Tag: Gaza

The Observer: Israeli blockade ‘forces Palestinians to search rubbish dumps for food’

UN fears irreversible damage is being done in Gaza as new statistics reveal the level of deprivation

By Peter Beaumont

To view original article, published by The Observer on the 21st December, click here

Impoverished Palestinians on the Gaza Strip are being forced to scavenge for food on rubbish dumps to survive as Israel’s economic blockade risks causing irreversible damage, according to international observers.

Figures released last week by the UN Relief and Works Agency reveal that the economic blockade imposed by Israel on Gaza in July last year has had a devastating impact on the local population. Large numbers of Palestinians are unable to afford the high prices of food being smuggled through the Hamas-controlled tunnels to the Strip from Egypt and last week were confronted with the suspension of UN food and cash distribution as a result of the siege.

The figures collected by the UN agency show that 51.8% – an “unprecedentedly high” number of Gaza’s 1.5 million population – are now living below the poverty line. The agency announced last week that it had been forced to stop distributing food rations to the 750,000 people in need and had also suspended cash distributions to 94,000 of the most disadvantaged who were unable to afford the high prices being asked for smuggled food.

“Things have been getting worse and worse,” said Chris Gunness of the agency yesterday. “It is the first time we have been seeing people picking through the rubbish like this looking for things to eat. Things are particularly bad in Gaza City where the population is most dense.

“Because Gaza is now operating as a ‘tunnel economy’ and there is so little coming through via Israeli crossings, it is hitting the most disadvantaged worst.”

Gunness also expressed concern about the state of Gaza’s infrastructure, including its water and sewerage systems, which have not been maintained properly since Israel began blocking shipments of concrete into Gaza, warning of the risk of the spread of communicable diseases both inside and outside of Gaza.

“This is not a humanitarian crisis,” he said. “This is a political crisis of choice with dire humanitarian consequences.”

The revelations over the escalating difficulties inside Gaza were delivered a day after the end of the six-month ceasefire between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers, which had been brokered by Egypt in June, and follow warnings from the World Bank at the beginning of December that Gaza faced “irreversible” economic collapse.

The deteriorating conditions inside Gaza emerged as Tony Blair, Middle East envoy for the Quartet – US, Russia, the UN and the EU – warned explicitly yesterday that Israel’s policy of economic blockade, which had been imposed a year and a half ago when Hamas took power on the Gaza Strip, was reinforcing rather than undermining the party’s hold on power. In an interview in the Israeli newspaper Haartez, Blair warned that the collapse of Gaza’s legitimate economy under the impact of the blockade, while harming Gaza’s businessmen and ordinary people, had allowed the emergence of an alternative system based on smuggling through the Hamas-controlled tunnels. Hamas “taxed” the goods smuggled through the tunnels.

It was because of this that Blair wrote to Israel’s prime minister, Ehud Olmert, earlier this month demanding that Israel permit the transfer of cash into Gaza from the West Bank to prop up the legitimate economy.

“The present situation is not harming Hamas in Gaza but it is harming the people,” Blair said yesterday. Calling for a change in policy over Gaza, he added: “I don’t think that the current situation is sustainable; I think most people who would analyse it think the same.”

Blair’s comments came as an Israeli air strike against a rocket squad killed a Palestinian militant yesterday, the first Gaza death since Hamas formally declared an end to a six-month truce with Israel.

Also yesterday, a boat carrying a Qatari delegation, Lebanese activists and journalists from Israel and Lebanon sailed into Gaza City’s small port in defiance of a border blockade. It was the fifth such boat trip since the summer. The two Qatari citizens aboard the Dignity are from the government-funded Qatar Authority for Charitable Activities.

“We are here to represent the Qatar government and people,” said delegation member Aed al-Kahtani. “We will look into the needs of our brothers in Gaza, and find out what is the most appropriate way to bring in aid.”

The arrival of the delegation reflects the growing anger in the Arab world over the Gaza siege, directed at Israel but also at Egypt, which has allowed the border crossings at the southern end of the Strip to remain sealed.

On Friday, thousands of people joined a rally in Beirut organised by Lebanon’s Shia Hezbollah movement against Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Addressing the Beirut crowd, Hezbollah deputy leader Sheikh Naim Kassem called on Arab and Islamic governments to act to help lift the Gaza blockade, and urged Egypt to take an “historic stance” by opening its border crossing with Gaza.

“Silence on the [Gaza] blockade is disgraceful. Silence on the blockade amounts to participation in the [Israeli] occupation,” Kassem said.

Free Gaza Movement: Dignity pulls into Gaza Port despite Israeli threats

Vittorio Arrigoni, one of the ISM volunteers kidnapped from Palestinian waters by the Israeli navy has returned to Gaza on-board the ‘Dignity’.

Vittorio was deported by Israel, after engaging in a hunger-strike for the return of the Palestinian fishing trawlers stolen by the Israeli navy, despite never having been inside Israeli territory. He now returns to Gaza to rejoin the ISM volunteers working in the Gaza Strip.

(Gaza Port, Gaza, 20 December 2008) The DIGNITY pulled into Gaza Port at 8:00 am today after the Israeli Navy threatened to board them and take the two Israelis off the boat. “We know you have Israelis on board, so either turn back, or we will board and take them off,” said the voice on the radio.

“We are going to Gaza,” Huwaida Arraf, the delegation leader, replied.

Neta Golan, one of the Israelis on board and a co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement stated, “Countries that commit crimes against humanity often hide those crimes from their own people. Israel is doing exactly that, by not allowing Israelis to come in to witness what they are doing in our name.”

The Dignity also carries two envoys from the Eid Charity in Qatar who are going to Gaza to assess the tragedy there. They will go back with concrete proposals on what they can do to help alleviate Israel’s collective punishment of the 1.5 Palestinians.

“This is just the beginning. We are delighted that we are finally able to see the shores of Gaza and be the first Arab envoys to arrive. We will see how we can work together to help relieve this terrible situation in Gaza,” said Alaze Al-Qahtani.

This is the fifth voyage for the Free Gaza movement. “Everyone said it couldn’t be done, that we would never be able to get to Gaza. But we have now arrived for the fifth time. Now, other ships, especially cargo ships, need to follow in our wake,” said Darlene Wallach, one of the internationals kidnapped from a Palestinian fishing boat by the Israeli navy on l8 November.

Free Gaza Movement: We do not ask permission from Israel

To view the Free Gaza Movement website click here

December 18, 2008

The Free Gaza Movement is sending the Dignity on its fifth mission to Gaza with envoys on board from civil society organizations in Qatar. The boat also carries journalists, human rights observers, and Palestinians who want to return home and have been prevented from doing so by the Israeli occupation.

On the eve of this voyage, the Free Gaza Movement would like to correct a few the statements made by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in a December 11 interview with Al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper. In that interview, Abbas suggesting that our efforts are coordinated with the Israelis – that the Israelis check the passports of the passengers aboard our ship and officials from the Israeli Embassy in Larnaca, Cyprus, check our boat before we leave the port.

And as a result of this interference, President Abbas stated that ours is a “silly game” and that we are not really breaking the siege.

We do not coordinate any of our actions with the Israelis. Israel has grossly abused its authority as an occupying power by collectively punishing the people of Gaza and denying them basic human rights. As such, we neither seek Israel’s permission, nor submit to their searches, to assert the right of the Palestinian people to have access to the outside world, which includes the right to invite and welcome us to Gaza.

So, why do we get in, while other efforts are stopped by the Israeli authorities? Because we remove the “security” pretext with which Israel tries to justify its brutal actions and inhumane policies towards the Palestinian people. Amongst other things, we publicize our passenger list; we depart from Cyprus, a neutral European country; and we submit to a search by the Cypriot Port Authorities to verify that we are not carrying anything that can be considered a threat to Israel’s security. We sail from Cyprus waters, into international waters, directly into Gaza’s territorial waters, without entering Israeli waters. Israel realizes that it cannot stop us without using force against us, because we will not be turned around easily.

President Abbas’ statement that we coordinate with the Israelis was misinformed. However, Abbas was correct when he said that we are not really breaking the siege on Gaza. Our boats cannot break the siege alone. Our hope is that we have started something that others can build on. We have shown that the concerted efforts of ordinary civilians working together in the name of justice can confront and successfully challenge Israel’s brutal policies and hope we have inspired other people to break their silence over Israel’s war crimes in the Gaza Strip and throughout the occupied Palestinian territory. From the continued and accelerated Judaization of Jerusalem and the rabid violence of the settler movement, to the vicious racism of Israeli politicians, Israel is committing massive violations against the people Gaza and Palestine as a whole. The world must stand up to this.

The Free Gaza Movement will continue to send boats to Gaza to challenge Israel’s imprisonment of 1.5 million Palestinians, and we will continue to work for freedom and justice for all of the Palestinian people. We do not need Israel’s permission and we will never ask for it. We do need President Abbas, the Arab world, and the entire international community to join us.

Free Gaza Movement: Dignity ship leaves Gaza with Palestinian students

(GAZA PORT, GAZA – 11 December 2008) – The Free Gaza Ship “Dignity,” departed from Gaza International Port at 22:10 hours, Thursday 11 December. Aboard the ship were eleven Palestinian students who had been denied exit by Israel to attend their universities abroad. Over 700 students are currently trapped in Gaza, unable to obtain permission from Israel to continue their education.

Accompanying the students are two British academics, Jonathan Rosenhead and Mike Cushman, of the London School of Economics and the British Committee for Universities for Palestine (BRICUP), an organization of UK-based academics responding to Palestine’s Call for an Academic Boycott of Israel.

According to Rosenhead and Cushman, “As academics we are particularly pleased to be traveling on the Dignity on this mission to enable at least some of the hundreds of students trapped in Gaza by the Israeli siege to get out and take up their places at universities round the world. This siege is an affront to any idea of academic freedom or human rights. How can anyone justify preventing young people from fulfilling their potential and learning how to serve their community more fully?”

In an act of nonviolent defiance to the ongoing Israeli Occupation of Palestine, the Free Gaza Movement has been running civil resistance ships to Gaza for several months. This voyage is the fourth such trip, helping to reunite families, and delivering medical supplies, mail, and international humanitarian and human rights workers to besieged Gaza.

Free Gaza spokesperson Ewa Jasiewicz stated that, “Though we carried in a ton of medical supplies and high-protein baby formula on our ship, our mission in Gaza was not to provide charity, but to give our solidarity to the people of Palestine, break the silence of the world over this continuing calamity, and physically break through the blockade of Gaza in an act of direct resistance against the siege. In the end, the oppression and humiliation of Occupation assaults the humanity of both occupier and occupied and cannot and must not be tolerated any longer.”

For over two years, Israel has imposed an increasingly severe blockade on Gaza, dramatically increasing poverty and malnutrition rates among the 1.5 million human people who live in this tiny, coastal region.

Osama Qashoo, another Free Gaza spokesperson, explained their success by saying that, “the sea passage to Gaza is open. Our fourth mission was a quick response to Israel denying earlier attempts by Libya, Qatar and by Palestinians from 1948 to also break through the siege. We hope that other nations, civil society organizations, and activists around the world will learn from our experience, be strategic in their planning, and not let Israeli threats and aggression stop them from coming to Gaza. Freedom of movement and of education, and to live in peace is everyone’s right.”

The Daily Star: Israeli court frees Jewish settler filmed shooting Palestinians

By AFP

To view original article, published by The Daily Star on the 11th December, click here

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: An Occupied Jerusalem court Wednesday freed a Jewish settler who shot at Palestinians from point-blank range in the Occupied West Bank city of Hebron.

Zeev Braudeh from the settlement of Kiryat Arba on the city’s outskirts turned himself in to police on Saturday after video footage released by a human-rights group showed him firing at a group of Palestinians.

Two Palestinians were wounded by the gunfire and Braudeh was lightly injured after a Palestinian crowd threw stones at him after the colonist shot at them.

The judge ordered the immediate release of Braudeh and criticized Israeli police for failing to arrest any of the Palestinians defending themselves from the gunfire.

“Police are treating Palestinian behavior in this incident extremely light-handedly,” the ruling said. “We can not take part in this blatant discrimination.”

However the state prosecution also filed an indictment against Braudeh on charges of aggravated assault in connection with the shooting incident.

Last Thursday, a mob of Jewish militants went on the rampage in Hebron and across the Israeli-occupied West Bank in retaliation for the eviction by police in line with a High Court order of some 250 settlers from an occupied Hebron house.

During the Israeli riots following the eviction, the colonists – who had for weeks after the ruling thrown stones at and harassed local Palestinians, often in front of Israeli soldiers and police – set fire to Palestinian homes and fields, fired weapons at them, damaged cars and other property as well as desecrating Mosques and Muslim graves.

Braudeh was one of the few arrested by Israeli authorities.

Human-rights organizations have long decried the discriminatory double standards employed by Israel while dealing with Jews on the one hand and Muslims and Christians on the other. Israeli violence is dealt with kids’ gloves by the authorities, who physically restrain perpetrators or, in some cases, use tear gas or batons. Meanwhile, Palestinian protesters – even those demonstrating peacefully – face live ammunition, rubber-coated bullets, stun grenades and armored bulldozers, among other methods.

Also Thursday, Israel adamantly rejected accusations by the UN monitor of human rights in the Palestinian territories that the Jewish state is committing a “crime against humanity.”

UN expert on human rights Richard Falk had discredited himself by the accusations, which were related to Israel’s nearly 18-month blockade of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said.

“The credibility of this expert has suffered a major blow with this announcement, which consists more of anti-Israel propaganda than truth,” spokesman Yigal Palmor told AFP.

Israel began a crippling blockade of the Gaza Strip, where roughly half of its 1.5 million residents depend on international aid for survival, after Hamas won legislative elections deemed fair and democratic by international observers in 2006. Following the Islamists ousting of Fatah from the territory in what many have described as a pre-empting by Hamas of an impending US-backed Fatah offensive aimed at clearing Gaza of their rivals, Israel further tightened the noose.

Various UN and EU officials, along with scores of humanitarian and human-rights workers, have described the siege as “collective punishment of a civilian population,” an act illegal under international law that the Fourth Geneva Convention defines as a war crime.

According to the terms of an Egyptian mediated cease-fire in June, Israel was to lift the blockade if Hamas reigned in militants retaliating for Israeli attacks. However, while Hamas virtually halted rocket fire emanating from Gaza, the Jewish state did not honor its commitment.

However, the truce was honored by Hamas until Israel invaded the territory on November 4 with troops and tanks in an offensive that killed seven Palestinians. The shattering of the agreement by Israel prompted Gazan fighters to resume attacks on the Jewish state.

Israel has used the return of violence to completely seal off the enclave, including from international humanitarian aid, except for a handful of exceptions. UN officials have dismissed as a pretext the Israeli reasoning that rocket fire forces the crossings to be closed, noting that in past times of far worse violence, humanitarian aid was always allowed in.

Falk had earlier called on the UN to make an “urgent effort” to “protect a civilian population being collectively punished by policies that amount to a crime against humanity.”

He also suggested the International Criminal Court investigate the situation and consider prosecuting Israeli civilian and military leaders.

“Such a flurry of denunciations by normally cautious United Nations officials has not occurred on a global level since the heyday of South African apartheid,” Falk said.

“And still Israel maintains its Gaza siege in its full fury, allowing only barely enough food and fuel to enter to stave off mass famine and disease.”

Israel on Tuesday allowed some 70 trucks filled with humanitarian aid and fuel supplies to enter the territory of 1.5 million people, an action immediately dismissed by United Nations officials as woefully inadequate.

Meanwhile, Israel allowed on Wednesday the transfer of $25 million into Gaza to pay wages of civil servants amid warnings that the imposed liquidity crisis resulting from the blockade could bring down the besieged territory’s banks.

But the sum fell short of the $63 million that Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said were necessary to pay Palestinian Authority employees.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak authorized the transfer of 100 million shekels ($25 million) from banks in the Occupied West Bank to the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, his office said.

The transfer was to come following a “personal request” by Fayyad and Stanley Fischer, the head of Israel’s central bank, “in view of the severe cash crisis in Gaza.”

A Palestinian treasury official told AFP on condition of anonymity that the transfer has not yet been made but that it should take place on Thursday.

Palestinian Economy Minister Kamal Hassuneh said that the $25 million was insufficient to pay the salaries of government employees.

“We need $70 to $75 million for salaries. And we need to transfer this amount every month, not just one time,” he told AFP.

The Palestinian Authority headed by President Mahmoud Abbas continues to pay the salaries of some 70,000 civil servants in the impoverished Gaza Strip. – AFP, with The Daily Star