GAZA, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- The situation in the Gaza Strip is on the edge of collapse due to 12 years of a tight Israeli blockade, said the Gaza-based National Corporation, a committee working to limit the impact of the Israeli blockade.
The group is calling on the international community and the Arab world to bear moral responsibility for the more than 2 million people who have been living under siege in the Gaza Strip for 12 years, it said in an emailed statement.
"We call on the Palestinian health minister to visit Gaza as soon as possible and bear his responsibility toward the situation in the Gaza Strip's hospitals," said the statement, saying that hospitals are in severe shortage of fuel and medical supplies.
"Starving the people of Gaza has been on going during 12 years of the Israeli siege," it said.
The organization held Israel responsible for the blockade imposed on Gaza, as well as the Palestinian government for the sanctions that it has imposed on the enclave since June last year.
The statement also called on humanitarian organizations to send emergency relief convoys to the Strip, "which lives right now in the middle of an economic catastrophe."
Israel controls two major crossing points to and out of Gaza - one for the movement of people and one for commercial activities and trade.
Egypt, meanwhile, controls one crossing point on its border with Gaza, which has been closed due to a worsening security situation in the Sinai Peninsula.
"Rates of poverty and unemployment in Gaza have reached horrible figures, where more than 80 percent of the population needs urgent aid," the committee said.
