Duro rapporto di Oxfam sulla (mancata) ricostruzione di Gaza, reso pubblico il 2 giugno. Il titolo: Putting People before Politics. Il contenuto: gli aiuti umanitari sono ancora considerati uno strumento di pressione politica. Anche dopo il disastro dell’Operazione Piombo Fuso. Ma il blocco totale non data dalla fine del più duro confronto tra Israele e Hamas di sei mesi fa, bensì da almeno tre anni.
Queste sono ancora le necessità dei gazani, dopo l’Operazione Piombo Fuso.
Gaza’s humanitarian needs require a range of interventions beyond the mere provision of emergency relief items (such as food, medical supplies, material for shelters). They also include materials and support for vital repairs and construction work and for livelihood stabilisation. The UN Flash Appeal for Gaza, formally launched on 2 February 2009, covering humanitarian and early recovery efforts, includes urgent repairs to: damaged housing for 33,767 families, 207 schools, 86 pre-schools, 15 hospitals and 43 primary health clinics. Repairs and rebuilding work is also needed for water, sewage and electrical facilities and agricultural infrastructure. This has been largely stalled as the government of Israel continues to deny access for essential supplies, building materials and spare parts.
The Appeal includes a request for $30 million towards the estimated $180 million of total direct losses in the agriculture sector due to ‘Operation Cast Lead’. Agriculture is the only source of income for many Gazans. The latest destruction has affected 13,000 families who depend directly on farming, herding and fishing for their livelihoods.
Whole farms were bulldozed by the Israeli army in the Zaytoun neighbourhood of Gaza City where Oxfam used to buy 30,000 eggs per week from a local farmer for its food distribution programme. On his farm, 65,000 chickens were buried alive. To restart their farms, farmers need sufficient quantities of agricultural materials to be allowed into Gaza.
E poi ci sono le divisioni interpalestinesi, che incidono sugli aiuti.
Palestinian divisions are also manifest in the struggle for control over the recovery and reconstruction process. On the one hand, the PA-Ramallah has tried to demonstrate its control over the process by issuing its early recovery and reconstruction plan. Its ability to oversee the implementation of this plan for a part of the territory which it no longer effectively controls is difficult to envisage.
Two notable incidents in which Hamas police or officials interfered with aid distribution occurred in February 2009, when they seized some 3,500 blankets and 400 food parcels and later 10 truckloads of food from the UN. These items were returned to the UN after it protested and cut off its aid imports to Gaza for a short period. In our experience of working in Gaza, Oxfam and partners have been able to distribute goods (once allowed into Gaza) to people in need.
Ma le accuse sono dirette anche sui paesi donatori, che ancora non riescono a mettere in primo piano i civili e le loro sofferenze.
Many donor governments and institutions are failing to exert pressure on the parties to the conflict to put the interests of civilians first. They have not taken the necessary political action to ensure an end to the blockade and actively to support Palestinian reconciliation efforts in the interests of Gaza’s civilian population. Instead, they are led by political prerogatives and their unwillingness to review the shortcomings of their 2006 policy to isolate Hamas. This has contributed to the lack of progress in addressing the enormous humanitarian needs after ‘Operation Cast Lead’; to impediments to the reconstruction of Gaza in the medium term; and to the process of de-development of Gaza brought about by the government of Israel’s closure policy.