Gaza Poverty Rate Triples

[Purveyor]

(Associated Press) -

A U.N. agency says the number of Gazans it considers "abject poor" has tripled this year, to 300,000.

That's one in five Gazans.

John Ging, the head of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency in Gaza, blames the rise on the Israeli-Egyptian blockade of the seaside strip. The organization says the increase also reflects improvedmonitoring of refugees' conditions.

Gaza's economy has foundered under the blockade Israel and Egypt imposed after the Islamic militant Hamas movement seized control of the territory in 2007.

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AP: http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/michigan/news.newsmain/article/0/0/1560944/World/Gaza.Poverty.Rate.Triples

[msongs]

1. evidently "death to israel" is not a sound business strategy nt

[proteus_lives]

4. +1

[Violet_Crumble]

8. Somehow I doubt the abject poor in Gaza have any business strategy...

You'll have to find another way to justify collective punishment of an entire population...

[DesertFlower]

2. it's a sad situation. nt

[Fozzledick]

3. Another great victory for Hamas!

[LeftishBrit]

6. Hamas are a crap excuse for a government, and will lose if they allow fair elections to take place

again; but Israel is also responsible - as to varying degrees are other Middle Eastern states, especially Egypt here.

No country involved is a saint, and a two-state solution is badly needed.

[LeftishBrit]

5. Very sad news.

[ConsAreLiars]

7. The siege of Gaza is working! Hooray for Israel! More suffering, more malnutrition,

more infants dying in the first year and born deformed. Hooray! Good for us, Kill 'em all! We are the Masters of the Universe. We can cause as much pain and suffering as anyone, and more than almost anyone. Hooray! Cheers! Drinks all around! The Palestinians are being starved to death. Yippee! We're Number One. We can kill with impunity! We can cause suffering on a scale with the best! Hooray!

For the morons who post similar sentiments (the "Real Others" as in non-human) who celebrate those facts in this thread, in case you don't get it and think I might have become one of you, that was sarcasm intended to mock and utterly condemn your vicious and utterly evil delight in the suffering caused by the Israeli siege, blockade, systematic starvation, and invasion.

Taking joy in the suffering of others, although rather common, is about as debased as anything in human history.


(edit tiny typo)

[LeftishBrit]

9. Who has posted sentiments similar to your first paragraph in this thread???

Some people have posted sentiments that imply that the Palestinians' suffering is *entirely* the fault of their own leadership, and that Israel bears no blame. I strongly disagree with this. But no one is saying "Yippee! We're Number One! We can kill with impunity."

[ConsAreLiars]

10. All too many, although less candidly.

"They deserved it, they asked for it, mass murder of 1400 is OK because some in Siderot had their sleep disturbed." Same message and meaning, just barely covered up with a cloak of self-righteous posturing, and pretending to be victims in order to endorse the most evil crimes against innocents. Very common here. Take a closer look.

(edit punctuation)

[Vegasaurus]

11. "Some in Siderot (sic) had their sleep disturbed"?

Thousands and thousands of rockets wreaked terror in southern Israel for years.

People were practically living in bomb shelters.

Schools were constantly cancelled, and homes and businesses destroyed.

Terror is terror and the fact is that the war stopped the terrorist rockets.

The Palestinians seem to respond best to big sticks, which is unfortunate, since many other less painful tactics were tried (but failed to curb the terrorism).