A UK parliamentary committee has called for dialogue with Hamas, as a UN report says poverty has reached an unprecedented high in the Gaza Strip.
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Major world powers refuse to speak to Hamas unless it recognises Israel.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said 52% of Gaza households are living in poverty, and unemployment there has topped 45%.
The House of Commons International Development Committee said in a report on Gaza that the current truce between Hamas and Israel, agreed on 19 June, "offers the international community an opportunity to begin a dialogue with Hamas".
The aim of the talks should be to move the group towards accepting principles laid down by the international community and to repairing the rift between it and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party, it said.
The so-called quartet - the US, EU, UN and Russia - has said it will not talk to Hamas unless it recognises Israel's right to exist, renounces violence and agrees to abide by agreements made by the Palestinian Authority.
In its report, the committee described the humanitarian situation in Gaza as "acute", saying food, fuel and water were in "short supply" and the public health system "under severe pressure".
It said Israel had failed to meet its obligations to ensure the health and welfare of the Palestinian population.
The UNRWA report, based on figures from the Palestinian Authority said that GDP across the whole Palestinian economy was more than 8% below 1999 levels.
Population growth had left GDP per capita more than a third below 1999 levels, it said.
Correspondents say Gaza is much calmer and quieter since the ceasefire, but life there is still very hard.
Some 650,000 people - about half the population - depend on the UN for their daily meal.
(BBC)
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