by Osama Radi, Emad Drimly
GAZA, June 1 (Xinhua) -- Atfaluna Society for Deaf Children which yearly fosters more than 30,000 children with disabilities is reducing its services due to financial support retreat of the NGOs of Gaza organizations.
Head of the organization Naem Kabaja is deeply concerned about the future of his society's services, which had been forced several months ago to grant an emergency plan of austerity to face the lack of international fund and donation.
He told Xinhua the organization trimmed its staff salaries and the operational budget. Its projects are also threatened to cut off due to the acute shortage of funding and grant in the time that Gaza needs more support not regression.
Dozens of charities and NGOs are running in Gaza, most of which depend on completely external grants to fund their activities and services in a wake of the increasing humanitarian onuses to people in Gaza.
Israel on the other side imposes aggravating siege on Gaza Strip after the Hamas movement took over the power in 2007.
The years of siege exacerbate the lack of basic needs and the unemployment rate to reach the highest in the world with 41.7 percent in the end of 2016, according the Palestinians statistic bureau.
Beside the siege, Israel launched three large-scale military operations against the strip in 2009, 2012, and the last offensive in the summer of 2014.
Kabaja said that the Gaza Strip witnessed increasing number of people with disabilities. They face harsh living and humanitarian conditions due to the inability of NGOs.
"The NGOs' services diminished during the past months as a result of the difficulties of contacting the donors directly, and supporting Gaza Strip is not priority of many donors amid the regional disorders," he added.
The international organization reluctance of keeping its humanitarian aid in Gaza Strip not only affects lots of people with disabilities, but also hundreds of thousands of poor and patients.
Recently, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in Gaza announced its shut down after nine years of aiding thousands of Palestinian families in Gaza by its humanitarian services in the fields of development, rehabilitation and relief.
The head of the closed organization Mohammed Hasna told Xinhua the Palestinian internal dispute is one of the most reasons to this step.
The active humanitarian organizations have become unable to offer their help as a result of the shutdown of four main organizations and the policy of financial strangulation.
Palestinian activists in the NGOs said during the past two years they saw Israel narrowing campaigns by detaining the number of these organizations' staff and banning them from travelling beside incitement to cut their fund.
Israel previously announced the detention of two employees with the UNDP and the World Vision organizations over claims of supporting Hamas.
Director of the NGO Network in the Gaza Strip Amjad Shawa told Xinhua that more than 60 percent of the active NGOs in Gaza face financial crisis due to the lack of external support.
The financial crisis led to retracting the services these organizations offer to people in the time that more than 70 percent of them depend on humanitarian aid and half of them suffer food insecurity.
Shawa accused Israel of incitement campaigns over the active NGOs in Gaza in order to intensify the siege and reduce the humanitarian aid.
He referred that Israel banned senior officials and special rapporteurs of the United Nations and members of parliament to enter Gaza, aiming to prevent them from a close look at the deterioration in humanitarian issues in the strip.
He also warned of retreating the NGOs and the international organizations fund in Gaza Strip in conjunction with retreating the Palestinian authority services, which will lead to aggravating the disastrous situation of Gaza people and increasing the poverty and unemployment.
