Gaza under siege - Israel 'using food and medicines as weapons'

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Israel 'using food and medicines as weapons'
By agency reporter
20 Nov 2008

http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/8011

Israel is collectively punishing innocent civilians by withholding and controlling food and medicine to Gaza, says Christian Aid.

"With the recent upsurge in violence it is Palestinian and Israeli civilians who will pay the price of failure and silence, and lose hope itself", says William Bell, middle-eastern advocacy officer at Christian Aid.

Despite repeated calls from the international community, Gaza remains closed to food and medicine. For almost one and a half years, 1.5 million Palestinians have endured collective punishment as a result of Israel’s tight closure of Gaza.

In recent weeks the situation has once again deteriorated further with a resurgence of violence.

Last week, UNRWA, the UN agency responsible for assisting Palestinian refugees, announced that it had run out of food to distribute. With 80 per cent of the population dependent upon food aid, the situation is critical but the crossings into Gaza – the only points of entry for people and goods - remain tightly closed.

Increasingly goods are smuggled through tunnels from Egypt into Gaza, but the high cost of items brought in this way, are out of reach for many ordinary Gazans.

"There is a huge concern for November food supplies. UNRWA only works with registered refugees, but what about non-refugees? Tunnels are the only way of getting food and other goods, but this is only for people with money", says a Christian Aid partner in Khan Younis.

The international community has failed to develop a new strategy for ending the closure of Gaza. Similarly reconciliation between Palestinian factions has remained elusive leaving Palestinians without a genuinely representative body to press for a solution to the crisis.

"Simply letting food into Gaza is not enough", says Costa Dabbagh, from Near East Council of Churches, a Christian Aid partner.

"We are fed and kept alive without dignity and the international community should be blamed for it. We are not given hope. …it is not acceptable for us to be waiting for food to come. We want to live freely with Israel and other countries in peace, we are not against any individual or government, but we are against imprisonment."

Despite an agreement on cessation of violence since June 2008, Gazans remain isolated from the world and continue to live in abject poverty. Although getting food supplies into Gaza is a vital first step, Christian Aid believes steps must be taken to resolve the political crisis before people will see a real change in their lives.

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On Top of Humanitarian Disaster, A News Blackout

By Cherrie Heywood

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21268.htm

RAMALLAH, West Bank, Nov 18 (IPS) - Israel has imposed a virtual news blackout on the Gaza Strip. For the last ten days no foreign journalists have been able to enter the besieged territory to report on the escalating humanitarian crisis caused by Israel's complete closure of Gaza's borders for the last two weeks.

Steve Gutkin, the AP bureau chief in Jerusalem and head of Israel's Foreign Press Association, said that he personally "knows of no foreign journalist that has been allowed into Gaza in the last week."

Gutkin said that "while Israel has barred foreign press from entering Gaza in the past, the length of the current ban makes it unprecedented." He added that he has received no "plausible or acceptable" explanation for the ban from the Israeli government.

AP has relied on reports from two of its journalists who were able to enter Gaza days before the closure began and are currently stuck there.

A delegation of European Union parliamentarians was also prevented from entering Gaza to assess the situation on the ground and to hold talks with Hamas leaders. They subsequently broke the naval siege of Gaza by entering the coast's territorial waters from Cyprus by boat, defying the Israeli navy.

During talks held with Hamas, the EU parliamentarians were able to get a historic commitment from the Islamic organisation to recognise Israel's right to exist within the internationally recognised 1967 borders. Hamas further offered a long-term ceasefire in return for Israel legitimising Palestinian rights.

Israel also prevented 20 European Union consul-generals from entering Gaza on Thursday. On Sunday Israeli border police prevented 15 trucks loaded with medication from entering the Gaza Strip.

EU commissioner for external relations and European neighbourhood policy, Bentita Ferrero-Waldner, has expressed strong reservations. "I am profoundly concerned about the consequences for the Gazan population of the complete closure of all Gaza crossings for deliveries of fuel and basic humanitarian assistance," Ferrero-Waldner said in a statement Friday.

Karen AbuZayd, head of the UN Relief and Welfare Agency (UNRWA) which cares for Palestinian refugees, added that it was unusual for Israel not to let basic food and medicines in. "This has alarmed us more than usual because it's never been quite so long and so bad, and there has never been so much negative response on what we need," she said.

Israel closed the borders following a barrage of rockets fired by Palestinian resistance fighters at Israeli towns bordering the Gaza Strip.

The tit-for-tat violence began on Nov. 4 when the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) launched a cross-border raid into Gaza, breaking a shaky five-month ceasefire with Hamas. The purpose was ostensibly to destroy a tunnel built by Palestinians allegedly to smuggle captured Israeli soldiers.

More than 20 Palestinians were killed in Israeli raids. Two Israelis were lightly injured in the subsequent rocket attacks.

The timing of Israel's breach of the ceasefire is curious in that hundreds of these smuggling tunnels have existed ever since Hamas took over the strip in June last year. They have been used to smuggle everyday necessities as well as arms because the territory is hermetically sealed by Israel.

John Ging, director of UNRWA in Gaza, who has lived there for the past three years, questioned the alleged security reasoning behind the closure. Since the ceasefire went into place this summer, Ging said, fewer supplies have passed through the crossing than in the beginning of 2006, when the western Negev in Israel suffered incessant rocket fire from Gaza.

At that time the Palestinian Authority (PA), which is supported by Israel and the international community, was ruling Gaza in a unity government with Hamas.

"Last week we were unable to feed 60,000 of Gaza's neediest refugees due to our warehouses running out of food. UNRWA supplies half of Gaza's population of 1.5 million people with emergency rations, and 20,000 people are fed per day when there are adequate supplies," Ging told IPS.

Seventy percent of Gaza experienced electricity blackouts after Israel prevented deliveries of diesel fuel, forcing Gaza's main power plant to close down.

"The Israelis were only allowing 2.2 to 2.5 million litres of fuel in per week prior to the closure, which was the minimum required to operate the power plant. The plant has a capacity for 20 million litres and this would last two months under normal circumstances and tide over emergency periods. But this has all run out," Ging said.

Kan'an Ubeid, deputy chief of the Palestinian Energy Authority, said at a press conference in Gaza that in addition to the shutdown of the diesel-fuelled power plant, the electric network bringing in power from Israel collapsed due to increased pressure on the system.

Gazans also ran out of cooking gas while Gaza's Coastal Municipalities Water Utility (CMWU) was forced to pump tonnes of untreated sewage into the ocean due to fuel shortages and the lack of spare parts for equipment in need of repairs and new parts.

Much of this will flow back into Gaza's underground water table, and the threat of contaminated drinking water spreading diseases has increased.

Meanwhile, the emergency and ambulance services director-general, Mu'awiyya Hassanein, says Gaza's health ministry is short of more than 300 types of necessary medication.

Sammy Hassan, a spokesman from Gaza city's main Shifa hospital said only urgent surgery was being carried out. "We have delayed all non-urgent surgery as our small generator has stopped working, as we can't import a vital spare part.

"We are down to 30,000 litres of fuel left to run the larger generator which is used when electricity is cut. Under the current circumstances with no electricity we require 10,000 litres per day," Hassan told IPS.

Philip Luther, deputy director of Amnesty International's Middle East programme, said that Israel's latest tightening of the blockade had "made an already dire humanitarian situation markedly worse. This is nothing short of collective punishment on Gaza's civilian population, and it must stop immediately."

Following international pressure and protests from the EU, Israel allowed 30 trucks of humanitarian aid to enter the strip Monday. "It will last a matter of days," said UNRWA spokesman Christopher Gunness. "But then what?"

Oxfam's spokesman in Jerusalem Michael Bailey, who coordinates a number of humanitarian projects in Gaza, said this response was entirely inadequate.

"Thirty trucks of aid after a closure of 10 days is insufficient. What we need is a complete revision of the embargo on Gaza. Dialogue with the relevant political leaders is the only way forward," Bailey told IPS.

"Both Israel and Gaza's other neighbours need to put the human rights and essential needs of Gazans above all considerations if there is to be a way out of this quagmire." (END/2008)

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PCHR Warns of Further Deterioration to Humanitarian Conditions in the Gaza Strip
PCHR - Palestinian Centre for Human Rights


www.uruknet.info?p=48916

Link: www.pchrgaza.org/files/PressR/English/2008/107-2008.html


November 20, 2008

PCHR calls upon the international community, particularly the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention, United Nations agencies and all international humanitarian organizations, to immediately intervene and exert pressure on Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) to reopen border crossings of the Gaza Strip, whose closure has caused further deterioration to living conditions of approximately 1.5 million Palestinians, who have suffered from shortages in foods, medicines and other basic needs, including electricity and fuel supplies. 

 

According to PCHR's field observation of humanitarian conditions, on Monday, 17 November 2008, IOF allowed the entry of 31 containers of foods and medicines into the Gaza Strip through Karm Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing, southeast of Rafah, which has been closed together with other border crossings of the Gaza Strip for two weeks. The containers were directed to UNRWA, World Food Programme, the ICRC and a number of traders of dairy and frozen products. These amounts do not meet the minimum daily needs of the Palestinian civilian population in the Gaza Strip, and they constitute less than 10% of the amounts allowed into the Gaza Strip before tightening the siege imposed on by IOF since June 2007. It is worth noting that IOF further tightened the siege imposed on the Gaza Strip on 5 November 2008. They closed all border crossings and cut off food, medical and fuel supplies and other basic needs. Since that date, IOF have allowed the entry of only 427,410 liters of energy fuel, which can hardly operate the Gaza Power Plant for one day. As a consequence, the plant has been completely stopped and at least 30% of the population of the Gaza Strip have lacked electricity.

 

Humanitarian conditions have continued to deteriorate due to the acute shortages in food and medical supplies needed by approximately 1.5 million Palestinian civilians living in the Gaza Strip.

 

Mills

 

Three out of 5 mills operating in the Gaza Strip have stopped operation, and the remaining two ones are expected to join them by tomorrow due to the lack of wheat. There is also a shortage in drinking water, especially in high building due to repeated cutting of electricity. 

 

Bakeries

 

In a grave development, several bakeries have stopped working due to the lack of fuel, cooking gas, electricity and flour. Developments at this level can be summed up in the following:

 

·      There are 72 bakeries in the Gaza Strip: 47 ones that produce Syrian bread; 10 that produce Iraqi bread, and 15 that produce other kinds of bread and pastries. 29 bakeries that produce Syrian bread have completely stopped operation, while 8 bakeries have been working in a lower capacity.

·      19 bakeries of Syrian bread, which is the most consumable kind of bread in the Gaza Strip, use cooking gas, 8 others use electrical power, and the remaining 4 others use diesel.

·      17 bakeries that depend on cooking gas have stopped working due to the lack of cooking gas and 8 bakeries that depend on electrical power have been working partially due to the repeated cutting of electricity.

·      The population of Gaza City (approximately 570,000 people) depend on the bread produced by 4 bakeries that depend on diesel for operation.

·      10 out of 15 bakeries that depend on cooking gas for operation in the central and southern Gaza Strip have completely stopped operation, and the remaining 5 ones are expected to join them by Saturday, 22 November 2008, if the shortage in cooking gas continues.

·      The last amount of cooking gas provided to bakeries in the Gaza Strip on 4 November 2008 was only 40 tons, which can hardly allow them to operate for one week.

 

Health Conditions: Lives of Patients Are Endangered

 

Health facilities have been facing a serious crisis due to the shortage in electrical and fuel supplies, which has in effect limited their ability to provide medical services to patients. Additionally, at least 45 kinds of medicines have been lacking in the Gaza Strip. Shifa Hospital, the largest hospital in the Gaza Strip is a clear example of the impacts of shortages in electricity and fuel supplies on medical services provided to patients. According to sources of the hospital, several electricity generators need maintenance, which cannot be performed due to the lack of spare parts, whose entry has been banned by IOF. According to those sources:

 

·      The main electricity generator, which generates 900 kilovolt amperes needs maintenance and IOF refuse to allow the entry of spare parts for it, although the ICRC intervened with IOF to allow the main keypad which is required for its maintenance.

·      Prince Nayef Center for Carcinoma and the Magnetic resonance imaging machine have been stopped due to the lack of high voltage electricity.

·      The hospital suffers from a shortage in cooking gas which is used in disinfection and in preparing food for patients.

·      There are serious concerns that some vital medical equipments in hospital in the Gaza Strip, including artificial breathing sets in intensive care units, may stop working. Pasteurization machines may also stop working due to the lack of electricity and fuel.

 

IOF have continued to further tighten the siege imposed on the Gaza Strip in spite of the Egyptian-brokered lull (Tahdi'a) between Israel and Palestinian resistance groups, which entered into force on 19 June 2008. They have continued to close border crossing of the Gaza Strip for long periods, and have allowed limited commodities into the Gaza Strip, which has caused further deterioration to humanitarian conditions.

 

PCHR calls upon the international community, particularly the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949:

 

1)      To exert pressure on IOF to force them to reopen all border crossing of the Gaza Strip in order to allow the Palestinian civilian population to live normal lives, to be able to communicate with other parts of the Occupied Palestinian Territory and with the outside world and to enjoy their civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights.

2)      To immediately intervene to ensure the opening of Rafah International Crossing Point on the Egyptian border to allow at least 5,700 Palestinians, who urgently need to travel abroad, including patients, students and humanitarian cases, and to allow hundreds of other who have been stuck in Egypt to travel back to the Gaza Strip.

3)      To immediately intervene to ensure respect for international humanitarian law and human rights law in order to stop the serious deterioration in living conditions in the Gaza Strip.

4)      To force IOF to stop using collective punishment measures against the Palestinian civilian population, including the closure of border crossings, which violate their economic and social rights.

5)        To remind Israel, of its obligations under the Convention and other international human rights instruments, particularly obligation under common article 55 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which states: " To the fullest extent of the means available to it the Occupying Power has the duty of ensuring the food and medical supplies of the population; it should, in particular, bring in the necessary foodstuffs, medical stores and other articles if the resources of the occupied territory are inadequate. The Occupying Power may not requisition foodstuffs, articles or medical supplies available in the occupied territory, except for use by the occupation forces and administration personnel, and then only if the requirements of the civilian population have been taken into account." PCHR calls upon the High Contracting Parties to fulfill their obligation under article 1 of the Convention to respect and ensure respect for the Convention in all circumstance and provide protection to Palestinian civilians.

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Israel Continues Starvation of Gazans Despite UN Pleas

By The Irish Sun

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21294.htm

November 21, 2008 "Irish Sun" -- -In what the UN has described as collective punishment, the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip continues.

Notwithstanding 56% of the 1.5 million Gazan population consists of children, Israel has shut down access to the region refusing to allow desperately needed food trucks to reach their destination.

UN food agencies in Gaza that have had their food supply cut by the Israeli blockade say they are facing a "humanitarian catastrophe."

World media continues to ignore the desperate situation, Israel however has contributed to that by barring journalists from entering Gaza, a move condemned earlier this week by the Foreign Press Association. The UN appears to be a lone voice in trying to engineer some relief.

Karen AbuZayd, commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, said the human toll of this month's sealing of Gaza's goods crossings was the gravest in eight years.

"It's been closed for so much longer than ever before and we have nothing in our warehouses. It will be a catastrophe if this persists, a disaster," said AbuZayd, whose agency is the largest aid body providing services to Palestinian refugees.

"They are not just under occupation, they are under siege, it's a word I don't usually use, they are completely closed off," she added.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who issued a statement saying he supported statements by the Gazan office, telephoned Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Tuesday urging him to provide access for UN food trucks. Olmert said he would look into the situation on an urgent basis.

By Friday Ban had received no word back from Olmert, so he bypassed him and telephoned Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to stress the urgency of the situation. Livni however rebuffed the UN Secretary-General's plea saying the world should be condemning Palestinian rocket attacks.

"Whoever thinks that a situation of them firing at us, while everything continues as usual, can exist is mistaken," her office said in a statement. "The international community must be more decisive in making itself heard, and in using its influence, in the face of these attacks."

Israeli human rights organization Gisha in a letter to the Israeli army on Thursday from its attorney Yadin Elam said the closure of crossings, "is done with the illegal intention of inflicting pressure on the civilian population in an attempt to affect the behavior of militants and political elements. The closure of the crossings is therefore in violation of the absolute prohibition in International Law against collective punishment." THe UN also this week described the Israeli crackdown as collective punishment.

The blockade is now putting Gaza at breaking point which many believe is the objective of the Jewish nation. A ceasefire, between Hamas and Israel, which had largely held until November 4, was broken when the Israeli army entered Gaza and carried out a raid which killed five militants. Rocket fire into Israel followed, and since then the Israeli army has stepped up activities and closed off more access points. A further 12 Palestinian militants have died. There have been no casualties on the Israeli side as most of the 140 rockets fired into the country have failed to hit any tangible targets.

In addition to preventing access for food supplies Israel has refused to allow European Union-funded fuel supplies into Gaza, starving the power generation plant of fuel which has caused widespread blackouts up to 16 hours a day. Water facilities, including access to clean drinking water, and the treatment of raw sewage continue is also being severely disrupted by fuel shortages. Fifty to sixty million liters of untreated and partially treated sewage are being dumped into the Gaza Strip Mediterranean Sea daily, posing a public health risk.

On Thursday the Associated Press, Reuters, CNN, the BBC and other major news organizations wrote a joint letter to Olmert, protesting the ban on journalists entering Gaza to cover events there. "We are gravely concerned about the prolonged and unprecedented denial of access to the Gaza Strip for the international media," the letter said.

"We would welcome an assurance that access to Gaza for international journalists will be restored immediately in the spirit of Israel's long-standing commitment to a free press."

The letter has been ignored.

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Gaza bakeries turn to animalz feed as human supplies run out
Ma'an news

www.uruknet.info?p=48987

Link: www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=33435

November 22, 2008

Gaza - Ma'an - Bakeries in the besieged Gaza Strip have begun grounding second-rate wheat, usually fed to farm animals and birds, to replace depleted reserves as the ongoing Israeli blockade reached its 18th day on Saturday.

Human wheat supplies ran out this weekend as Israeli and Egyptian border guards turned away truckloads of donated food and medication, according to Abd An-Nasser Al-Ajrami, the head of the Gaza Strip Society of Mill Owners.

Fully 50 percent of Gaza's bakeries were closed by Saturday, according to the United Nations.

Humanitarian conditions in Gaza have fallen to unprecedentedly low levels as Israel's total blockade, which it claims is in response to Palestinian rocket fire, is preventing the import of food, medication and fuel.

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Gaza's hospitals struggle to save lives amid Israeli siege
Rami Almeghari writing from occupied Gaza Strip, Live from Palestine

http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m48957&hd=&size=1&l=e

21 November 2008

A Palestinian patient at the European hospital in the Gaza Strip, August 2007. (Hatem Omar/MaanImages)


Over the past two weeks, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have faced a sharply deteriorating humanitarian situation as Israel further tightened its closure of the border crossings. Virtually no food, medicine or other vital supplies have been allowed in to the territory that is home to 1.5 million people. The impact of the siege is most directly observed in Gaza's health sector. Despite desperately needed medication, equipment, supplies, and spare parts, doctors continue to try to save lives and look after their patients at the European Gaza Hospital, one of territory's largest medical centers.

Dr. Zaki Azzaq Zouq, an oncologist, explained, "There is a widespread shortage of essential medicines which we used to give to patients prior to the blockade. Currently, there are no tools for physicians to treat patients who suffer from lung, stomach, colon or brain cancers."

The situation is just as dire in Gaza's other hospitals. Unable to get life-saving treatments close to home, Israel also prevents patients from Gaza leaving the tiny coastal territory to receive medical care. Nael Alfaqawi, 28, has kidney problems, but was denied entry to Israel so he could seek treatment abroad. Instead, he is now being treated at the Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza.

Mr. Alfaqawi said, "When I wanted to travel out of Gaza for treatment, the [Israeli] intelligence personnel asked me to collaborate with them, but I refused. They said, either you collaborate with us or you go back to Gaza. Of course, I refused to comply with them, saying I'm going to die sooner or later, so I returned home."

An estimated 70 percent of the Gaza Strip has experienced lengthy power outages for the last two weeks as Israel has cut off fuel supplies to Gaza's only power plant. Hospitals must rely on generators to keep life-saving equipment running.

"We are unable to ensure that we have needed spare parts to provide heating for patients," said Nihad Swaty, head of the European Gaza Hospital's maintenance department. "We also have our own sewage processing plant to provide water. The current lack of equipment will lead to the plant's total collapse and consequently to an environmental crisis at the hospital itself," he warned.

International agencies and officials, including UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon have condemned the closure as a violation of international humanitarian law and called on Israel to lift the blockade. But there is no sign of relief. Israel has even blocked foreign journalists, who are usually based in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem, from entering the Gaza Strip.

Dr. Abdellatif Alhaj, director of the European Gaza Hospital, said "We continually send our appeals to international organizations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, the World Health Organization and the United Nations. But unfortunately, it appears that the United Nations is facing a crisis itself, as it has started to warn that it will cut off services to residents. We are calling on the United Nations to help us, but it seems that this international organization is no longer able to bring in essential needs such as flour and rice."

Dr. Alhaj said that spare parts for the hospital's CT scanner -- one of only two such vital devices in the entire Gaza Strip -- had been held up by the Israelis for over five months.

Earlier this month John Ging, the Gaza director of UNRWA, the UN relief agency for Palestinian refugees, warned that "UNRWA is unable to deliver food in Gaza due to the strict Israeli blockade."

Israel says the borders will remain closed until Palestinian resistance militias stop firing rockets at nearby Israeli towns. A ceasefire negotiated between Israel and Hamas, the ruling party in Gaza, has generally held since last June. It was broken on 4 November, according to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, when Israeli occupation forces invaded the central Gaza Strip and then killed six Palestinians in air attacks. Palestinian resistance groups retaliated for the killings by firing rockets into Israel.

In June 2007, Israel imposed a crippling blockade on Gaza after Hamas took over the interior of the territory amid violent clashes with US-backed militias loyal to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Under the terms of the ceasefire, Israel was supposed to lift the Gaza blockade gradually, but it has never done so.

Rami Almeghari is contributor to The Electronic Intifada, IMEMC.org and Free Speech Radio News. Rami is also a former senior English translator at and editor-in-chief of the international press center of the Gaza-based Palestinian Information Service. He can be contacted at rami_almeghari A T hotmail D O T com.

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Blockaded Gaza gets some supplies
 
Aid was allowed in to Gaza once before but Israel later closed the crossings

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7745783.stm

Israel has temporarily re-opened some of its border crossings with the Gaza Strip to allow in essential supplies of food and fuel.

The latest aid includes diesel fuel for Gaza's only power plant, which may help reduce widespread blackouts.

It is only the second time in three weeks that Israel has permitted aid deliveries into the territory.

It tightened its blockade of the Hamas-controlled territory earlier this month after rocket attacks by militants.

The militants said their attacks, which caused minor damage but no serious injuries, were in retaliation for an Israeli army raid into Gaza.

UN officials say Gaza is facing a humanitarian catastrophe, and have urged Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to ease the blockade.

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Gaza power plant shuts down

12 hours ago

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hKzqnofJIHGEpUc48aFaevwq0X4A

GAZA CITY (AFP) — Gaza's sole power plant has shut down because Israel will not allow the importation of replacement parts needed for urgent repairs, an official in the impoverished Palestinian territory's energy authority said on Tuesday.

"Despite deliveries of fuel on Monday, the power plant stopped functioning because of breakdowns in the production units," said Kanaan Obeid, assistant director of the authority.

He said the frequent shutdowns of the plant, caused by fuel shortages, damaged parts of the production units that cannot be replaced because of the Israeli blockade of the territory.

Israel "refuses to allow in the necessary parts and the plant cannot restart without them," he said.

The power plant, which supplies about 25 percent of Gaza's energy, has been particularly hard hit by Israel's decision to tighten the blockade since a surge in violence on November 4, causing blackouts in Gaza City.

Israel supplies about 70 percent of Gaza's power and Egypt provides five percent.

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Gaza Blockade Approaches 4 Week Mark
MIFTAH

www.uruknet.info?p=49197

Link: www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=18278&CategoryId=10

Date posted: November 29, 2008

November 29 marked the 25th day of the Israeli imposed closure on the Gaza Strip. Throughout the week, Israeli allowed a few deliveries of food and fuel supplies into Gaza, but not enough to make a dent in the humanitarian crisis ravaging the area. On November 25, Gaza’s sole power plant was closed due to a breakdown of its electricity-generating units because of the all too frequent shutdowns. The plant has been forced to close down several times in the last 3 weeks as Israel refuses to allow regular shipments of industrial fuel. Currently, only certain sections of the plant are working, while the equipment and spare parts necessary to repair the damage have not been allowed through.

On November 26, in the first such action by an Arab government, a ship has set sail from Libya to Gaza in order to deliver 3,000 tons of humanitarian aid. If successful, it will be the fourth such vessel to reach Gaza in defiance of the Israeli military blockade of the coastal territory. On the same day, another Arab government, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), accused Israel of refusing to deliver donated aid to the blockaded Gaza Strip, calling the siege "the main cause behind the unprecedented deterioration in the humanitarian economic and social situation in Palestine." On November 25, the EU announced it was giving a 5 million Euro donation to help Palestinian refugee families in Gaza, but it is unclear whether that aid will reach them.

On November 27, 2 homemade rockets were fired into Israel, with no reported injuries. The next day, another seven were launched at Israeli targets, following the death of a Palestinian fighter who was killed during Israeli shelling in northeast Gaza. Several others Palestinians were injured in the shelling. On the evening of the 28th, Hamas fighters fired 3 mortar shells at an Israeli military base along-side the Gaza strip, injuring 8 Israeli soldiers.

Moving away from Gaza, Hebron was the scene of continued violence surrounding the settler-occupied 'House of Contention’. On November 26, roughly 40 Israeli teenage settlers rampaged through the West Bank city, slashing car tires and smashing windows. They were reportedly protesting the possible eviction of settlers from the house. The settlers also threw rocks at Palestinian homes and sprayed a Star of David on a wall. None of the settlers involved were arrested. That same day, settlers also attacked Palestinian ambulances in the village of Dier Esteyah near Nablus. The Red Crescent ambulances were sprayed with epithets such as ’Death to Arabs’.

Protests against settler attacks and land confiscation took place around the West Bank on November 28. In a protest in the village of Jayous, 2 Palestinians were injured with rubber-coated steel bullets while participating in a demonstration. Four Palestinians were also shot by Israeli forces at an anti-wall march in the village of Ni’lin. At the same time, Israeli soldiers fired teargas, rubber-coated bullets and sound bombs at a group of international activists and local residents in a demonstration in Bil’in, though there were no reported injuries.

Israel continued its usual activities of raiding homes and arresting Palestinians across the West Bank. In an early morning raid on November 24, Israeli forces seized three young Palestinian men from their house near Tulkarem. Another young man was seized in Bethlehem. The next day, another 4 Palestinians were detained at in the towns of Bethlehem, Hebron and Qalqilia.

On November 26, an Israeli raid on a house in the refugee camp of Kalandia turned terribly wrong when the 60 year old mother of Mohammed Udah died from a heart attack as her son was being arrested. Her son was still taken despite his mother’s death. In anger, Palestinian youths took to throwing rocks at Israeli troops. A Palestinian teenager was seriously injured in the ensuing clashes and remains in hospital. The next day, a further 23 Palestinians were seized, including 11 Palestinians from Nablus, 2 from Tulkarem and 10 from Ramallah.

On November 24, the Israeli military demolished a Palestinian house without warning in the neighborhood of Al-Ezariya in east Jerusalem. The family said it received no notification that the house, recently completed in 2007, was to be demolished. The building was the sixth Palestinian home to be razed in east Jerusalem in the last three weeks. On November 26, Israeli military forces issued four new demolition orders of homes in the West Bank village of Aqaba. There are now 45 homes in Aqaba that are on Israel’s demolition list.

On November 27, the Civil Coalition to Defend Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem (CCDPRJ) and Adalah, two Arab-Israeli civil rights organizations, announced plans to challenge the Israeli government's 'Regional Master Plan for Jerusalem’, on the grounds that it allows the expansion of illegal settlements while restricting Palestinian development. There are now some 200,000 Jewish settlers living in this area carved out of the center of the West Bank, and this plan has caused an increase in the number of Palestinian houses demolished and land confiscated.

An Israeli daily newspaper, Ha’aretz, published on November 26 details of operational briefings, uncovering information that the Israeli army has been assassinating wanted West Bank Palestinians in spite of the Israeli High Court of Justice's guidelines. High-level military officials approved assassinations in the West Bank, "even when it could have been possible to arrest the targets instead," according to the Ha'aretz report. Army officers also authorized the killings in advance, "… even if innocent bystanders would be killed as well,". This assassination policy runs contrary to what the military had been telling the High Court.

An Israeli human rights group called Yesh Din published a report that same day concluding that Israel was lenient on abusive soldiers. The report claimed that Israeli soldiers have been charged in just 6% of all inquiries into suspected offences against Palestinians between 2001 and 2007. Only 78 out of 1,246 army investigations since the start of the second Palestinian Intifada had actually led to charges. The report criticised what it called a "regular pattern" of failure to bring perpetrators to justice. The timing of the report was significant, as just the day before, Israeli human rights group B’Tselem released footage of an Israeli soldier head-butting a Palestinian woman as she demonstrated against home demolitions in the Jerusalem village of Silwan.

Moving to internal Palestinian politics, the PLO Central Council elected Mahmoud Abbas the president of Palestine at a meeting on November 23. Abbas’ election means that he will hold the symbolic title of president of the State of Palestine as declared in 1988. His election was called "illegal" and "unprecedented" by Hamas. In a reversal of position, President Abbas also announced on November 24 that he would call for parliamentary and presidential elections at the beginning of 2009 if unity talks Hamas fail.

Finally, November 29 was marked by the UN as an annual day of observance, the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. Events take place all around the world to show support for the Palestinian people. While delivering a statement to mark the day of solidarity, the director-general of the OPEC Fund for International Development announced a US $3 million grant to UN operations in Palestine.

Source: MIFTAH

[Pheonix Renewed]

Screw Isreal, those evil, malevolent bastards. This is the least of it, most of what's going on, people don't even get to hear about this way. People are being brutalized by Israeli soldiers, too.  And for what? Because Isreal is an evil hegemony, putting their greed above human lives.

There is so much of this going on in the world right now, and frankly, the US and Israeli governments are behind a LOT of it... most of it, if we're honest.

We need to stop our government, and we need to stop them from supporting Isreal. These actions are atrocious. Apparently Isreal learned nothing from the holocaust but how to repeat it and do it to others. 

[donnay]

Screw Isreal, those evil, malevolent bastards. This is the least of it, most of what's going on, people don't even get to hear about this way. People are being brutalized by Israeli soldiers, too.  And for what? Because Isreal is an evil hegemony, putting their greed above human lives.

There is so much of this going on in the world right now, and frankly, the US and Israeli governments are behind a LOT of it... most of it, if we're honest.

We need to stop our government, and we need to stop them from supporting Isreal. These actions are atrocious. Apparently Isreal learned nothing from the holocaust but how to repeat it and do it to others. 

It has been the Zionist intentions all along--the only way to stop them is to expose them for whom they really are.

[Pheonix Renewed]

It has been the Zionist intentions all along--the only way to stop them is to expose them for whom they really are.

I was being somewhat rhetorical. I wish I knew what to do, beyond exposing them. Exposing them just doesn't seem like it's doing enough, fast enough.

I know it's what we have for now, it's just... well. You know, I'm sure. I suspect everyone here knows that feeling well. 

[donnay]

I was being somewhat rhetorical. I wish I knew what to do, beyond exposing them. Exposing them just doesn't seem like it's doing enough, fast enough.

I know it's what we have for now, it's just... well. You know, I'm sure. I suspect everyone here knows that feeling well. 

I know.  I just think exposure is critical now.

The Zionist have done an excellent job in ostracizing people who speak out against them as being Anti-Semites but when I am talking to people and I expose the Zionists agenda and someone interrupts me to call me an Anti-Semite then, I simply tell them that Arabs are Semites too and the Israeli's hate them, which in turn, makes them Anti-Semites.  It usually shuts them up long enough for me to walk them through the Zionist agenda better.

[Biggs]

How Gaza Offends Us All
Huda Jawad

www.uruknet.info?p=49462

Link: islamicinsights.com/news/international-news/how-gaza-offends-us-all.html

December 9, 2008


Faria al-Bobali's 10-month-old daughter is suffering from malnutrition due to an Israeli blockade on Gaza. Her mother depends on UNRWA, the United Nations relief agency that distributes food to at least half of Gaza's 1.5 million residents. But UNRWA says it will soon run out of supplies. The impending closure of the UN Center only adds to the seemingly endless misery of the Palestinian people. Nine out of ten Gazans are living below the poverty line and fail to feed their families, and many children were already going hungry.

The United Nations, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch have all condemned Israel's blockade as "cruel". Former US president Jimmy Carter has made no apology for vividly describing the situation in Gaza as "a heinous atrocity" amounting to nothing short of a war crime. The question that must be asked is: what government in the 21st century can deny another group of people their basic human rights, that is, the right to security, food, water, shelter and dignity? Additionally, how does this government commit such a grave crime against humanity and somehow manage to remain complete unscathed?

The agonizing slow death order placed on the Palestinian people is finding its first victims in more than 400 seriously ill patients being prevented from leaving Gaza to receive urgent medical attention in Israeli or Arab hospitals. We are witnessing the type of ghetto the world thought we would never see again. The comparison was presented earlier this year by none other than Israel's deputy defense minister Matan Vilnai, when he threatened "a bigger holocaust (shoah)" against the Palestinians in Gaza. He would later "explain" his usage of the word as meaning "disaster". In any case, the threat was ominous enough.

For all its complexities and horrifying results, the purpose of Israel's blockade is to push the entire Palestinian population into survival mode. Individuals are preoccupied with the daily detail of survival and its exhaustions. The most recent Red Cross report on the situation called the repercussions of the siege "devastating". Hospitals in Gaza are barely functioning, and the fuel being shipped in is barely enough to operate the Gaza power plant for one day. The notion to "drip-feed" aid to the Palestinians was first conjured up in 2006 by an advisor to the Israeli Prime Minister. Dov Weisglas said in February 2006, "The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not make them die of hunger.

The Israelis have refused to heed the international call to stop their defiance of human rights. Then again, why should they? The same world superpowers who have issued flaky statements asking Israel to lift its siege continue to provide the financial and military backing for the war on the Palestinian children. What so-called "international investigation" will we see this time for the murder of civilians via starvation? Same as the one after Dan Halutz dropped his 2,000-pound bomb on an apartment building in Gaza, killing 15 people, nine of them women and children? Or similar to that after the siege of Jabalya in the fall of 2004? Maybe like the half-baked inquiry after Huda Ghalia's family was blasted into nothingness during an outing on a Gaza beach? This time it doesn't look like if there will even be an investigation, not that any of the previous investigations helped. They merely gave Israel a pat on the shoulder for committing genocide.

As recently as last week, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund warned that Gaza's severe cash shortage may cause local banks to collapse. Israel has said cash money does not fall into the category of "urgent aid", and as such it is not necessarily. Expect the already weakened Palestinian economy to completely disintegrate, with little outcry from the world.

Audaciously enough, the international community appears to be rewarding the Israeli genocide. In November 2008, Shimon Peres was honored with a knighthood from the Queen of England. He is also likely to be "honored" with a lecture series named after him at Oxford University. These "honors" are slightly outrageous for a man who helped to forcibly expel 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland in 1948.

Gaza is a modern-day attack on human rights, and some would go as far as labeling it as ethnic cleanings. However, it's clear that the suffering of Faria al-Bobali and her infant daughter is an ode to the cowardly passiveness of the world towards Gaza.

[Biggs]

"I was afraid they would destroy our trees"
Eva Bartlett writing from the occupied Gaza Strip, Live from Palestine

http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m49545&hd=&size=1&l=e



Palestinians inspect what remains of their olive trees after they were destroyed in an Israeli military operation into the Gaza Strip, September 2007. (Wissam Nassar/MaanImages)


December 12, 2008

Leila pointed towards a lone tree and small house on a ridge above what appeared to be a vacant lot. "This was a great field," she said, "filled with lime, guava and orange trees. They destroyed them, killed the trees," she explained, referring to Israeli invasions over the years. "A few days after he learned his trees had been destroyed, the man who owned and tended to the trees passed away."

She began to speak of Israel's last large-scale invasion, at the end of February and into the first week of March, which Israel dubbed "Hot Winter." During the invasion Israeli forces killed at least 120 Palestinians, and wounded hundreds more. This was the invasion during which Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai threatened Palestinians in Gaza with a "holocaust" in response to the firing of homemade rockets from the Strip towards Israel.

Leila's family home in Jabaliya, in the northern Gaza Strip, lay in the thick of the slaughter. Israeli soldiers took over her home, using the top floor room overlooking a main street as a sniper position, from which to target people outside. The family was kept locked in one room, at gunpoint, for three days, as is often the army policy when invading Palestinian areas. "We weren't allowed to cook, to heat milk for my baby, to wash for our prayers. The soldiers said we could only go to the bathroom alone, but I refused this. I'm a woman, I don't want to be alone with soldiers," she explained. As it was, Leila said that the women complained of soldiers not allowing them to close the door when using the toilet.

Israeli soldiers took humiliating trophy photos of one of her brothers, Ahmad, as US soldiers so infamously did of their Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib. "He was blindfolded and handcuffed, with his arms behind his back and his legs bound, stripped down to his underwear. The soldiers took turns posing with him. One put a plastic pot of flowers on his head. Another pretended to strangle him. They all wanted to take a turn."

Leila mentioned how they were cut off from the outside world, had no idea what was happening even on the street out front, where or how their extended family members were, how bad the invasion was, or how long it would last. Amazingly, when she speaks of hearing one of Israel's massive armored bulldozers -- the kind designed to destroy buildings -- thunder past, her greatest worry was not her house. "I was afraid they would destroy our trees," she said, referring to the lemon, orange, guava, olive, plum and date trees.

She described the noise and power of the bulldozers. "Sometimes, when we could watch the bulldozers move along the street, we would see houses shaking and swaying, moving with the vibration of the machines."

Standing on the balcony overlooking the razed field, Leila returned to the invasion.

"We had been preparing breakfast. An Israeli drone was flying overhead, as were helicopters. There were many, many tanks in the field behind our house. Across that lot [pointing towards the lone tree], there were two high school-aged boys walking towards that tree. We were here on the balcony by this point, shouting, shouting at the boys, because of the drone and helicopters above us, firing missiles in the area. Suddenly, one hit the youths, and we saw arms and legs explode into the air. It was terrible, terrible. Some youths in the area began trying to recover the body parts which were strewn all over. It took a long time to pick up all of the pieces."

Like most in Gaza, Leila knows too well about the deadly drones that occupy Gaza's airspace. "When drones fire missiles, you cannot run away. They are very accurate. First they take a photo, then they pinpoint their target, then they fire. All this happens very quickly. When helicopters bomb, at least you can see the helicopters and anticipate where they will fire, run maybe 10 or 15 meters away, maybe escape."

Her family has witnessed much violence, particularly during that week of carnage.

"In another incident, an ambulance was approaching that same area there with the tree," she explained, again gesturing away from her home. "The ambulance was headed past the tree, trying to get to where injured people needed care. Even though the ambulance was clearly and visibly a medical vehicle, the Israelis shelled it. Then a man nearby came running to aid the driver and he too was hit by missile shelling."

Palestinians in Gaza have not become numb to the constant carnage; instead, each killing compounds existing trauma. "My younger brother, Saed, was walking not very far from the area over there [pointing again to the lone tree] when he saw a group of youths, teenagers, struck and killed by a missile. Although this is our life, he went into shock. He couldn't concentrate, couldn't study."

And still a lone tree stands where the earth is tarnished with blood.

Pseudonyms were used in this essay to protect the safety of the concerned family.

Eva Bartlett is a Canadian human rights advocate and freelancer who spent eight months in 2007 living in West Bank communities and four months in Cairo and at the Rafah crossing. She is currently based in Gaza, after the third successful voyage of the Free Gaza Movement to break the siege on Gaza.

[Biggs]

Catastrophe for Gaza
Eyad El-Sarraj

www.uruknet.info?p=49583

Link: www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-sarraj14-2008dec14,0,3032033.story

An Israeli blockade curtails food, fuel, medicine and travel.

December 14, 2008

Reporting from Gaza -- From my home in the Gaza Strip, I followed the American election season with interest. Many times I heard the personal stories of Americans without access to healthcare and the toll illness has taken on their lives. I can relate. For months, I waited in Gaza, unable to leave (despite the fact that I carry a British passport) and increasingly desperate to secure a medical appointment about 45 minutes away in Israel.

The advanced medical treatment I need is not available here. But although it is readily available just up the coast in nearby Tel Aviv, I was not allowed to visit my doctor there without permission from the Israelis, who still control our borders and, as the occupying power, remain responsible for the welfare of our civilian population.

In the end, I waited three months for a medical permit to travel to treat my multiple myeloma. My requests were denied repeatedly until an Israeli friend who teaches at Tel Aviv University intervened and helped me secure a one-day permit. That there are still Israelis willing to promote the rights of Palestinians provides me with what little hope I have these days. The majority of Palestinians want only to live with peace and equality, accepting Israelis as our neighbors but not as our superiors or as our jailers.

The situation in Gaza got worse early last month when Israel tightened its blockade of Gaza. Our food, fuel and medical supplies have been severely limited. The blockade has ruined our economy and reduced many among us to a level of economic desperation that has alarmed United Nations officials.

According to Karen Koning Abu Zayd, the commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, the human toll of this siege is terribly grave. Gaza has "been closed for so much longer than ever before ... and we have nothing in our warehouses. ... It will be a catastrophe if this persists, a disaster," she said. And U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon recently called for the immediate easing of the closure because of "deprivations of basic supplies and human dignity."

The secretary-general rightfully condemned Palestinian rocket fire at civilian targets in Israel. Such rockets are morally wrong and strategically inept. Yet the blockade that Israel has clamped on 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza is a collective punishment that harms men, women and children who have no power to control those firing the rockets. Rather than turn Gazans against Hamas, the blockade's effect has been a humanitarian catastrophe that alienates Gazans young and old from both Israel and the West. Even I, a practicing psychiatrist for decades and a longtime advocate of coexistence between Palestinians and Israelis, am having trouble coping with the hardships to which we are subjected.

Travel is crucial to me, not just for medical reasons but for reasons of basic sanity. I long to see dear friends, to see the world again, to breathe fresh air and, most of all, to reassure my senses that there are normal things and normal people outside Gaza's debilitating confines. The last time I left Gaza, before this most recent medical trip, was several months ago, and the time I spent with friends in Ramallah and Jerusalem was rejuvenating. This time, however, I was only granted permission to leave for a day.

At the Erez checkpoint, where I left Gaza along with four other medical patients, Israeli soldiers spoke through loudspeakers and looked down at us through cameras. "Open your bag," one shouted. When the woman in front of me asked a question, the soldier ordered her to take everything out of her suitcase. She was humiliated as she had to hold even her underwear up to the camera. I was made to walk through the X-ray machine three times, even though I told the soldiers it was dangerous because of my medical condition. The soldiers seemed intent not only to determine that we were not bombers but to shame us. What good can come of exercising such domineering power over medical patients?

When one of the soldiers approached us, he was grinning and carrying a huge machine gun across his massive body. I thought that he must feel the power of his muscles and his gun as well as my weakness, with my frail body and my obedience to his orders. But the psychiatrist in me could not escape the question, "Who is frightened?" -- because I was not. I was angry, but not afraid.

On my way back to Gaza, I decided to buy some little plants with flowers to bring home. A soldier shouted at me: "Flowers are not allowed."

The best hope at the moment for the region is that Barack Obama and American politicians will veer away from knee-jerk support for Israel's actions against Palestinians in favor of evenhanded policies that recognize that Palestinians have a right to freedom, to travel, to healthcare and even to simple daily pleasures like freely carrying flowers home.

Eyad El-Sarraj is the founder and president of the Gaza Community Mental Health Program and a commissioner of the Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights.

[Pheonix Renewed]

Every time that I see posters here claim that "the US is saved only because we support Isreal," I remember these stories and I am sickened. How anyone can support this monstrous government is beyond me.

[Biggs]

yes it is a truly sad feature of today's world that suffering of whole people's is so overlooked

[Biggs]

Gaza Strip in total darkness, limited aid allowed in

12/15/2008 11:14:00 AM
 
http://www.kuna.net.kw/NewsAgenciesPublicSite/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=1960019&Language=en

GAZA, Dec 15 (KUNA) -- The majority of areas in Gaza Strip spent Sunday night in total darkness after Israel stopped supplying it with fuel, forcing Gaza's only power plant to close down.
Member of the Palestinian Legislative Council and head of the Popular Committee to Counter the Siege Jamal Al-Khodari said that the power plant closed completely Sunday evening after industrial fuel needed to operate it ran out.
In a press release Al-Khodari said that the very little quantity of fuel Israel had allowed into Gaza Strip through Nahal Oz Crossing ran out two days ago.
Gaza is back to total darkness, suffering the shortage of money, fuel, water, and all else needed for a dignified life due to the unjust Israeli siege, he added.
He demanded the Arabs and Muslims support the Palestinian people in Gaza and to hold demonstrations and events for that purpose.
Meanwhile, Palestinian coordinator for entry of goods to Gaza Strip Raed Fattouh told KUNA that Israel promised to open two of Gaza's crossings on Monday and to consider opening Nahal Oz Crossing to allow in some fuel.
He said 50 trucks with humanitarian aid, medicine, and food will be allowed to enter the strip through Kerem Shalom Crossing, east Gaza.
A total of 26 of the trucks will be delivering aid from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and other international humanitarian organizations, while three trucks will deliver medicine, he noted.
Other trucks will bring in wheat and animal feed through Karni Crossing, he also added.(end) zt.ris KUNA 151114 Dec 08NNNN

[Biggs]

Israel: Starving Gaza for Christmas
Syd Walker

www.uruknet.info?p=49662

Link: www.sydwalker.info/blog/2008/12/17/israel-starving-gaza-for-christmas/


Dec 18, 2008



A hungry child in Gaza

You know it’s getting bad in Gaza when Mr Murdoch’s London Times announces Gaza families eat grass as Israel locks border.

The Times is one of News Corps many media assets around the world whose constant pro-Israeli bias helped create the context for the tragedy now unfolding in Palestine.

Today we learn the cruelty is working well. There’s mass starvation on Europe’s edge, deliberately induced by the occupying power. Marie Colvin reports:

As a convoy of blue-and-white United Nations trucks loaded with food waited last night for Israeli permission to enter Gaza, Jindiya Abu Amra and her 12-year-old daughter went scrounging for the wild grass their family now lives on.

"We had one meal today - khobbeizeh," said Abu Amra, 43, showing the leaves of a plant that grows along the streets of Gaza. "Every day, I wake up and start looking for wood and plastic to burn for fuel and I beg. When I find nothing, we eat this grass…"

Israel controls the borders and allows in humanitarian supplies only sporadically. Families had electricity for six hours a day last week. Cooking gas was available only through the illegal tunnels that run into Egypt, and by last week had jumped in price from 80 shekels per canister (£14) to 380 shekels (£66).

The UN, which has responsibility for 1m refugees in Gaza, is in despair. "The economy has been crushed and there are no imports or exports," said John Ging, director of its relief and works agency. "Two weeks ago, for the first time in 60 years, we ran out of food," he said. "We used to get 70 to 80 trucks per day, now we are getting 15 trucks a day, and only when the border opens. We’re living hand to mouth."

He has four days of food in stock for distribution to the most desperate - and no idea whether Israel will reopen the border. The Abu Amra family may have to eat wild grass for the foreseeable future.

Writing in TruthDig, Chris Hedges reports on Israel’s 'Crime Against Humanity in Gaza.

Gaza now spends 12 hours a day without power, which can be a death sentence to the severely ill in hospitals. There are few drugs and little medicine, including no cancer or cystic fibrosis medication.

Hospitals have generators but often lack fuel. Medical equipment, including one of Gaza’s three CT scanners, has been destroyed by power surges and fluctuations. Medical staff cannot control the temperature of incubators for newborns. And Israel has revoked most exit visas, meaning some of those who need specialized care, including cancer patients and those in need of kidney dialysis, have died.



Palestinian Courage & Suffering

"It is macabre," (UN special rapporteur Richard) Falk said. "I don’t know of anything that exactly fits this situation. People have been referring to the Warsaw ghetto as the nearest analog in modern times.

""There is no structure of an occupation that endured for decades and involved this kind of oppressive circumstances," the rapporteur added.

"The magnitude, the deliberateness, the violations of international humanitarian law, the impact on the health, lives and survival and the overall conditions warrant the characterization of a crime against humanity. This occupation is the direct intention by the Israeli military and civilian authorities. They are responsible and should be held accountable."


Another Sad Christmas for Palestine

The point of this Israeli siege, ostensibly, is to break Hamas, the radical Islamic group that was elected to power in 2007. But Hamas has repeatedly proposed long-term truces with Israel and offered to negotiate a permanent truce. During the last cease-fire, established through Egyptian intermediaries in July, Hamas upheld the truce although Israel refused to ease the blockade.It was Israel that, on Nov. 4, initiated an armed attack that violated the truce and killed six Palestinians. It was only then that Hamas resumed firing rockets at Israel. Palestinians have launched more than 200 rockets on Israel since the latest round of violence began. There have been no Israeli casualties.


It appears these remarks - and others in similar vein - by the Jewish American Professor Falk were too much for the Israelis to bear.


To say such things about the Jewish Apartheid State in Palestine is most certainly 'Hate Speech’ - whether or not one happens to be the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories representing humanity as a whole.

It’s the kind of speech they hate.

In a move that epitomizes just how low the Zionist State has sunk, it expelled Falk as he entered Israel in transit to occupied Ramallah, dispatching him on a plane back to the USA.

Have the rulers of apartheid Israel gone completely bonkers? It seems possible. Which planet do they think they’re on?

Of course, it’s one thing to complain about this from the relative immunity of another continent. It’s another to live in the same neighbourdood as this violent rogue State. The Palestinians deserve admiration and respect for their dogged resistance.

Mel Frykberg points out the Gaza truce is set to expire. He  considers a few possible scenarios, all of them rather depressing. The occupiers are having some success in separating Gazans from West Bank Palestinians, not only by enforcing geographical isolation but by working to widen the political gulf.

There’s clearly a debate within Israel about just how much to torture the Palestinians.

Israeli PR boasts it’s the "only democracy in the middle east".

The truth is, Israeli democracy is an oxymoron.

The world didn’t consider apartheid South Africa 'democratic’ in any meansingful sense. Apartheid Israel is no different.

[Biggs]

A Short Path, from Gaza to Somalia

By Daniel Levy

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21498.htm

December 20, 2008 "Haaretz" -- -As the defined period for the Gaza cease-fire comes to an end today, preceded by a new cycle of violence, Israelis are being treated to a predictable dose of political posturing and chest-thumping. "We must do something, exact a price," we hear. Yes, the rocket fire needs to stop, but there is no military answer to this predicament.

To recap: For most of the six months of the cease-fire, relative quiet prevailed, and life returned to near-normal for the residents of Sderot and environs (though not for Gazans, who remained under siege). Then on November 4, an Israeli operation sparked a new round of dangerous, if controlled, violence - characterized by occasional Israeli strikes and incursions, matched by Palestinian rockets and shooting across the border.

The cease-fire, while far from ideal, was an improvement over what had preceded it. Of course, Hamas sought to upgrade its military and defensive capacities during this period, as Israel should have been doing on the other side of the border - it would have been absurd to expect otherwise. Hopefully, cooler heads will prevail and the cease-fire will be extended - it is in the interests of both sides. The military alternative is not an attractive one - from Israel's side, escalation leading to partial or full reoccupation of Gaza, from Hamas, rockets and perhaps armed attacks from the West Bank in response. It also has no obvious exit strategy.
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But the debate in Israel about continuing the cease-fire largely misses the point. Whether or not it's extended, Israel's overall approach toward Gaza is dangerously mistaken. A siege designed to depose Hamas rule (a problematic goal in itself, but that's another story) risks triggering a social collapse that would have devastating consequences for all concerned. Anyone in search of a cautionary tale, and a peek at a possible future scenario for Gaza, should look at Somalia - which has the dubious distinction of having reintroduced piracy to the daily news lexicon, and from which Ethiopian troops are now planning to withdraw following an ugly two-year occupation.

Somalia has gone through 17 years of impoverishment, chaos, destruction and warlords, featuring 13 transitional governments - and is somehow still getting worse. In June 2006, having overrun most of the country, a coalition known as the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), together with businessmen and clan leaders, ousted the various warlords and the woefully ineffectual Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG) from the capital Mogadishu. The following months of ICU rule, despite the often unpopular imposition of strict Islamic law, according to The New York Times, "turned out to be one of the most peaceful periods in modern Somali history."

But that December, the Ethiopian military, with American support and at the invitation of the discredited TFG, invaded Somalia and has been there ever since. Though the initial military victory was a rout, the illegitimacy and brutality of the Ethiopian presence soon led to the inevitable - a bloody insurgency.

The insurgents, now divided and including the ICU and other armed factions, are winning. The Ethiopian military and a small African Union force are readying their withdrawal, and the TFG is bitterly divided. The future looks bleak.

What, if anything, might Israel learn from all this?

The humanitarian crisis in Gaza is beginning to approximate that of Somalia, where 77 percent of the population requires emergency humanitarian support, and the rate of malnutrition is the world's highest. Food insecurity in Gaza currently runs at 56 percent and is deteriorating rapidly, 42 percent of the Strip's population is unemployed and 76 percent is receiving humanitarian assistance (all UN figures). Harsh closures have effectively led to Gaza becoming deindustrialized, and Israeli reluctance even to replenish tattered banknotes is demonetizing the economy. There is a slippery slope from an entrenched humanitarian crisis into bloody anarchy and ungovernable chaos - especially when arms are ubiquitous and there is an open wound of unresolved national grievance.

One thing that can prevent a descent into the abyss is the existence of recognized and accepted political leadership. At the very least, Hamas today is an address for possible deals and decision-making, but Israel's assassinations and imprisonment of its leaders take their toll. An Israeli military escalation would likely accelerate the splintering of Hamas' leadership and the emergence of more radical alternatives; that was the effect of Ethiopia's intervention in its backyard. Both Somalia and Palestine are in need of broad and inclusive power-sharing arrangements, brokered internationally and insulated from neighborhood vetoes.

If Israel were again to find itself stuck in Gaza, don't expect international forces to come riding to the rescue. Ethiopia's military hoped to be replaced by an internationally sanctioned African Union force, but the troops couldn't be summoned. Handing over a Gaza that's been re-invaded by Israel to Arab and international forces is equally unrealistic.

Finally, there is the destabilizing regional effect of failed states. In Somalia's case, it was Eritrea and Djibouti that bore the brunt of the impact, in addition to Ethiopia, and of course the infamous piracy in the oil-shipping lanes of the Gulf of Aden. Alongside Israel, Egypt is most immediately affected by turmoil in Gaza - with potentially severe consequences for regime stability and legitimacy, and for security in the Sinai and beyond.

Gaza is not yet Somalia. But the warning signs are there. There was nothing inevitable about the disintegration of Somalia. It happened as a result of misguided policies - notably of the current Bush administration and Ethiopia - which should not be repeated by Israel in Gaza.

Israel must do more than extend a cease-fire - Israel must allow Gaza to breathe, to reconnect to the world, to live on more than international handouts, and to reclaim its dignity. Could Hamas benefit in the short term? Perhaps. But worse things can happen - and not just to the Palestinians. For Israel, too, much is at stake. It's no fun to live in a Somalia, and no picnic either being its next-door neighbor.

Daniel Levy, a senior fellow at the New America and Century Foundations, was previously an adviser in the Israeli Prime Minister's Office, and the lead Israeli drafter of the Geneva Initiative.

[Biggs]

Remove The Blinkers and See the Truth

For two years on Cif, I've detailed the miscarriages of justice I've witnessed. But many are still convinced Israel can do no wrong

By Seth Freedman

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21510.htm

December 22, 2008 "The Guardian" -- -

I find people over here who keep harping on about 'human rights' violations by Israel conveniently forget or ignore that if Seth were to live in any, yes, ANY Arab or Iranian country in the neighbourhood, he would have been jailed, abused and then deported, if not accused of being a 'zionist' spy and then condemned to capital punishment.

Two years after penning my first piece for Cif, there is still no getting away from the kind of criticism seen in the comment above. No matter that the thrust of georgeindia's rant had nothing to do with the subject of my article, anyone perusing the thread is encouraged to believe that the fact that the Israeli regime has not beheaded me for my dissent is ample proof that all is well in our little corner of the Middle East. Which, of course, it isn't, despite the best efforts of Israel's squadron of cheerleaders to convince the world otherwise.

Although I am a relative newcomer to Israel's Mediterranean shores, the amount of exposure I have had during my four-year sojourn in the Holy Land to the daily humiliation and oppression being meted out to the Palestinians is more than most armchair critics will see in a lifetime. I should know – I was one of them myself for my first 24 years on the planet, and am all too aware how easy it is to be duped by second- or third-hand reporting from the front lines, whether through the media or via friends and family giving their skewed take from inside Israel's borders.

If you believe the official hype, it's a dolce vita in the Occupied Territories, one for which all right-minded Palestinians should be eternally grateful to their benevolent Israeli masters. If you believe the official hype, Palestinians have never had it so good, thanks to the milk of Israeli kindness which flows in rivulets alongside the honey in the Eretz Halav u'Dvash. And, if you believe the official hype, if only the Palestinians would finally give up their struggle for basic human rights, they too could eat from the tree of life in Israel's very own Garden of Eden.

Those are the lines so eagerly swallowed by the blinkered masses for whom Israel can do no wrong, for whom the mere existence of a Jewish state trumps all other, harsher truths, and which deafen them to the cries of those trampled beneath the wheels of the Zionist bandwagon. "We're here to stay," they cry triumphantly, as though the conflict really is as binary as that: 1 = Jews exert unilateral control over every last inch of Biblical Israel; 0 = Jews are instead driven into the sea by the monster that continually lurks under Israel's bed.

The reason behind the creation of the state in 1948 is the very reason the state (in its current form) is doomed to fail. Giving a severely traumatised people a land on which to go through the throes of rebirth and recovery, with no therapeutic or palliative care alongside, meant the experiment was always going to turn out for the worst. Those given the keys to the new state would always see, and fear, the worst in those around them. They were left to come to terms with their pain and fear in the midst of another battleground.

Thanks to the cyclical nature of the tit-for-tat conflict, for every punitive measure taken by the IDF in the name of Israel's so-called search for peace, reprisal attacks by Palestinians and their agents endanger thousands of Jewish lives in return, prompting ever-stronger countermeasures by the Israelis. And so it goes on. Until the fear-fuelled monkey can be got off Israel's collective back, it doesn't matter how much evidence is put in front of them about the state's crimes, since they will always turn a blind eye in favour of believing that there is no other way ensure their security.

The Palestinians are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Rise up and try to smash the chains that bind them, and what was previously a tonne of bricks will be multiplied by 10 in terms of the Israeli response. Lie back and do nothing and the authorities will walk all over them, since there is no reason for the Israelis to apply the brakes themselves.

For two years I have detailed the abuses and miscarriages of justice I witness on every foray I make into the West Bank, and for two years I've been buried under an avalanche of hate in response. It was, is, and will continue to be water off a duck's back, regardless of the outraged responses on the threads, since I'm convinced that the only way to effect change is for the truth to be brought to light. And if I can play a small part in helping that to occur, then nothing and no one is strong enough to act as a deterrent.

[Biggs]

Bakeries of Gaza out of Bread, People are hungry
Sameh Habeeb


www.uruknet.info?p=49892

Link: picasaweb.google.com/sameh.habeeb/BakeriesOfGazaOutOfBreadPeopleAreHungry

December 24, 2008

Before the deadly crisis of bread which started 2 days ago; this bakery was preparing 30 bags of flour. But with today it makes around 100 each bag weights 60 Kilograms. Abed refers to this rise of bread-making quantity to the unrecorded request of population for bread which came after Israel ban flour into Gaza and closed borders. "Our bakery is out of bread since days and what we have is only for another 24 hours. In fact, we have stopped our work yesterday as we ran out of flour. Now, we use grain (fodder) used for animals which will finish in hours." Bakery labor said.

The number of Gaza bakeries is 47 but now the working ones are 14 only. Normally, Gaza needs 450 tons of flour; 100 goes for bakeries and 300 for house use. Part of the house share flour is being provided by UNRWA which halted its work lately. The remaining flour and wheat quantities would be covering the needs of people except for few days.

Hunger in Photos...Open the link below:
http://picasaweb.google.com/sameh.habeeb/BakeriesOfGazaOutOf
BreadPeopleAreHungry#

Sameh A. Habeeb, B.A.
Photojournalist & Peace Activist
Humanitarian, Child Relief Worker
Gaza Strip, Palestine

[master S]

great job keeping us updated Biggs.  the constant indifference shown to the suffering Palestinians is unreal. my father is from  Palestine,yet i ignore the brutality only to survive the guilt of having it 'good.'

[Nailer]

I want to see the Israel military get crushed and rubbed out like a cockroach.

[Triadtropz]

I want to see the Israel military get crushed and rubbed out like a cockroach.

you might get your wish one day...

[Biggs]

great job keeping us updated Biggs.  the constant indifference shown to the suffering Palestinians is unreal. my father is from  Palestine,yet i ignore the brutality only to survive the guilt of having it 'good.'

my pleasure, it is an often overlooked issue in both wider society and the truth movement

[El Scampio]

I have just watched about this story on BBC News 24.

I ended up sitting here shaking with anger.

It was unreal how biased and unreal there reporting was. It would of made FOX news look bad.

The presenter had guest after guest on condemning Hamas and its actions but not a word regarding Israel sanctions. The idiotic presenter even suggested to an Israeli aide to the PM that they should attack Iran.

 

[larsonstdoc]

  How barbaric!  Rat bastards!  We must really pay attention to what is happening with the food, supplies etc. because it could be our city in a year or two.  The NWO will offer you food for your guns.  These Gazans are battle tested but we Americans are wimps.  If this were a US city, half of the people would have walked out for the promise of a package of Twinkies and a Coke.  STORE A LITTLE FOOD IF YOU CAN.