International community has done nothing to help Gaza: Pundit

Press TV has conducted an interview with Hani al-Bassous, a professor at Islamic University of Gaza, to discuss the dire humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip.

Following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Obviously every time it seems when hearing of Gaza we hear of the dire humanitarian situation. How do you feel about the current situation?

Bassous: The situation is still as it is. It is dire situation. It is too difficult for people in the Gaza Strip. Nothing has been done for the past one year since the Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip. The destruction is still in place, no reconstruction, no aid, the donor countries have done nothing. The international community has done nothing to help the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in addition to the siege. The siege is still in place and that makes life really, really difficult and miserable for most Palestinians. No freedom of movement, no building materials coming in and all aspects of life in Gaza have been affected in a negative way.

If you look at the health sector, education sector, really is suffering so much and even the employees of the Palestinian Authority in Gaza here do not have salary for the past one year.

That adds to the difficult and tough situation which I am not going to describe again the situation during the last year in the Gaza Strip but I am saying here the difficult life is going on for people in the Gaza Strip, the accumulation of lack of responsibility from the international community and the United Nations specifically makes it really difficult for anyone to be able to face such consequences in the near future if the siege is still in place.

There have been some talks for the past few weeks that could be a solution for the siege that Egypt might cooperate with authorities in Gaza and especially with Hamas to be able to ease the siege from its side and allow some building materials to come in, but nothing has been done on this side especially for the past two weeks. I think the situation is still as it is but hope is spreading in Gaza Strip for some people that something good will come soon, especially there has been some pressure from regional countries and from some institutions on Egypt and on the Israeli side to ease the situation and to allow some of the materials and commodities to come to the Gaza Strip.

Still have to wait and see what is going to happen in the next few days or few weeks.

Press TV: I am wondering those donor countries who pledged to help with the reconstruction of Gaza have not really delivered on their payments. Why do you think that is?

Bassous: I think those pledges were made by the international community, I mean by some countries, but not being done really in a practical way. Those countries have the pretext that as long as Hamas is in power, they will not be able to pay the money, they are not going to send the money and this has to be done only with one channel of communication, which is the Palestinian Authority and due to the division in the Palestinian political system and political situation, this makes it difficult for those countries.

But I think at the same time those donor countries do not have the willingness to support the Palestinian community, do not have the ability even to pay the amount of money. Some of them said they are going to pay millions or billions of dollars to the Gaza Strip but I think even these pledges were not really real things. They were not honest with the Gaza Strip. They just wanted to show that they are willing to do so by supporting the Palestinian community but in fact they have never done so.

This is not the first time by the way. In 2008-2009 we had the same pledges made by the international community by many countries but nothing has been delivered to the Gaza Strip.

AHK/HSN

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