conditions that had already turned the Gaza into a basket case by the early 90's.
I myself do not hang on every word a Hamas official says. Although I do believe it is positive that he is calling on Gazans to self-examine. Perhpas everyone should do a little bit of that,
You know as well as I do that Israel ultimately controls the border with Egypt and denies access of Gaza Palestinians to the West Bank. The rest of the Gaza is surrounded by a very large electric fence. The vast majority of Gazan Palestinians have no way to leave this 3 mile wide/28 mile long strip:
“The crossings agreement (“Movement and Access from Gaza”) signed on 15 November 2005 specified that Rafah crossing would be used for the passage of people in and out of Gaza—but that goods, vehicles and trucks to and from Egypt would have to pass through the Israeli crossing at Kerem Shalom, under full Israeli supervision. As far as people traffic is concerned, entry to the Strip would be permitted only to those holding Palestinian ID. Any foreign nationals would only be allowed to enter “by exception in agreed categories with prior notification to the Government of Israel….The Palestinian Authority will notify the Government of Israel 48 hours in advance of a person in the excepted categories—diplomats, foreign investors, foreign representatives of recognized international organizations and humanitarian cases…….Although there would be no direct Israeli presence in the Rafah crossing, it was agreed that “cameras will be installed to monitor the search process, so that Israel would be able to monitor all movement from its inspection point to a few kilometers away. Effectively, therefore, entry to the Gaza Strip would continue to remain under Israeli control.” Pages 134-135
“The Gaza Strip depends economically on its contact with the West Bank, which involves trucks and goods passing through Erez and Karni crossing on the Gaza-Israel border, making their way to the West Bank through Israel. According to the World Bank’s representative in the occupied territories, Nigel Roberts, “before the Intifada broke out…some 225 trucks a day passed through the crossings, compared to only 35 a day in the six months prior to disengagement. Since the disengagement, however, the situation deteriorated even further…only about a dozen trucks per day have bee allowed into Israel to travel to the West Bank.” Page 136
“The 15 November 2005 agreement did indeed specify that “Israel will allow passage of convoys (to and from Gaza and to and from the West Bank). However this plan was frozen. “Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian negotiator, said he was disgusted with the situation. There’s no security issue for Israel.” He said. “They will have names submitted in advance, they (Israel) screen the passengers, no one leaves the bused and they’re escorted by Israel to Tarquimiya (in the south of the West Bank)….And how should the Palestinians expect to make an agreement if someone so high up as (Secretary of State) Rice arranges something of so little risk to Israel and nothing happens?” page 137
“The situation in Gaza remained as Mahmoud Abbas described it shortly after the Israeli pullout: “ The Strip is one large prison, and the army’s departure does not change this situation” page 138
from -- The Road Map to Nowhere by Professor Tanya Reinhart of Tel Aviv University -- Amazon link:
http://www.amazon.com/Road-Map-Nowhere-Israel-Palestine/dp/1844670767/ref=sr_11_1/002-4750258-7334423?ie=UTF8_______________
UN report: “Israel violated all articles of Crossings agreement”
"The United Nations office for Human Affairs in the West Bank published a report on Thursday morning accusing Israel of violating every article of the Crossings agreements, and stated that Israel imposed strict siege and closure on the Palestinian people.
The report, marking one year since the agreement was reached, stated that border crossings remained closed most of the year.
Also, the report revealed that the closure caused a significant increase in unemployment in the Gaza Strip since the level jumped from 33.1% in 2005 to 41.8% in 2006." link:
http://www.imemc.org/content/view/22996/147/___________________
Palestine Center Information Brief No. 143 (02 October 2006)
By Sara Roy author of Failing Peace: Gaza and athe Palestinian-Israeli Conflict -- Amazon link:
http://www.amazon.com/Failing-Peace-Gaza-Palestinian-Israeli-Conflict/dp/0745322344/sr=11-1/qid=1165008489/ref=sr_11_1/102-8701952-4352901"Dr. Sara Roy is a Professor at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University. Dr. Roy has worked in the Gaza Strip and West Bank since 1985 conducting research primarily on the economic, social, and political development of the Gaza Strip and on U.S. foreign aid to the region. Dr. Roy has written extensively on the Palestinian economy, particularly in Gaza, and has documented its development over the last three decades."
link:
http://www.thejerusalemfund.org/images/informationbrief.php?ID=169 snip: "The pauperization of Gaza’s economy is not accidental but deliberate, the result of continuous restrictive Israeli policies (primarily closure), particularly since the start of the current uprising six years ago, and more recently of the international aid embargo imposed on Palestinians after the election and installation of the democratically elected Hamas-led government earlier this year. However, one need only look at the economy of Gaza, for example, on the eve of the uprising to realize that the devastation is not recent. By the time the second intifada broke out, Israel's closure policy had been in force for seven years, leading to by then unprecedented levels of unemployment and poverty (which would soon be surpassed). Yet the closure policy proved so destructive only because the 30 year process of integrating Gaza's economy into Israel's had made the local economy deeply dependent. As a result, when the border was closed in 1993, self-sustainment was no longer possible—the means were simply not there. Decades of expropriation and deinstitutionalization had long ago robbed Palestine of its potential for development, ensuring that no viable economic (and hence political) structure could emerge.v
International Agencies: Realties and Forecasts
According to the World Bank, Palestinians are currently experiencing the worst economic depression in modern history. The opprobrious imposition of international sanctions has had a devastating impact on an already severely comprised economy given its extreme dependence on external sources of finance. For example, the Palestinian Authority is highly dependent on two sources of income. The first is annual aid package from Western donors of about $1 billion per year (in 2005, according to the World Bank, donors gave $1.3 billion in humanitarian and emergency <$500m/38%>, developmental <$450m/35%> and budgetary <$350m/27%> assistance, much of it now suspended. The second is a monthly transfer by Israel of $55 million in customs and tax revenues that it collects for the PA, a source of revenue that is absolutely critical to the Palestinian budget and totally suspended.vi In fact, Israel is now withholding close to half a billion dollars in Palestinian revenue that is desperately needed in Gaza.
The combined impact of restrictions, notably the almost unabated closure and the ongoing economic boycott, has resulted in unprecedented levels of unemployment that currently approach 40 percent in Gaza (compared to less than 12 percent in 1999). In fact, Palestinian workers from Gaza have not been allowed into Israel since 12 March 2006, Gaza’s primary market and all entry and exit points have been virtually sealed since June 25, 2006 when Israel’s current military campaign in Gaza began.vii In the next five years, furthermore, 135,000 new jobs will be needed just to keep unemployment at 10 percent.viii Trade levels have been similarly affected. By early May 2006, for example, the Karni crossing, through which commercial supplies enter Gaza, had been closed for 47 percent of the year with estimated daily losses of $500,000-$600,000.ix Compounding this are agricultural losses amounting to an estimated $1.2 billion for both Gaza and the West Bank over the last six years.
By April 2006 79 percent of Gazan households were living in povertyx (compared to less than 30 percent in 2000), a figure that has likely increased; many are hungry. Furthermore, in Gaza, adding one dependent member to the family increases the household's probability of being poor by 3.5 percent. The dependency burden found in Gaza is second only to that of Africa.xi Hence, the number of adults in a household who are employed is a strong factor in poverty alleviation. Not surprisingly, individuals living in the Gaza Strip are 23 percent more likely to be poor than individuals living in the West Bank.
The United Nations currently feeds approximately 830,000 of Gaza’s 1.4 million population (or 59 percent of the total population who would go hungry without UN assistance)—100,000 of whom were added since March of this year. UNRWA primarily supports 610,000 (all of whom are refugees) and the World Food Program supports 220,000 (60,000 were added in September 2006 alone) non-refugees. The latter include 136,000 “chronic poor” who previously received welfare assistance from the PA.xii
Exacerbating Gaza’s socioeconomic decline was Israel’s attack on Gaza’s only power station last June. The plant, which was destroyed, supplied 45 percent of the electricity in the Gaza Strip. The cuts in power have been extremely harmful to healthcare delivery, food and water supplies, and the treatment of sewage among other problems. Recently, the Israeli human rights group, B’tselem said the attack on the power plant constituted a war crime under international law since it targeted a civilian population.
snip:
"According to the United Nations, in 2007, absent of any meaningful improvement, the Palestinian economy as a whole will be 35 percent smaller than it was in 2005, falling to its level in 1991, and over half the labor force will be unemployed.xv The UN recently published projections on the impact of reduced international aid on the Palestinian economy. Using 2005 as its basis of comparison, the projections assume a 30-50 percent reduction in aid (and with it public expenditures), a 50-100 percent increase in restrictions on trade, and a 10-20 percent increase in restrictions on labor flows to Israel. Under the worst-case scenario, which is not unlikely, the losses in GDP between 2006 and 2008 could reach $5.4 billion, which exceeds the Palestinian GDP in 2005. Eighty-four percent of total jobs available in 2005 could be lost.xvi Even under a better case scenario, writes Raja Khalidi, an economist at UNCTAD, “the Palestinian economy will implode to levels not witnessed for a generation.”xvii "
snip:
"An Economic Forecast
The resulting damage—both present and future—cannot be undone simply by 'returning' Gaza's lands, removing 9,000 Israeli settlers, and allowing Palestinians freedom of movement and the right to build factories within an enlarged but isolated and encircled Gaza. Gaza's many problems cannot be addressed when its burgeoning population is confined within a physically constrained territory of limited resources. Density is not just a problem of people but of access to resources, especially labor markets. Without external access to jobs and the right to emigrate, something the Gaza Disengagement Plan and Olmert's realignment plan effectively deny, the Strip will remain a prison unable to engage in any form of economic development.
Indeed, in 2005, the international community (through the Ad Hoc Liason Committee) concluded that the most important factor in Palestine's economic decline is not reduced aid levels but movement and access restrictions and the suspension of revenue transfers. In fact, they concluded that in the continued absence of a political settlement (that would allow greater movement into Israel and beyond), international aid can only help Palestinians survive and nothing else.
The urgency of Gaza’s plight is considerable for as Raja Khalidi writes, “Even assuming a full return of donor support and the relaxation of mobility restrictions by 2008, GDP and employment losses would continue to accumulate. This suggests that today’s declines will have harmful, long-lasting effects on the economy that will persist even if adverse conditions are alleviated later on.”xxi "
link to full article:
http://www.thejerusalemfund.org/images/informationbrief.php?ID=169 
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