Geneva - The International Committee of the Red Cross warned Monday that six months after the large-scale Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip, the enclave's inhabitants were being prevented from "rebuilding their lives."

The closure of the crossings points into the enclave - allowing in only a limited amount of basic humanitarian goods- was also causing overloads on the run-down water, sanitation and health infrastructures in Gaza.

Goods needed for reconstruction of the thousands of homes and schools destroyed during the fighting and to repair the failing systems are blocked by Israel. Many patients too were prevented from leaving Gaza for medical treatment, the Red Cross said.

It noted that water pipes, cement, painkillers and X-ray film developing materials were among the items lacking in Gaza, which "is cut off from the outside world." Also, the economy has virtually collapsed, causing rampant poverty.

The ICRC demanded that Israel lift its blockade on Gaza, imposed since shortly before the Islamist Hamas movement overtook the strip two years ago, and let goods and people move more freely.

Also to blame for the lack of essential services in Gaza, the humanitarian organization said, was the infighting between Hamas its rival, the Fatah movement, which rules in the West Bank.

At the same time, Palestinian rocket fire into Israel was placing thousands in the Jewish state's south at risk, the report said.

Warning that humanitarian responses were by definition limited in scope, the ICRC said there are "political steps that are needed to bring about the changes the population of Gaza needs," and that all the players in the region need "to do what is needed to reopen the Gaza Strip." (dpa)