GAZA'S UNENDING GRIEF

GAZA CITY: UNITED NATIONS official warn that Gaza is nearing total collapse, with medical supplies dwindling, clinics closing and 12-hour power outages threatening hospitals.

The water is almost entirely undrinkable, and raw sewage is befouling beaches and fishing grounds.

Israeli officials and aid workers are bracing for a cholera outbreak any day.

At the heart of the crisis - and its most immediate cause - is a crushing financial squeeze, the result of a tense standoff between Hamas, the militant Islamic Group that rules Gaza, and-

Fatah, the secular party entrenched on the West Bank. Fatah controls the Palestinian Authority but was driven out of Gaza by Hamas in 2007.

''WE ARE DEAD, BUT WE HAVE BREATH,'' said Zakia Abu Ajwa, 57, who now cooks greens normally feed to  Donkeys for her three small grandchildren.

The jails are filling with shopkeepers arrested for unpaid debts; the talk on the streets is of homes being burglarized.

The boys who skip schools to hawk fresh mint or wipe car windshields face brutal competition. At  open-air markets, shelves remain mostly full, but vendors sit around reading the Quran.

There are no buyers, the sellers say. THERE IS NO MONEY.