VOA常速英语2008年-New Report Finds Gaza Humanitarian Situation is

By Jim Teeple
Jerusalem
06 March 2008

A new report by a consortium of British aid agencies says the humanitarian¹ situation in the Gaza Strip is the worst in forty years.  VOA's Jim Teeple reports the report blames Israel for the crisis, but Israeli officials say Hamas militants² are to blame.

Eight British aid organizations say the humanitarian situation in Gaza has deteriorated³ to the worst point in 40 years and that it will likely get worse unless Israel eases its blockade of the territory.  

According to the report, more than one million people or 80 percent of Gaza's population is now dependent on food aid and that Gaza's power, water and sewage systems have collapsed⁴. 

Michael Bailey of the Jerusalem OXFAM office says life in Gaza has always been a struggle, but after Israel closed Gaza's borders last year following the Hamas takeover of the territory, things got dramatically worse.

"In four weeks, 65,000 jobs were lost.  Ninety percent of the manufacturing industry was shut down," Bailey said. "Forty thousand people in the agricultural industry are finding it very hard to maintain their jobs and eight out of ten families in Gaza are dependent on food aid."

Bailey says 300,000 people in Gaza do not have regular supplies of water and 60 tons of raw sewage is discharged into the ocean every day because sewage treatment plants no longer work.  He says many schools also do not have power.  As a result he says Gaza's educational system has broken down, and children there fail basic tests in rudimentary subjects.  Bailey and the other groups behind the report say they blame Israel for the situation because it controls Gaza's borders.

"We are saying that because Israel is still in control, it is still the occupying power even though they (Israel) are not inside Gaza; they control all the borders, the air and the sea space," Bailey said. "Therefore whoever is in charge inside Gaza, they are really powerless to control and economy that depends 90 percent on imports for any manufacturing or productivity."

The United States and the European Union consider Hamas a terrorist organization and have cut off all but humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip since the group seized power there last June.

Israeli officials have strongly denounced the report, calling it biased⁵. 

Major Peter Lerner, the spokesman for Israel's military and civil authorities in the Palestinian territories says Hamas militants who seized power in Gaza last year are to blame for the situation.  Lerner says Israel is committed to preventing a humanitarian emergency from developing in Gaza - and does so at considerable risk to itself.

"We, Israel actually, function the crossings under fire from Palestinian snipers and mortar⁶ fire, which no other state in the world would do, and for us is very problematic obviously," Lerner said.

Since the beginning of this year the situation in Gaza has been at a boiling point.  In January Hamas militants knocked down Gaza's border wall with Egypt in a bid to break the territory's blockade.  Since then, Palestinian militants have stepped up rocket attacks against towns and cities in southern Israel, leading to Israeli retaliatory⁷ attacks that killed many Palestinians, which led the moderate Palestinian government of President Mahmoud Abbas to suspend peace talks with Israel.  The talks were restored this week after direct intervention⁸ from U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. 

There are signs that things may improve in Gaza.  Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says Israel will abstain⁹ from attacking militants in Gaza if they stop their rocket attacks.  Hamas leaders and other Palestinian militants have begun talks with Egyptian officials about establishing a truce¹⁰ with Israel.  For the people of Gaza a truce would be the first good news in many months.  

1 humanitarian   

n.人道主义者，博爱者，基督凡人论者

参考例句：

• She has many humanitarian interests and contributes a lot to them.她拥有很多慈善事业，并作了很大的贡献。
• The British government has now suspended humanitarian aid to the area.英国政府现已暂停对这一地区的人道主义援助。

2 militants   

激进分子，好斗分子( militant的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The militants have been sporadically fighting the government for years. 几年来，反叛分子一直对政府实施零星的战斗。
• Despite the onslaught, Palestinian militants managed to fire off rockets. 尽管如此，巴勒斯坦的激进分子仍然发射导弹。

3 deteriorated   

恶化，变坏( deteriorate的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Her health deteriorated rapidly, and she died shortly afterwards. 她的健康状况急剧恶化，不久便去世了。
• His condition steadily deteriorated. 他的病情恶化，日甚一日。

4 collapsed   

adj.倒塌的

参考例句：

• Jack collapsed in agony on the floor. 杰克十分痛苦地瘫倒在地板上。
• The roof collapsed under the weight of snow. 房顶在雪的重压下突然坍塌下来。

5 biased   

a.有偏见的

参考例句：

• a school biased towards music and art 一所偏重音乐和艺术的学校
• The Methods: They employed were heavily biased in the gentry's favour. 他们采用的方法严重偏袒中上阶级。

6 mortar   

n.灰浆，灰泥；迫击炮；v.把…用灰浆涂接合

参考例句：

• The mason flushed the joint with mortar.泥工用灰浆把接缝处嵌平。
• The sound of mortar fire seemed to be closing in.迫击炮的吼声似乎正在逼近。

7 retaliatory   

adj.报复的

参考例句：

• The process can take years before the WTO approves retaliatory action. 在WTO通过此行动之前，这个程序恐怕要等上一阵子了。 来自互联网
• Retaliatory tariffs on China are tantamount to taxing ourselves as a punishment. 将惩罚性关税强加于中国相当于对我们自己实施课税惩罚。 来自互联网

8 intervention   

n.介入，干涉，干预

参考例句：

• The government's intervention in this dispute will not help.政府对这场争论的干预不会起作用。
• Many people felt he would be hostile to the idea of foreign intervention.许多人觉得他会反对外来干预。

9 abstain   

v.自制，戒绝，弃权，避免

参考例句：

• His doctor ordered him to abstain from beer and wine.他的医生嘱咐他戒酒。
• Three Conservative MPs abstained in the vote.三位保守党下院议员投了弃权票。

10 truce   

n.休战，(争执，烦恼等的)缓和；v.以停战结束

参考例句：

• The hot weather gave the old man a truce from rheumatism.热天使这位老人暂时免受风湿病之苦。
• She had thought of flying out to breathe the fresh air in an interval of truce.她想跑出去呼吸一下休战期间的新鲜空气。