“I call on all world nations, to all who are able and have the influence, to pressure those ruling Gaza, to pressure Hamas, to accept responsibility for their actions and the lives of their people.” President Reuven Rivlin issued this appeal Jan. 21 while touring Israeli communities bordering Gaza with Deputy Chief of the General Staff Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi. The president’s call reflects a new assessment by Israeli security analysts that the Gaza Strip is nearing economic collapse. It is also an expression of the bind Israel is in, having imposed a closure on Gaza more than a decade ago and standing by helplessly in the face of its dangerous repercussions.

Senior Israeli defense officials expressed grave concern Jan. 15 that unemployment of around 50% among young Palestinians, along with the dead end in reconciliation talks between Hamas and Fatah, would result in an explosion with security, environmental and health implications for Israel.

An additional indicator of how dire things have become is the declining number of supply trucks entering the Gaza Strip from Israel through the Kerem Shalom border crossing. Two years ago, some 2,000 trucks entered each day. Last year the number was down to 1,000, and last month it barely reached 400. The explanation lies in the sharply reduced purchasing power of Gaza’s 2 million besieged residents, and the number of trucks reflects the bare minimum required to keep them alive.

“You’re talking about purchasing power and I’m telling you that we’re talking about dying and death,” says a Gaza journalist who spoke with Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity given the ban by Hamas on Palestinian contacts with Israelis. The journalist is in his 50s. He has been through two Palestinian uprisings against Israel and numerous military clashes between Gaza and Israel, and he has covered the distressing circumstances of Gaza’s residents before the closure and since. His descriptions of recent days are a painful outcry to the world. “It doesn’t get any worse than this; there’s nowhere lower to go. It’s worse than life in the Middle Ages,” he says. “People are hoping to die because death is preferable to the life they are leading in Gaza.”