Sanctions

If anyone still thinks that economic sanctions against Hamas are a great idea, I encourage them to read this article in the Guardian

Mr Ayad [a dialysis patient] is also fortunate that there is someone to treat him. None of the medical staff at Shifa has been paid for the past two months. It is the same for the rest of the Palestinian Authority's 160,000 workers whose wages usually come from a mix of foreign aid and customs duties now frozen by Israel with increasingly serious consequences for the 1 million Palestinians - one in four of the population - supported by government salaries.

The World Bank warned this week that its earlier predictions of a 50% rise in poverty in the occupied territories this year, driven by a sharp fall in personal income and a 23% increase in unemployment, may have been "too rosy", because it underestimated the extent of western sanctions against Hamas and the Israeli blockade.