Alexander Smith is a senior reporter for NBC News Digital based in London.
For 16 years, a blockade has throttled the Gaza Strip, worsening a humanitarian crisis in this overcrowded, impoverished enclave that Human Rights Watch calls an “open air prison.” On Monday, in response to the large-scale deadly attacks by Hamas, Israel announced this blockade would become what they call a full-scale “siege” — allowing no food, water, electricity or fuel to its 2.3 million residents, half of them children. Israel has also started intensively bombing Gaza.
“Sadly, there may be innocents that may be hurt or killed.” The Gaza Strip is a tiny, quotation mark-shaped spit of land twice the size of Washington, D.C., and is one of the most densely populated places in the world. Some 80% of its people are refugees; half are children. Meanwhile, less than 4% of its water is drinkable, and its unemployment rate of 46% is the worst in the world, according to UNICEF.
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