Gaza on verge of ‘full collapse’ – UN envoy

The Palestinian coastal enclave of the Gaza Strip is on the verge of a “full collapse,” a senior UN official warned on Tuesday. UN Middle East peace envoy Nikolay Mladenov said the key to saving Gaza from disaster was restoring the government of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to power there, AFP reported. The former administration was forced out by the militant Islamist movement Hamas a decade ago. “Without that Gaza risks exploding in our face again,” Mladenov said at the annual conference of Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. Gaza suffers from shattered infrastructure, a strict Israeli blockade and massive unemployment. Earlier this month, the US froze tens of millions of dollars in contributions to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.