amidst untolerable suffering and crises, siege and war-on-Gaza-manufactured, Palestinians radiate beauty despite the odds against them.
Omar Ghraieb:
#Gaza sunset breathtaking as ever even during a harsh storm! I needed this! #Palestine is beautiful
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RECENT UPDATES ON GAZA:
3-year-old dies due to closure of Rafah crossing [Maan, Mar 14, 2014]:
A three-year-old child died on Thursday after he was unable to receive medical care abroad due to the closure of the Rafah crossing, an activist group said.
Spokesman for the National Committee to Break the Siege Adham Abu Salmieh said that Ahmad Ammar Abu Nahl was suffering from an enlarged heart and liver and had been planning to go to Turkey via Egypt for treatment.
However, the young child died Thursday while waiting for the crossing to open.
Abu Salmieh told Ma’an that the continued death of victims is unfortunate and demanded the reopening of the Rafah crossing for humanitarian cases.
The Rafah crossing into Egypt has been the principal connection between the Gaza Strip’s 1.7 million residents and the outside world since the imposition of an economic blockade by the State of Israel beginning in 2007.
The death of Abu Nahl brings the number of deaths to two as a result of the closure of the crossing since the the Egyptian military overthrew democratically-elected president Morsi, Abu Salmieh said.
Egypt’s army has repeatedly closed the Rafah border crossing since the July coup while simultaneously destroying hundreds of tunnels that Gazans used for years to import fuel, building materials and other goods, as well as to enter and exit the blockaded coastal enclave.
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Gaza refugees learn of food aid cuts by text messages [Electronic Intifada, Mar 14, 2014]:
Through a text message on her mobile phone, Naima Abu Hasanin learned that she will stop receiving food aid.
The message came from the UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA), which told the single middle-aged woman from the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah that she was no longer categorized as poor.
Abu Hasanin is mystified as to how the agency arrived at that decision.
…Abu Hasinin had been receiving flour, cooking oil, sugar and canned beef from UNRWA. By April, these rations will be cut off. Unable to find regular work, Abu Hasinin is dependent on assistance from the local authority to pay her fuel and grocery bills. The food aid from UNRWA has helped supplement that assistance….Thousands of others in Gaza also face aid cuts.The food rationing program was introduced in 2000 to assist those affected by Israel’s decision to close the boundary separating it from the Gaza Strip. The result of that move was that people living in Gaza were no longer allowed to travel into present-day Israel for work.
The cuts to the program are taking place at a time when poverty is on the increase.
UNRWA’s own data indicate that the proportion of households deemed “food insecure” in Gaza rose from 44 percent in 2011 to 57 percent the following year.
But the agency has struggled to maintain its services because of financial constraints. Last December, UNRWA stated that it faced a cash shortfall of $65 million in its 2014 budget.More than 800,000 people in Gaza already receive food aid from UNRWA, which has predicted that the number who need such assistance could be almost 1 million this year (“UN: Nearly 1 million Gazans to need food aid in 2014,” Haaretz, 18 December 2013).
Adnan Abu Hasna, an UNRWA spokesperson, told The Electronic Intifada that the problems have been exacerbated because of the siege imposed by Israel and Egypt’s destruction of tunnels used to bring much-needed supplies into Gaza.
…Zeinab al-Braim and her family live in a partly-built store in the town of Bani Suheila. Her husband used to work on the Gaza-Egypt border but has been unemployed since last summer because of the destruction of the tunnels.She, too, has received a text message informing her that the food aid will stop. The text followed a visit from the agency.
…“I am an unemployed university graduate,” she said. “And I am desperate for even a temporary job.”Hussam al-Issawi, a resident of Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, accused UNRWA of overseeing an “injustice.”
“UNRWA must be responsible for our welfare as a people whose homeland has been occupied,” he added.
For the past decade, he has been suffering from heart complications. As he is unemployed, food aid from the agency is vital to his survival.
UNRWA’s Abu Hasna told The Electronic Intifada that the agency expects the number of people seeking food aid to increase in the coming months by 20 percent, “so it will reach a million refugees — which has not happened in decades.”
He said that UNRWA “informed 58,736 families that there will be a change of statuses” either negatively or positively regarding food aid.“34,258 families were informed that the agency will reduce or stop the aid it delivers to them, [while] 24,478 families were informed that there [will be] a positive change in their statuses — which means that the assistance will increase.”
Abu Hasna explained that 46,838 families were informed that nothing has changed in their status, and they will receive the same aid that they had received before.
He said that 7,480 new families joined the list of those who will receive aid in the round of food distribution beginning in April.
“All the measures were taken to reach the real needy people, and not because of budget cuts,” Abu Hasna said.
Shukri al-Arouqi, who sits on a committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization dealing with refugee issues, has been involved in protests that have taken place at UNRWA offices in a number of Gaza’s refugee camps.
He explained to The Electronic Intifada that the current UNRWA-led cuts in food rations had deprived at least 5,000 impoverished refugee households of their right to a “yellow” coupon, which is double the value of the common “white” coupon.
A “yellow” coupon provides an individual recipient with flour, sugar, rice, cooking oil, powdered milk and canned beef, distributed every three months.
Al-Arouqi added that the number of beneficiary households of UNRWA’s food assistance program is expected to stand at only 60,000 by the end of 2014.
“We are certain that the cut-off will continue, as we have learned that 13,000 cases are now under [consideration] by UNRWA,” he remarked.
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“Gaza Power Plant to shutdown on 13 March: [OCHA, Mar 10, 2014]Fuel imports for the Gaza Power Plant (GPP), funded by the government of Qatar, continued through Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel, with some 1.9 million litres of fuel entering Gaza during the week
(similar to the previous week). This represents 45 percent of the weekly requirement (4.2 million litres) for the GPP to operate at full capacity.The Head of the Gaza Energy Authority noted that this week’s consignment of fuel for the GPP was the last funded by the Government of Qatar, warning that the GPP will shut down on 13 March unless
an emergency fuel supply becomes available. This will increase power outages to 16 hours, compared with the current average of 12 hours when the plant functions at half capacity.”
Filed under: gaza random