HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_032173.jpg

3

have canceled elective surgery for lack of supplies. Electricity
remains maddeningly irregular. The much-publicized opening of the
Egyptian border has fizzled, so people remain trapped here. The
number of residents living on less than $1.60 a day has tripled in four
years. Three-quarters of the population rely on food aid.
Areas with as contested a history as this one can choose among
anniversaries to commemorate. It has been four years since Hamas
took over, prompting Israel and Egypt to impose a blockade on
people and most goods. It is a year since a Turkish flotilla challenged
the siege and Israeli commandos killed nine activists aboard the
ships, leading to international outrage and an easing of conditions.
And it is five years since an Israeli soldier, Staff Sgt. Gilad Shalit,
was abducted and held in captivity without even visits from the Red
Cross.
In assessing the condition of the 1.6 million people who live in Gaza,
there are issues of where to draw the baseline and — often — what
motivates the discussion. It has never been among the world’s
poorest places. There is near universal literacy and relatively low
infant mortality, and health conditions remain better than across
much of the developing world.
“We have 100 percent vaccination; no polio, measles, diphtheria or
AIDS,” said Mahmoud Daher, a World Health Organization official
here. “We’ve never had a cholera outbreak.”
The Israeli government and its defenders use such data to portray
Gaza as doing just fine and Israeli policy as humane and appropriate:
no flotillas need set sail.
Israel’s critics say the fact that the conditions in Gaza do not rival the
problems in sub-Saharan Africa only makes the political and human
rights crisis here all the more tragic — and solvable. Israel, they note,
still controls access to sea, air and most land routes, and its security
policies have consciously strangled development opportunities for an

HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_032173