Charities are struggling to meet the needs of an estimated 53,000 orphans in the Gaza Strip; more than 2,000 children were orphaned during the 2008-09 Israeli war on Gaza.
On 26 November, Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon threatened to cut Israeli electricity, water and ties to Gaza’s infrastructure serving the 1.6 million residents of the Gaza Strip.
Throughout Gaza, children take on responsibilities of adults to help their families, and adults revert from skilled labor to doing nearly anything to bring in a salary.
On 11 July, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Palestine Red Crescent Society helped facilitate a demonstration to protest the ban on Palestinians from Gaza visiting their imprisoned loved ones.
While complementary medicine practitioners in Gaza see a niche for their work, they say it is imperative that the essential medicines and supplies at zero stock levels be brought into Gaza.
Despite Israel’s declared “easing” in June 2010 of the total siege on Gaza, manufacturers there are hurting badly. In June 2011 the World Food Programme (WFP) reported that “only 5 percent of the pre-blockade export volume was reached from November 2010 to April 2011.”
According to Hassan Saifi, a representative of the ministry for religious affairs in Gaza, a quarter of the Gaza Strip’s 800 mosques were damaged or destroyed in the Israeli attack on Gaza in winter 2008-09.
