Post-op Gaza: Life in a tent city

(Video) UNRWA, WHO report worrying deterioration in Gazans' living conditions following Israeli offensive and in light of ongoing blockade. B'Tselem volunteers document life in post-war Strip

Anat Shalev |Published: 05.24.09 , 14:28

VIDEO - The living conditions of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip are deteriorating rapidly as a result of the Gaza blockade, the UN Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA reported this weekend.

In light of this, the B'Tselen human rights organization initiated a project under which volunteers in Gaza have been given video cameras and asked to document daily life in one of the tent cities in the Strip.

Several months after Operation Cast Lead, many Gazans are suffering from lack of proper housing, goods, food and medicines, a reality clearly evident in the video below:

Video: Rif'at Hamdiya and Nidal Yasin

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A European aid mission is scheduled to arrive in Gaza Sunday, the Hamas government reported. The mission, which is made up of European parliament members who will enter the Strip through Egypt, will bring with it medical aid, wheelchairs and equipment for the blind.

UNRWA said that before the operation it was able to import 4,000 essential items through the border, while now only 40 items are allowed.

"So UNRWA cannot repair the health center that were damaged, neither our warehouse. We cannot repair the schools because the building materials are not …permitted to enter. We have difficulties in printing the schoolbooks for children because there is no paper. And, we have in our clinics, we have now a shortage of…the clinical data of the patients," Director of UNRWA's Health Program, Guido Sabatinelli said.

'Dire health conditions'

The World Health Organization on Friday called on Israel to immediately lift the blockade of the Gaza Strip saying it was causing a "serious shortage of medicines and medical supplies."

The WHO's annual World Health Assembly taking place in Geneva this week passed a resolution demanding that Israel "facilitate the transit and entry of medicine and medical equipment to the occupied Palestinian territory."

And it said it wanted Israel to reverse policies that had "led to the prevailing dire health conditions and severe food and fuel shortages in the Gaza Strip."