Weekly Roundup - Gaza, and Other Places Not To Be

by Michael Bear · 2009-01-09 18:25:00 UTC
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To summarize this week's humanitarian happenings and news - Gaza, Gaza, and yet more Gaza.  Which, a week after the Israeli invasion, is now most definitely in the running for worst single place on earth.  (A title long held by Mogadishu.)

Following Israeli attacks against UN staff yesterday, UNRWA - the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees - released a statement that they were temporarily suspending further operations until the Israeli authorities offered "credible assurance...for ensuring security for UNRWA's personnel, installations and humanitarian operations."

Thereby making a desperate humanitarian situation all the worse, especially given UNRWA's role in providing food and other assistance to 750,000 Palestinians in Gaza.

A recent article by Jeremy Hobbs, the Executive Director for Oxfam International, gives a sense of what it's like on the ground:

"Two days ago an Oxfam employee living in Gaza risked a desperate drive from his house to find some fresh food for his four young children. There is no fruit or meat and little milk in Gaza now, but he found a few expensive vegetables. And then, because of ongoing bombing and bullet fire, he had to drive around and around the streets near his house, because a parked car is a sitting target until, in the briefest of lulls, he could dash into his home to his terrified family.

Oxfam has had to suspend much of its work within Gaza including one of its largest programs – assisting 65,000 people – for security reasons, though a number of Oxfam partners continue to carry out essential work against impossible odds. UN food aid, relied on by 80% of the Gazan population of 1.5 million, has been severely disrupted for the last week because of the bombing."

For more information, see these previous posts on Gaza.  For the most recent UN OCHA Humanitarian Situation Report, see here.

Aid Worker Daily also has an excellent post today, including a list of blogs (compiled by Alertnet) written by aid agency staff in Gaza.  The pieces by Jawad Harb of CARE are definitely worth reading.

- Other, non-Gaza Posts of Note

Useful Skills in the Far, Far Abroad

Casual Slaughters - Or, Places Not To Be, Part 1

Places Not To Be, Part 2

Biting the Hand that Feeds - Ethiopia Imposes Draconian Law on NGOs

Aid Workers Killed in Somalia and Gaza

How Many Aid Workers Receive Security Trainings

[Street scene in Gaza - Photo from New York Times / Reuters]

Michael Bear
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