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By Patrick Cockburn in Gaza
Published: 08 September 2006
'Gaza is a jail. Nobody is allowed to leave. We are all starving now'
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Gaza is dying. The Israeli siege of the Palestinian enclave is so tight that its people are on the edge of starvation.
Here on the shores of the Mediterranean a great tragedy is taking place that is being ignored because the world's
attention has been diverted by wars in Lebanon and Iraq.
A whole society is being destroyed. There are 1.5 million Palestinians imprisoned in the most heavily populated area in
the world. Israel has stopped all trade. It has even forbidden fishermen to go far from the shore so they wade into the
surf to try vainly to catch fish with hand-thrown nets.
Many people are being killed by Israeli incursions that occur every day by land and air. A total of 262 people have been
killed and 1,200 wounded, of whom 60 had arms or legs amputated, since 25 June, says Dr Juma al-Saqa, the director of
the al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City which is fast running out of medicine. Of these, 64 were children and 26 women. This
bloody conflict in Gaza has so far received only a fraction of the attention given by the international media to the war
in Lebanon.
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Published: 08 September 2006
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Gaza is being slowly strangled. This small strip of land on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean has been under siege
by the Israeli military for three months. Its 1.5 million inhabitants have been subject to more than 270 air strikes,
numerous ground raids, and a severe artillery bombardment. Since Gaza's sole power plant was bombed in June, its people
have been forced to survive by candlelight after dark. Hospitals use electric generators to keep essential services
running. The strip's water mains have been destroyed, causing serious supply problems and increasing the risk of
disease. Bridges have been bombed and checkpoints closed. No Palestinians are allowed in or out of what has in effect
become a prison.
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ENDS