Alwaght- Following a decade filled with brutal Israeli regime attacks and an inhuman blockade, the Gaza Strip, forms a part of the Palestinian territory, could become uninhabitable for residents within just five years, the United Nations development agency said Tuesday.
"The social, health and security-related ramifications of the high population density and overcrowding are among the factors that may render Gaza unlivable by 2020," the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) wrote in its annual report.
Gaza, a tiny enclave of just 362 square kilometers (about 225 square miles) squeezed between Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea that is home to some 1.8 million Palestinians, counts one of the highest population densities in the world.
"Gaza could become uninhabitable by 2020 if current economic trends persist," the report said.
While the high density is not new, the situation has been exacerbated by three brutal Israeli regime wars against the impoverished Palestinian territory in the past six years and nearly a decade-long economic blockade.
The blockade had "ravaged the already debilitated infrastructure of Gaza, shattered its productive base, left no time for meaningful reconstruction or economic recovery and impoverished the Palestinian population in Gaza," the report said.
"Short of ending the blockade, donor aid... will not reverse the ongoing de-development and impoverishment in Gaza," it said.
Socio-economic conditions in Gaza are currently "at their lowest point since 1967," when Israeli regime occupied the territory from Egypt in its Six-Day War, according to the report.
Even before last year's conflict, Gaza's electricity supply was not enough to cover 40 percent of demand, UNCTAD said, adding that 95 percent of water from coastal aquifers -- Gazans main source of freshwater -- was considered unsafe to drink.
Meanwhile, unemployment in Gaza soared last year to 44 percent -- the highest level on record -- hitting young women especially hard, leaving more than eight out of 10 women out of work.
In May, the World Bank described Gaza's economy as one of the worst in the world, with unemployment in the strip standing as high as 43 percent. It also warned that as much as 73 percent of the population is suffering from food insecurity.
The Israeli regime imposed an all-out land, aerial, and naval blockade on Gaza in June 2007, a situation that has caused a decline in the standards of living, unprecedented levels of unemployment and unrelenting poverty. The siege has turned the coastal sliver – home to over 1.8 million Palestinians – into the largest open-air prison in the world.