For more than a decade, Gaza—a narrow strip along the Mediterranean coast—has been subjected to a suffocating economic siege. The siege was imposed by Israel and its international accomplices after the election of the Hamas government in 2006, as a form of ‘economic warfare’. The objective was to cripple Gaza’s economy in the hopes that the suffering thereby inflicted would induce Gaza’s civilian population—70 percent of whom are refugees and more than half of whom are children—to turn against their rulers.

To this end, the flow of goods as well as people across Gaza’s perimeter was reduced to the bare minimum. The guiding principle was explained by one of the architects of Israel’s Gaza policy, Dov Weisglass: ‘It’s like a diet—the Palestinians will lose lots of weight, but they won’t die’. That is, humanitarian aid would be allowed entry but the inputs required for a functioning economy would be blocked. International human rights organisations have unsurprisingly condemned this mediaeval-like policy as a ‘collective punishment’ (International Committee of the Red Cross) imposed in ‘flagrant violation of international law’ (Amnesty International).

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