Palestinian rights group records 'surge' in Gaza suicide attempts

Al Mezan Center for Human Rights says it has registered 17 suicides and hundreds of attempts this year, as pandemic batters already impoverished territory

At least 17 people have taken their own lives in the impoverished Gaza Strip this year and hundreds more have made suicide attempts, a Palestinian rights group said Monday.

“We have registered 17 suicides and hundreds of attempted suicides, namely among young people,” since the start of the year, said Samir Zaqout, deputy director of the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights.

He told AFP that “extreme poverty,” difficult living conditions and a lack of freedom of expression under the Hamas rule were all factors behind these suicides.

Gaza is ruled by Islamist terror group Hamas, which took over from the Palestinian Authority in 2007 in a bloody coup. Hamas, which openly seeks Israel’s destruction, has fired many thousands of rockets aimed at Israeli cities, prompting the Jewish state and Egypt to impose a land, sea and air blockade for over a decade to slow Hamas’s arming.

Israel withdrew from the densely populated enclave in 2005 and fought three wars with Hamas since.

According to the United Nations, unemployment before the spread of the coronavirus stood at around 43 percent of Gaza’s estimated two million inhabitants, while 80 percent depended on aid to survive.

The World Bank estimates that poverty affected 53 percent of Gazans before the pandemic and that the number could now reach 64 percent.

Hamas police spokesman Ayman al-Batniji contested the suicide data reported by Al Mezan.

“This year there have been 12 suicides in Gaza and that is less than the 32 cases which were reported in 2019,” he told reporters.