World

Banks Running out of Cash in Gaza

by Rob Walker | November 24, 2008 at 12:06 pm

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The banks are running out of money in Gaza. With the closure of all crossings the financial institutions in the Gaza Strip are actually running out of cash, leading to frozen accounts and citizens unable to take any money out.

Some banks have even posted signs telling customers they can't take out any more money. The United Nations stopped distributing cash handouts to Gaza's poorest last week.

Local banks in Gaza, under pressure from Israeli sanctions, are running out of cash and desperate Palestinians lined up at branches Monday hoping to pull money out of frozen accounts.

But most banks have sharply curtailed withdrawals over the past two weeks and some have posted signs telling customers they cannot take out any more money. The U.N. stopped distributing cash handouts to Gaza's poorest last week.

Money is just one of almost all supplies that are dwindling, and with the continued closure of the crossings it will simply get worse.

Between the Israeli blockade on one hand and the internal Palestinian disputes and conflict between Fatah and Hamas on the second hand Gaza lives a humanitarian and health crisis. In fact Gaza citizens were forced to begin grinding second-rate wheat and some hospital suffer from serious shortages and might be unable of offering services.

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Mr.FoxTalbot

at 13:39 on November 24th, 2008

Photo taken in Damascus. The guy runnig the shop where I took the photo told me that a palestinian pound like that one, from the time of the british mandate, could be worth as much as 700 hundred dollars.

Paschen

at 19:53 on November 24th, 2008

No food, no water, no money, no rights, no Future, no hope, no health care, no education any longer and surrounded by Israeli Army with out a way out nor in, sorry to say this, but it sounds like the Warsaw Ghetto of 1939.