Gaza: No Doves in Sight

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If so, the world isn't offering much in the way of treatment. When U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited Israel and the Palestinian territories last week, she offered $26 million in aid to bolster Abbas' security forces. But she also outraged Hamas leaders by encouraging Abbas to dismiss Haniya and his Cabinet and scrap efforts to forge a coalition government with Hamas. Now Hamas militants are threatening more trouble if the Prime Minister is forced out. Meanwhile, the living conditions continue to deteriorate. Because of a blockade imposed by Israel after Hamas was elected to the Palestinian government in January, only Israeli foodstuffs and humanitarian aid are allowed into Gaza. (Palestinians are barred from exporting any homegrown products, and Israeli shells have destroyed more than 40 greenhouses built by the aid agency CARE International.) The Israelis also imposed a sea blockade after its navy stopped arms smugglers and two suicide bombers trying to reach Israeli shores. John Dugard, U.N. Special Rapporteur on human rights in the occupied territories, concluded in late September that "Gaza is a prison, and Israel seems to have thrown away the key."

A tour through Gaza provides glimpses of the miseries faced by ordinary people. Because of the Israeli clampdown, fishing boats cannot venture more than a mile into the Mediterranean without getting shot at by Israeli warships. But the fishermen go out anyway. Abu Audah, a Palestinian boatman, points to three large-caliber Israeli bullet holes in the hull of his vessel and explains, "If I stay at home, I'll die of hunger. So it's better to die at sea, feeding my children." A boat strayed too far out last week, and a fisherman was killed by shots from an Israeli vessel.

Since June 28, when Israeli fighter jets bombed Gaza's main power station, most people have had only four hours of electricity a day. Gaza's hospitals are pitiful, and more than 400 Palestinians with life-threatening illnesses or injuries were made to wait three weeks before the Israelis opened up the Rafah crossing to allow Palestinians into Egypt for urgent medical treatment. Gaza has food, but few Palestinians can afford it, since the government can no longer pay the salaries of the police, teachers and bureaucrats. More than 70% of Gazans are dependent on international food aid to survive. As poverty tightens, many families have run out of friends to borrow from and are starting to sell their furniture and even dowry jewelry to put food on the table. Some have gone further; secondhand-clothing shops are now all over Gaza's poorest neighborhoods.