(From Gaza) “For two months now, Gaza’s population has been facing a gas emergency after the electricity and water crises. The supply of gas from Israel is one quarter of what used to be delivered last summer, about 100 tons a day, which is also inadequate to meet the population’s requirement of about 220-240 tons a day”. This has been reported by the humanitarian organisation Catholic Relief Services, which is part of the US Bishops Conference and which has been working in the Gaza Strip for years. Speaking with the Holy Land Coordination, whose members are bishops from the USA, EU, South-Africa and Canada and people from Ccee and Comece, the spokesman of Crs, Bassam Nasser, pointed out that “the reduction in the supply falls in the winter months, just when the population would need it most. This is the mentality of occupation – he emphasised – which is used to keep the population under pressure. Israel does not supply on a Saturday, on a Friday, on Jewish holidays”. “The high cost of petrol and diesel – Nassar explained – forces many people, mainly taxi drivers, to use gas for their cars as well, so much that sometimes they use up one whole cylinder a day. The same amount of gas would be enough to meet the two-week household requirement of a middle-sized family. If we think of the thousands of vehicles that drive in and around Gaza, we can easily understand how the gas requirement has remarkably grown”.

As to the chronic lack of electricity, “in the Strip” it is supplied by Israel for about 8 hours a day”, this forces families to use gas even to heat their homes. In Gaza, the population is very poor and has no means to face the situation, except make do with what it has. Sadly, this has some dramatic implications too on the weaker groups of Gaza’s society, such as old and disabled people”. As to reconstruction, after the war of summer 2014, something seems to be happening. “In several places of the Strip, damaged or entirely destroyed houses are starting to be rebuilt. Unfortunately – the Crs spokesman pointed out –, the procedures for allocating funds and materials, such as concrete, are fairly long, not least because of the strict international checks that authorised families have to undergo. Checks that try to make sure the building materials are actually used to build houses, not for other purposes”, such as making tunnels.