Our teams will work to restore water and waste systems to help people live with dignity. Air strikes have stopped us being able to reach , people in urgent need. Please donate today so that as soon as we can respond, we are able reach as many families as possible. The Hanada building in Gaza was flattened by Israeli airstrikes on 11 May Anxiety or fear in kids sometimes manifests itself through physical aches and pains.
With the support of Irish Aid, our teams have mobilised to urgently respond to the threat of Covid in Gaza. We are providing protection equipment for healthcare workers, beds for patients in quarantine centres, soap and other essential hygiene products. Our water engineers are ensuring public water taps used by the most vulnerable families can be used safely. With no other source of clean water, these families are most at risk of catching the virus. We are currently maintaining 14 water filling points in vulnerable communities where between 35, and 70, people will need to rely on depending on the severity of the outbreak.
This disease knows no borders and does not discriminate. Together, we can save lives. Tim Holmes, Oxfam Program Manager, reports back on his recent visit to Gaza and reflects on the challenges people living there face in their daily lives. A powerful smell hit me as I entered Gaza a fortnight ago. Not the smell of burning tyres from the ongoing protests, or the tear gas that has been used in response, but the smell of raw sewage. Well, a bunch of reasons. Without sufficient electricity or fuel, sewage treatment plants cannot function.
Expansion, operation and maintenance is difficult when there are multiple and severe Israeli restrictions on goods, including spare parts, entering Gaza. The financial resources available for authorities responsible for sanitation in Gaza are woefully inadequate.
If people only had to cope with the smell of sewage and a collapsing sanitation system, perhaps life in Gaza would still be bearable.
To access clean water, people often have to pay private water truckers who distribute water from small desalination plants — this costs six times as much as the regular water supply. Electricity has been a problem in Gaza for many years, but now it is out for 20 hours a day. This could be dismissed as an inconvenience but just imagine the stress and frustration of having to live without lights, refrigeration, access to the internet, or elevators in apartment buildings, let alone the far more serious disruption to hospitals, clinics, schools and water and sanitation services.
I was struck that the streets were so much emptier than when I was last in Gaza five years ago. The Economist has estimated that people in Gaza are 25 per cent poorer today than they were at the time of the Oslo Accords, 25 years ago.
I spoke to parents whose children are recent university graduates but they are sitting around at home getting more and more frustrated. Oxfam is working with local partners to help people have better access to livelihoods, and with local farmers and producers to improve the quality of their produce and help them get it to market to improve their incomes.
I spoke to the owner of a dairy processing unit that Oxfam has supported as part of its work to improve the dairy sector across Gaza. The level of despair and the lack of hope in the future was also striking in many of the conversations I had, and was much more pronounced than on my previous visits. The people I spoke to shared with me their anger that the world is doing nothing to help them. I was told that even when help does come it is only in the form of insufficient albeit needed humanitarian assistance, rather than a resolution to the conflict, the end to the protracted occupation, the end to the illegal blockade of Gaza and having their right to self-determination fulfilled which is what people in Gaza really want.
Human rights organisations in Gaza told me of their exasperation that the Government of Israel and other parties to the conflict are not held to account under international law by the international community. People I spoke to explained that because of this apparent impunity and the lack of alternative options, and despite the large number of deaths and injuries, they were generally supportive of the current protests continuing.
Some specified that they would only support non-violent demonstrations. Unfortunately you need to accept cookies to view Youtube videos. Change your consent. Israel must end the blockade on Gaza, which is collectively punishing an entire civilian population. The international community needs to redouble efforts to achieve a just and lasting peace based on international law, that brings security and development to all Palestinians and Israelis.
Unarmed Palestinians have the right to make their voices heard and the right to freedom of assembly and expression. Israel must abide by its obligations under international law to protect life and exercise the utmost restraint in accordance with law-enforcement standards on the use of force.
As of May 14, the latest rounds of protests at Gaza border resulted in 60 fatalities including 8 children and 2, injuries as a result of live fire. The number of injuries since the beginning of the protests has been 12, Fifty-five per cent of these have required hospitalisation. They are denied their basic rights to freedom of movement, freedom of worship, and freedom to assemble and express themselves peacefully. People in Gaza are trapped under siege with nowhere to flee for safety.
In East Jerusalem and across many parts of the West Bank, they are at daily risk of being forcibly displaced from their homes, as part of a state-sponsored effort in support of settler organizations who seek to drive Palestinians off their land.
These are all clear violations of International Law. Words matter, but they are not enough. The international community has a duty to swiftly and unequivocally condemn all human rights and international law violations, wherever and whenever they occur. Governments must take bold action to end the impunity and hold those who violate international law to account. Their lack of political courage directly enables the escalating series of retaliations that puts civilians in the firing line of indiscriminate rockets and military airstrikes.
This is the reality we need the world to understand, so we can stop applying a double standard when it comes to condemning the killing of our people and protecting our human rights. Continue without donating. Breadcrumb Home Press releases. Oxfam statement on the escalation of hostilities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel.
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