Gaza In Dire Straits

Routes Out Of Gaza Closed, Leaving Economy Choked, People Hungry

(CBS)  Usually, food distribution on a large scale comes in the wake of a natural disaster. In Gaza, politics are to blame, CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Palmer reports.

Day after day, more than a million people need aid just to feed themselves.

“It’s really inhumane,” said John Ging, of United Nations Relief and Works Agency. “People here are preoccupied with survival at the moment. Every family in Gaza is touched by a crisis.”

Like it or not, they're also ruled by the Islamist forces of Hamas, which took over Gaza in June.

To put pressure on Hamas, and to retaliate for rockets fired from Gaza into Israel, the Israeli government sealed Gaza shut.

Palmer visited Gaza’s main freight route into Israel, which normally would be bumper-to-bumper with heavily laden trucks. But it is completely closed, as is every other border crossing in the country. Nothing is coming into Gaza and nothing is getting out.

Not even goods the rest of the world wants - like carnations - grown under contract for the European cut flower market. Now they end up dead and rotting in the fields.

All of Gaza's main businesses have shut down too.

For 25 years, Mohammed Balah's juice factory hummed along. Two dozen Palestinian workers keeping the assembly lines moving.

But a few weeks ago, Balah had to let his employees go. It was a move he worries might help the extremists.

“All of these people who have to stop work, they might become violent as a result,” Balal said.

Nasim Alsawalma was thrilled to be accepted this fall to the engineering program of a Canadian University, then crushed to find he wasn't going to be allowed to leave Gaza.

“Not all Gaza is Hamas. Gaza’s people are human - want to live, want to study, want to work,” Alsawalma said.

Instead, they're locked into a country that is for now a prison, trapped between Israel and the sea.

[gary4books]

Disappointed to see CBS supporting Hamas. They are the last supporters of war in the Middle East. With Hezbollah, they want war until they find the victory they seek. Does CBS really support this future carnage?

[squeakof2006]

Why give the Jews a chance to defend themselves against decendents of their father''s illigidimate child? After all, we should pitty the poor muslims, who only get relief by tourturing any one who is not muslum, or blowing up buildings. Traditionally, Gaza was Jewish territory. Muslums have tried to steal it, as well as services from Israel. The solution: give the muslums a taste of their own medicine. If they can''t breed, perhaps the Jews and Christians will have some peace! If nothing else, no muslums, no more 9/11 events.

[runningralph]

Israel withdrew troops from Gaza. Palestine elects Hamas to control government. Hamas starts using Gaza to launch rockets. Israel tries to limit the weapons going into Gaza. Israel is accused of mistreating innocents in Gaza. This is a tried and true method used over and over by Islamic terrorists, of which Hamas is one. Attack from a residential area, hiding behind women and children. When the victims of this attack retaliate, accuse the victims of being monsters who attack fanilies.
The boy who wants to go to school in Canada should be denouncing the ones who caused this sorry situation, that is HAMAS.

[juwboy]

Right on, shaullavan!!!

[shaullavan]

I protest Elizabeth Palmer''s one-sided report from Gaza. She claimed nothing is going into or out of Gaza. Humanitarian aid continues to pour into Gaza. Israel continues to provide electricity and water. She uttered a straight lie in saying nothing is going in or out. Of course smuggled weapons and explosives (mainly through tunnels) are also entering aplenty.

At the least, the visuals should have been balanced by pictures of the damage to Israeli towns like Sderot. I appeal to CBS News to show the damage and suffering caused by the rockets and mortars fired by Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

How long will it take CBS to stop blaming Israel? The Palestinians were handed Gaza, and responded by electing a Hamas government, sworn to the removal of all Jews from the Holy Land. In addition, they continually launch mortars and rockets into Israel.

Instead of blaming Israel, I appeal to CBS to contrast the way Israel uplifted Jewish refugees from Arab states, with the way Arab lands keep descendants of Arab refugees stateless. Roughly half of Israel%u2019s populace are descendants of Jewish refugees from Arab