The Situation in the Palestinian territories

The Gaza crisis is taking place in the backdrop of a situation that in Gaza and in the West Bank, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, is worsening day after day. Since March 2006, about 150.000 Palestinian civil servants have seen their salary cut off. This is having direct consequences on the livelihood of 30 % of the entire Palestinian population who has fallen behind the poverty line (less than 2 dollars per day). UNRWA office in the northern Palestinian city of Nablus is increasingly receiving requests for economic support from professionals, such as physicians, whountil very recently never sought the support of international relief organisations. Public services cannot grant some of the basic services. In Nablus, hospitals have run out of expensive medicines for the treatment of serious diseases, such as cancer. These are expensive medicines which are usually purchased by the state. In Ramallah, the main hospital and the prison experienced shortage of food during the first ten days of June, while the teachers at nearby Birzeit University are working with half salary. The employees of the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics have been working without salary since March 2006. They come everyday to the office, they say, in order to escape exasperated quarrels at home.

As a consequence, micro criminality is increasing day by day, nourishing mixed feelings of discontent among Palestinians. While the poor and uneducated are inclined to blame Hamas for the increasing impoverishment of the society, educated and relatively well-off Palestinians put the blame on Israel and on International donors, which advocated democratic elections first, and then refused to recognise the result of the elections, adopting the attitude of ‘bad masters’ imposing dos and donts.