THEY TRASHED ALL WORKING AND PRODUCTIVE FARMS WITH STATE OF THE ART EQUIPMENT, RAINED ROCKETS ON SDEROT, AND INSTEAD OF BLAMING ABBAS AND OTHER SO CALLED LEADERS THEY RIOT AGAINST ISRAEL. …THIS IS A PREVIEW OF THE DISASTER THAT A 2 STATE DELUSION WOULD BRING….RSK
GAZA CITY—Tens of thousands of Palestinian protesters massed Friday along the Israeli border, as Western officials warn the economic situation in the Gaza Strip is at breaking point, raising the risk of civil unrest or even war.
At least 15 Palestinians died in clashes with the Israeli military and more than 1,000 were injured, Palestinian authorities said. Crowds rolled burning tires and threw stones and fire bombs at Israeli soldiers, the Israeli army said.
Friday’s demonstrations called for a right to return to homes in what is now Israel. But Gaza’s flat-lining economy—battered by fighting, blockades and an intensifying power struggle between Palestinian factions—has further inflamed tensions.
Growth is near zero, unemployment is 44% and consumer spending has plummeted in this strip of Palestinian territory, sandwiched between Israel and the Mediterranean Sea.
Gazans live with three to six hours of electricity a day due to shortages and more than half of the strip’s nearly two million residents receive food assistance from the United Nations.
The economic situation is so dire that some warn it could lead Gaza’s rulers, the extremist group Hamas, to start a war with Israel. U.S. and Israeli officials believe Hamas started a conflict with Israel in 2014 in part because Israel and Egypt squeezed the group economically.
Gaza is on the brink of “total institutional and economic collapse,” Nickolay Mladenov, U.N. special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, told the Security Council last month. “This is not an alarmist prediction…it is a fact.” CONTINUE AT SITE
