Beit Hanoun Crisis
A six-day offensive in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun left 52 people dead, another 250 people injured, and caused major damage to homes and agriculture.
Most of Beit Hanoun's 30,000 residents spent the week trapped in their homes as fighting raged in the town's streets.
Troops pulled out of the town on 7 November 2006, leaving destroyed homes, uprooted trees, ruined crops, and streets flooded with sewage after pipes were ruptured by tanks.
A day after the pullout, another 18 people were killed as tanks fired a barrage of missiles into the beleaguered town. Of the dead, seven were women, three were men, and the remaining ten were under the age of 18.
Economy affected
Beit Hanoun is in one of the most fertile areas of the Gaza Strip, but the six-day offensive cut wide swathes of destruction through cultivated land, damaging the town's primary industry.
Since June 26 2006, military incursions and aerial bombardments have caused damage to Gaza's agriculture estimated at US$ 23.5 million.
The conflict has also caused severe damage to infrastructure. Bridges, roads, a power supply plant, and water supply networks have been wrecked in the past few months. The cost of damage to infrastructure is estimated at US$8 million.
Aid Freeze
The attack on Beit Hanoun comes after a freeze on financial aid that has left government employees and civil servants without a regular salary since March.
Foreign governments imposed a financial embargo on the Palestinian Authority after elections in January 2006, leaving 165,000 people without pay.
Around a quarter of the population depend directly on salaries paid out by the Palestinian Authority, but the aid freeze is affecting the entire Palestinian economy.
Without government salaries, the economy has fallen into decline and poverty and unemployment is on the rise.
Islamic Relief Responds
Islamic Relief aid workers in Palestine have formed an emergency team to respond to the crisis in Beit Hanoun.
The team is coordinating a response with the Red Cross and is assessing the needs of the people in the town. Other international aid agencies are not yet working in Beit Hanoun.
An Islamic Relief engineer visited the Gaza European Hospital which was damaged during the siege, and in the coming week IR will begin repair work on the hospital's roof.
- IR aid workers have distributed 1,500 emergency food parcels, containing water, beans, humus, bread, tuna, Qurbani meat, and cheese.
- IR has also distributed 400 sets of medical clothing and surgical masks to three of Bait Hanoun's hospitals.
In the coming days IR plans to:
- Distribute at least a further 1,000 food parcels;
- Distribute milk and nappies;
- Distribute hygiene packs and medical clothing to hospitals.
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