect of life of the population. It has an impact on health, on education, on the agricultural sector, on the fishing sector, and every aspect of life of the Gazans is somehow affected. Patients that are in need of urgent treatment not available in Gaza, and they need to travel outside, have difficulties and it's extremely difficult, it takes time for them to go out. I mean, nowadays, it's around 100 patients, leaving every week, but before the closure it was 500 patients. So there's people with very urgent operations that have to wait 10 months. I know this doctor, who had cardiac disease where his aorta could rupture any time and he could die any time and he had to wait ten months before he could travel outside. And that's just one example among thousands and millions even.

Bobb: Have there been recommendations from the report?

Grand: Yeah, I mean, we call upon the state of Israel to lift the closure, to open the crossing points so that the population of Gaza stops paying the price for the conflict between Hamas and Israel. Then of course, Israel also has legitimate security concerns when it comes to Gaza. I mean, there is the firing of homemade rockets towards the Israeli civilian population living near Gaza. There is also the issue of Gilad Shalit, which is also a matter of concern. But that's not the reason why 1.5 million Gazans should pay the price for that; should live in misery. So yes, so the recommendation is to open the crossing points and lift the closure.

Bobb: With Israel not doing this, would the ICRC call on other states to and political authorities-to really do something to pressure Israel into doing this?

Grand: Yeah, I mean there are other stakeholders who have also a role to play: the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, the Hamas (itself?) in Gaza, also has to put humanitarian concerns on the top of their agenda and especially engage in political process to solve this crisis because the humanitarian aid, humanitarian assistance, is needed and is necessary, but it is not sufficient. What you need is a political process that can lead to the opening of the crossing points.

PRES: Antoine Grand, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross office in Gaza.