INTERVIEW-Gaza on brink of explosion as plight worsens - UN
Source: Reuters
(Changes he to she in paragraph 4) By Suleiman al-Khalidi AMMAN, Nov 8 (Reuters) - The chief of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees warned on Wednesday of an "explosion" in Gaza with Israel's military offensives worsening a humanitarian crisis in an fast deteriorating economy. Karen Koning AbuZayd, the commissioner general for U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), said the plight of Gaza's 1.4 million people had dramatically worsened since an Israeli offensive began in June to rescue a soldier seized by militants. "People are at the point of such frustration and anger that unless things change there very definitely can be an explosion," AbuZayd, whose agency is the largest aid body providing services in the Palestinian territories, told Reuters in Amman. The scale of destruction in the Gaza town of Beit Hanoun, the scene of the latest offensive, has not been seen since the early days of a Palestinian uprising six years ago, she said. Israeli artillery shells killed 18 Palestinian civilians there on Wednesday, local officials and witnesses said, in the deadliest single Israeli attack on Palestinians in four years which drew condemnation across Europe and the Middle East. "The infrastructure destruction is quite severe, the roads are all broken up and houses destroyed by bulldozers, things that we have not seen for some years in Gaza," AbuZayd said, adding the agency was unable to deliver enough water and food to civilians caught in the fighting in the battered town. UNRWA, in charge of feeding 830,000 people in Gaza alone, saw malnutrition spreading in Gaza amid a financial squeeze by donors in protest at the militant group Hamas's refusal to accept Israel's right to exist. "You are beginning to see signs of malnutrition. People are not eating any meat or chicken for example...these people are living on our rations and our rations are flour, oil, lentils, powdered milk and sugar," AbuZayd said. "What we think are new or unusual weapons (are) being used in Gaza because of the extent of things like amputations and nasty sorts of wounds that look quite different from anything we have seen before," she said. Restrictions on movement that Israel says are to prevent militant attacks had increased sharply and destroyed chances of a viable economy. "The people of the West Bank are being squeezed more and more economically not just because of the conflict and the bombs and bulldozers like Gaza but because of the economy," AbuZayd said. "Checkpoints have increased by 40 percent in the last year, we are back to over 500 checkpoints, people cannot move around." Among the worst challenges Gazans face was the closing of border crossings. "There's just no economy, there is no link with the West Bank at all, things used to be exported there, all of these things are a real problem. People just have no work and nothing to do and no income coming in. It's pretty dreadful," AbuZayd said. Such blocks have forced 900 businesses to close completely in Gaza this year. "They say there can't be a Palestinian state in these conditions, it'll have to change and it will take a long time to get back on track," she said.
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