Staging a Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza

Israeli Summary report

January 2008

With Hamas’s violent takeover of the Gaza Strip, Israel reduced the regular supply of goods to the Strip, limiting entry to items needed to meet the population’s basic needs. Although a “humanitarian crisis” does not exist in the Strip, Hamas made sure to highlight individual, pinpoint crises and present them as hardships being suffered by the entire population.
The main reason for closing the crossings and restricting supply and aid is that the terrorist organizations in Gaza, among them Islamic Jihad, the Popular Resistance Committees, and al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades have been firing, day after day, rockets and mortar shells at communities around Gaza and at Sderot. Hamas, the ruling power in the Strip, has made no effort whatsoever to prevent the shelling. In addition, Hamas itself has fired mortar shells at the border crossings across which trucks laden with supplies for the Strip pass. This shelling, too, obviously prevents movement of the trucks and entry of provisions. Hamas is guilty of these acts and omissions even though no Israeli communities exist in the Gaza Strip.

Is there really a humanitarian crisis?
The accepted definition of "humanitarian crisis" is protracted distress among a population, resulting from the lack of supply of basis needs, which causes physical or psychological harm, due to a significant shortage of food, housing, clothing, and medicines, and also defects in sanitation and the like. Where a humanitarian crisis exists, the population suffers starvation, a substantial degree of malnutrition, incidence of severe illnesses, and sometimes even a large number of deaths, resulting from poor nutrition and health.

Hamas's claims of a humanitarian crisis are contradicted, for example, by the following:
1. Food shortage: In the current crisis, it is not contended, not even by Hamas itself, that there is a shortage of food products, that the people are starving, or that people are ill more than usual. Also, it is clear that there is no food shortage because UNRWA has in its storage warehouses sufficient quantities of food to meet the needs of the residents for at least ten days should a true crisis exist.
2. Fuel and electricity shortage: A severe fuel shortage existed, albeit "at certain locations," for about a day, which impaired the quantity of electricity supplied by the local power station, which is fed by diesel fuel. There was concern that the shortage would affect vital systems in hospitals, water facilities, and the like, but this scenario did not in fact occur.
As in previous crises, Hamas acted diligently to exaggerate the power shortage, primarily to influence world opinion, and to reduce Israeli pressure. A clear illustration of this was seen in the "candle procession" of dozens of children who allegedly had no electricity. In the same way, the Arab media were recruited to exhibit "Gaza in the blackout." The Hamas government raised this claim also in a meeting it held, which was purportedly held in candle light.
The reality was, however, quite different. Hamas had significant stores of fuel that could have solved the power shortage, but it chose to save the fuel for use in violent combat actions against IDF forces. In other words, according to our estimates, Hamas had sufficient fuel to prevent the residents' distress, but it chose to show what it ostensibly did not have and conceal its reserves for use in terrorist activity against Israel.
For example, the Palestinian Website Pal-Press published, on 20 January, the comments of a gas-station owner who wanted to speak anonymously, whereby Hamas in the Strip grabbed control of and stole large quantities of fuel that had entered the Strip and were at gas stations. According to the gas-station owner, the fuel was intended for hospitals, but Hamas took the fuel to its bases in the Strip for the sole use of the of its senior members' attendants, the al-Aqsa satellite station, the homes of senior Hamas members and the Hamas security headquarters. The Website added that, according to local sources, the security guard of Ismail Haniyah stole fuel at gunpoint from a-Shifa Hospital, in Gaza City, and from gas stations for the vehicles of Haniyah and his entourage, his house, and the government's office.
3. Shortage of medicines and hardship suffered by hospitals: The hospitals have reserves, which though they have declined in quantity, have not reached the crisis stage at which hospital personnel are unable to carry out their work. Furthermore, Hamas took some of the medicines and made sure that they are reserved solely for its own use. Such contentions were made, in particular, by Fatah, which stated that in recent weeks Hamas had stolen medicines and transported them in humanitarian-aid tucks. For example, the Ma'an news agency reported, on 13 January that: "The Palestinian Ministry of Health accused Hamas of stealing trucks containing medicines that had been sent from the Ministry of Health's warehouses in Ramallah to the warehouses in the Gaza Strip. The Ministry of Health's announcement stated that the medicines had been stolen by Hamas militias. It was further stated that more than once it had been noted that many medicines were found in private hospitals, medical centers, and pharmacies belonging to Hamas, even though the medicines were intended for the entire Palestinian people, without distinction between one patient and another
In addition, it is known that Hamas takes medicines from the hospitals and transfers them to the health clinics it has begun to operate as Hamas hospitals, which it equips with equipment taken from government hospitals. Al-Wafa Shijaia Hospital, a private hospital belonging to Hamas, is one example of a Hamas hospital that was equipped with government-hospital equipment. Equipment sent from Ramallah to government hospitals in the Strip is taken by Hamas to its hospitals, and Hamas makes the false claim that the government hospitals lack equipment.
4. Economic hardship: The only funds for meeting the welfare needs of the residents of the Gaza Strip are transferred to them by Salam Fayad and Abu Mazen. Hamas exploits its control of the Palestinian side of the Philadelphi corridor to smuggle in large sums of money that are intended solely for the movement's purposes. The military arm of Hamas received a substantial portion of its budget, estimated at tens of millions of dollars, through the tunnels it built from one side of the border to the other. The money that Hamas receives is used to strengthen it and increase the number of activists engaged on its behalf, and does not reach the civilian population needing it.

In summation, the facts indicate that Hamas deliberately exaggerated in describing the situation. This exaggeration is part of the Hamas government's strategy to cast the blame on the other side and use the people's hardship as a lever for its propaganda purposes to the maximum extent possible. The Arab media, in particular Al-Jazeera, contributed greatly in intensifying and increasing the magnitude of the distress in certain instances both in the eyes of both world and Palestinian public opinion.