Israel's sudden Gaza dilemma

Potential humanitarian crisis? The UN says food will run out in about 10 days if Gaza stays sealed.

from the June 19, 2007 edition

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"Even in the US, we're seeing this tendency, politically, to want to write off Gaza for the time being. I think that will be a mistake, because it could become a more radicalized area and yet another outpost for Iranian influence right there on the Mediterranean," says Dr. Lasensky, a senior research associate at the US Institute for Peace in Washington.

"You don't have to engage directly with Hamas, but you can send signals that we're watching," he says. "There should be a sense that international aid is tied to how they govern and how they treat Israel."

Gaza's situation mirrors the sort of problem that the international community faced in Somalia and North Korea. "How do you do aid delivery where there's a hostile government in place? There's no way around the basic dilemma of trying to deliver aid and, at the same time, undermine the regime," Lasensky says.

In the meantime, the main UN agency involved in assistance in Gaza says that it has enough food to assist the 860,000 Palestinians it helps on a regular basis for the next 10 days. The situation, says John Ging, director of field operations in Gaza, will only be alleviated if the main commercial crossing into Gaza at Karni is reopened. "In anticipation of the deterioration, people are panic buying, snapping up basic food commodities and fuel," he says. "We hope solutions will be found very quickly, or [the situation] will deteriorate."

In the relative calm after last week's violence, Gazans have been going out again – and hoarding food in anticipation of shortages.

At the Al-Ailet Bakery in Gaza City Monday, a shop that normally has one or two customers at a time, 30 people crowded in, clamoring for bread. Here, as in other places, shop owners have started giving out numbered tickets to prevent fighting over whose turn it is. "I have enough flour for at least 10 days," says Kamal Jaber, a baker. "We're working around the clock. But the people here are asking for more than we can produce in a day."

• Safwat al-Kahlout in Gaza City contributed reporting for this article.

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