Tag: Naval Blockade - Page 12 - International Solidarity Movement

Israel’s Disinformation Campaign Against the Gaza Freedom Flotilla

Freedom Flotilla | Witness Gaza

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Israeli disinformation cannot hide the siege of Gaza.

For over four years, Israel has subjected the civilian population of Gaza to an increasingly severe blockade, resulting in a man-made humanitarian catastrophe of epic proportions. Earlier this month, John Ging, the Director of Operations of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in Gaza, called upon the international community to break the siege on the Gaza Strip by sending ships loaded with humanitarian aid. This weekend, 9 civilian boats carrying 700 human rights workers from 40 countries and 10,000 tons of humanitarian aid will attempt to do just that: break through the Israel’s illegal military blockade on the Gaza Strip in non-violent direct action. In response, the Israeli government has threatened to send out ‘half’ of its Naval forces to violently stop our flotilla, and they have engaged in a deceitful campaign of misinformation regarding our mission.

Israel claims that there is no ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Every international aid organization working in Gaza has documented this crisis in stark detail. Just released earlier this week, Amnesty International’s Annual Human Rights Report stated that Israeli’s siege on Gaza has “deepened the ongoing humanitarian crisis. Mass unemployment, extreme poverty, food insecurity and food price rises caused by shortages left four out of five Gazans dependent on humanitarian aid. The scope of the blockade and statements made by Israeli officials about its purpose showed that it was being imposed as a form of collective punishment of Gazans, a flagrant violation of international law.”[1]

Israel claims that its blockade is directed simply at the Hamas government in Gaza, and is limited to so-called ‘security’ items. Yet When U.S. Senator John Kerry visited Gaza last year, he was shocked to discover that the Israeli blockade included staple food items such as lentils, macaroni and tomato paste.[2] Furthermore, Gisha, the Israeli Legal Center for Freedom of Movement, has documented numerous official Israeli government statements that the blockade is intended to put ‘pressure’ on Gaza’s population, and collective punishment of civilians is an illegal act under international law.[3]

Israel claims that if we wish to send aid to Gaza, all we need do is go through ‘official channels,’ give the aid to them and they will deliver it. This statement is both ridiculous and offensive. Their blockade, their ‘official channels,’ is what is directly causing the humanitarian crisis in the first place.

According to former U.S. President Jimmy Carter: “Palestinians in Gaza are being actually ‘starved to death,’ receiving fewer calories per day than people in the poorest parts of Africa. This is an atrocity that is being perpetrated as punishment on the people in Gaza. It is a crime… an abomination that this is allowed to go on. Tragically, the international community at large ignores the cries for help, while the citizens of Gaza are treated more like animals than human beings.”[4]

Israel claims that we refused to deliver a letter and package from POW Gilad Shalit’s father. This is a blatant lie. We were first contacted by lawyers representing Shalit’s family Wednesday evening, just hours before we were set to depart from Greece. Irish Senator Mark Daly (Kerry), one of 35 parliamentarians joining our flotilla, agreed to carry any letter and to attempt to deliver it to Shalit or, if that request was denied, deliver it to officials in the Hamas government. As of this writing, the lawyers have not responded to Sen. Daly, electing instead to attempt to smear us in the Israeli press.[5] We have always called for the release of all political prisoners in this conflict, including the 11,000 Palestinian political prisoners languishing in Israeli jails, among them hundreds of child prisoners.[6]

Most despicably of all, Israel claims that we are violating international law by sailing unarmed ships carrying humanitarian aid to a people desperately in need. These claims only demonstrate how degenerate the political discourse in Israel has become.

Despite its high profile pullout of illegal settlements and military presence from Gaza in August—September 2005, Israel maintains “effective control” over the Gaza Strip and therefore remains an occupying force with certain obligations.[7] Among Israel’s most fundamental obligations as an occupying power is to provide for the welfare of the Palestinian civilian population. An occupying force has a duty to ensure the food and medical supplies of the population, as well as maintain hospitals and other medical services, “to the fullest extent of the means available to it” (G IV, arts. 55, 56). This includes protecting civilian hospitals, medical personnel, and the wounded and sick. In addition, a fundamental principle of International Humanitarian Law, as well as of the domestic laws of civilized nations, is that collective punishment against a civilian population is forbidden (G IV, art. 33).

Israel has grossly abused its authority as an occupying power, not only neglecting to provide for the welfare of the Palestinian civilian population, but instituting policies designed to collectively punish the Palestinians of Gaza. From fuel and electricity cuts that hinder the proper functioning of hospitals, to the deliberate obstruction of humanitarian aid delivery through Israeli-controlled borders, Israel’s policies towards the Gaza Strip have turned Gaza into a man-made humanitarian disaster. The dire situation that currently exists in Gaza is therefore a result of deliberate policies by Israel designed to punish the people of Gaza. In order to address the calamitous conditions imposed upon the people, one must work to change the policies causing the crisis. The United Nations has referred to Israel’s near hermetic closure of Gaza as “collective punishment,”[8] strictly prohibited under Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. All nations signatory to the Convention have an obligation to ensure respect for its provisions.[9]

Given the continuing and sustained failure of the international community to enforce its own laws and protect the people of Gaza, we strongly believe that we all, as citizens of the world, have a moral obligation to directly intervene in acts of nonviolent civil resistance to uphold international principles. Israeli threats and intimidation will not deter us. We will sail to Gaza again and again and again, until this siege is forever ended and the Palestinian people have free access to the world.

NOTES:

Amnesty International, Annual Human Rights Report (26 May 2010); http://thereport.amnesty.org
“The pasta, paper and hearing aids that could threaten Israeli security,” The Independent (2 March 2009)
“Restrictions on the transfer of goods to Gaza: Obstruction and obfuscation,” Gisha (January 2010)
“Carter calls Gaza blockade ‘a crime and atrocity,” Haaretz (17 April 2008), http://www.haaretz.com/news/carter-calls-gaza-blockade-a-crime-and-atrocity-1.244176
“Gaza aid convoy refuses to deliver package to Gilad Shalit,” Haaretz (27 May 2010)
“Comprehensive Report on Status of Palestinian Political Prisoners,” Sumoud (June 2004); Palestinian Children Political Prisoners, Addameer, http://www.addameer.org/detention/children.html
Article 42 of the Hague Regulations stipulates, a “territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army,” and that the occupation extends “to the territory where such authority has been established and can be exercised.” Similarly, in the Hostage Case, the Nuremburg Tribunal held that, “the test for application of the legal regime of occupation is not whether the occupying power fails to exercise effective control over the territory, but whether it has the ability to exercise such power.” Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip, like those in the West Bank, continue to be subject to Israeli control. For example, Israel controls Gaza’s air space, territorial waters, and all border crossings. Palestinians in Gaza require Israel’s consent to travel to and from Gaza, to take their goods to Palestinian and foreign markets, to acquire food and medicine, and to access water and electricity. Without Israel’s permission, the Palestinian Authority (PA) cannot perform such basic functions of government as providing social, health, security and utility services, developing the Palestinian economy and allocating resources.
John Holmes, Briefing to the U Security Council on the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question, 27 January 2009.
Convention (IV) relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. Geneva, 12 August 1949, Article I stating, “The High Contracting Parties undertake to respect and to ensure respect for the present Convention in all circumstances.” See also, Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Advisory Opinion, I. C. J. Reports 2004, p. 136 at 138; http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/131/1671.pdf.

Fisherman shot in the head and critically ill in Shifa’a Hospital in Gaza

ISM Gaza

25 March 2010

Fisherman Hazem Gora’ani, age 26, from the town of Deir Al Balah, south of Gaza City, was brought to Shifa Hospital with serious head wounds around 9 o’clock this morning.

gaza fish — Hazem Gora'ani in intensive care unit

An urgent operation lasting one and a half hours was performed to stop the bleeding inside his brain. Dr Samir Kahlout from the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) told the ISM volunteers who visited Mr Gora’ani that his condition was critical and unstable and that he was unconscious following the operation.

Over the next 72 hours Mr Gora’ani will be monitored and the decision will be made about the need for further operations, including to remove bits of shrapnel lodged in his brain.

We talked to Mr Gora’ani’s brother Nafiz who was anxiously waiting in front of the ICU with a relative and another two fishermen for news about Hazem.

Nafiz was not present when the incident happened and he gave us an account by their brother who was fishing with Hazem and a third fisherman in a small hassaka boat this morning.

They were fishing well inside the Palestinian waters, less than three nautical miles away from the shore with another hassaka, when they were approached by the Israeli speed boat who attempted to kidnap them and take them to Ashkelon.

They panicked and tried to sail towards the coast. In response the Israeli soldiers opened a barrage of fire which critically injured Hazem. A collegue who was present in the hospital told us that there are a number of bullet holes in the hassaka.

A group of Gazan fisherman whom ISM talked with recently told us that Israeli soldiers fire at the fishermen so frequently that incidents are rarely reported if they did not result in serious injury. Only a few weeks ago two hassakas were kidnapped by the Israeli soldiers and destroyed after being taken to Ashkelon, whilst the fishermen were being interrogated and later released.

Join the sail to Gaza this spring

Free Gaza Movement

12 January 2010

‘We’re Sailing Again – Join Us!’

This spring, the Free Gaza Movement is sending at least six boats to Gaza to break Israel’s illegal blockade on 1.5 million Palestinians. This blockade constitutes an act of collective punishment, a crime prohibited under international humanitarian law. Gaza’s man-made and internationally perpetuated crisis is set to deepen as Egypt builds an Iron wall 30 meters deep and 20 meters high on the southern Rafah border, closing off the final route for Palestinians to get basic supplies.

The urgency of breaking the blockade grows by the day, as Palestinians living in this prison are denied their most basic rights.

Our mission will include two boats committed by a Turkish NGO plus a cargo ship purchased with donations from the Malaysian people. This ship will be loaded with cement, water filtration systems and paper – all essential reconstruction materials denied entry to Gaza by Israel.

Free Gaza’s missions were the first to challenge Israel’s hermetic closing of Gaza when we sailed two small boats into Gaza in August 2008. We did not ask permission of Israel or Egypt to travel to Gaza and sailed directly from international waters into the waters of Gaza. Since then, we have been the catalyst for a growing international movement of civilian advocates, including the Gaza Freedom March and Viva Palestina.

Of course we will face Israel’s illegal naval blockade. But we have broken through it before and we will do it again. We are writing to ask you to make sure the mission is funded and publicized.

We sailed four more successful missions to Gaza since August 2008, and we intend to come back this year with a small flotilla, so you still have time to get boats and come with us. We are calling on all NGOs, human rights organizations and communities around the world to join us. If you already have funding for boats, we can provide the logistical and technical advice on how get them ready to join the flotilla. If you want to help in other ways, we have listed five below.

1. Fundraise for this trip. Consider organizing a big or small fundraiser in your community. We already have people available to speak at your events. Friends returning from the Gaza Freedom March, or the Viva Palestina convoy can be especially helpful by turning report backs into fundraisers.

2. Get your community involved and turn this flotilla into a global effort. Our boats will carry building supplies and school supplies, both banned by Israeli authorities. Contribute by donating paper, ink or books for our Right to Read campaign. If you can donate reconstruction supplies, please contact us. Get your children and their schools involved by having them write letters to children in Gaza that we will carry on our boats and deliver.

3. Publicize the trip. Once we have announced the date, help us get the message out to the media and to your elected officials to assure the passengers and boats will sail safely.

4. Ask your Member of Parliament/Congress to come with us. We already have MPs from South America, South Africa, Malaysia, Turkey and Europe who are going. If you have contacts with other high profile people, please let us know.

5. Volunteer as land crew, media or support crew in your countries.

To help, organize a fundraiser, suggest passengers and offer support, please email us at friends@freegaza.org, and we will follow up immediately. We have only two to three months to finish organizing, raise the additional funds, and to set sail.

Widows and Children Begin to Beg

Eva Bartlett | Inter Press Service

21 September 2009

There are few parks and green spaces in Gaza, and those that exist are crowded with people hungry for nature. Day and night, people of all ages flock to the Joondi, or the park of the Unknown Soldier, in central Gaza City.

Vendors set up, selling roasted nuts, falafels, cold drinks, tea and coffee. Further east, Gaza’s main garden park, charging one shekel (25 cents) admission, hosts some groomed shrubbery, decorative trees and flowers. It pales in comparison to arboretums elsewhere, but it is a bit of green in an otherwise grey Strip.

On Gaza’s main east-west street Omar Mukthar, the more upscale shopping area of Rimal attracts clothing, perfume, electronics and souvenir shoppers. The inventory is a sad collection of cheap fabrics and highly expensive electronics. Gazans have no other choice, save the tunnel markets in Rafah. But in the end, the majority of goods come via the same tunnels, and end up all being overly expensive.

Those with shekels to spend go to the few trendy coffee shops in Rimal or the Shifa hospital district. But the choices are basically the same: Arabic coffee, cappuccino, juices, light meals. And the entertainment is limited to use of the wireless internet, Arabic music played over the café’s loudspeakers, and chatting with friends, perhaps while smoking a water pipe.

Some choose these cafés to hold birthday celebrations to an Arabic rendition of the ‘Happy Birthday’ song. A cake costing on average 70 shekels is the highlight of the celebration.

But all this too is for the privileged few. Most of Gaza’s 1.5 million cannot afford frivolities like these, let alone consistent meals, diapers, baby milk, and school clothing and books.

For most Palestinians in Gaza, there is no escaping the constraints of a suffocating Israeli-imposed siege that, with the complicity of the Egyptian government and the international community, has tightened since June 2007 when Hamas took over the Gaza Strip. The siege goes further back from that time two years ago to shortly after Hamas was elected in early 2006. Since then, Palestinians have lived under increasingly choking restrictions on what can enter and leave Gaza.

In the Rimal shopping area, a growing number of Palestinians have resorted to begging. Among them are widows trying to provide for their children, and children themselves begging to contribute to family income.

An increasing presence of children selling one-shekel items dominates most Gaza city streets. The children, as young as seven or eight years old, spend their days enticing pedestrians or drivers at stoplights to buy their trinkets.

There are few recreation options for youths. No cinema, no concerts, no nightclubs, none of the pastimes that youths around the world enjoy. Partly this is due to the conservative culture in Gaza, but mostly it is the siege, and the many Israeli military attacks on Gaza. A venue for theatre, a wood- panelled stage at the Al-Quds hospital complex, was destroyed by fire from Israeli shelling during the three-week winter war on Gaza.

The primary obstacle in any case is financial: with extreme poverty levels among 90 percent of the population according to the September 2009 United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCATD) report, the majority of Palestinians in Gaza depend on food aid, and scrape by on inadequate high-carbohydrate diets, with no extra money for luxuries like school clothes and books.

Ibrahim, Mahmoud and Mahdi, teenagers from Beit Hanoun, are still finishing their final year of high school, and have not reached the state of frustration many recent university graduates feel at the scarcity of work in Gaza. For them full-time employment worries are still some years off.

They spend their free time in a few simple ways: “We play football four or five times a week,” says Mahdi. “I go swimming nearly every day,” says Mahmoud, “but I’m always afraid because of the Israeli gunboats. They have shelled the beach before.”

Ibrahim points to a motorcycle parked nearby. “If we had money for one of those, we’d cruise the coastal road,” he says.

Otherwise, men (and some women) young and old indulge in water pipes and coffee, tea, or juice in the evenings, some choosing the relatively trendy cafes in Gaza city, others favouring a local coffee shop. Yet others flock to the sea, to enjoy night air and the breeze while smoking shisha.

Despite the dangers from Israeli gunboats and the severe contamination of Gaza’s sea – with upwards of 80 million litres of sewage dumped daily into the sea for want of adequate wastewater treatment plants – many choose to swim nonetheless. They have few other options for cooling off and for recreation.

“We installed a sort of diving board off the edge of the pier,” says a coastguard. “Every day we go swimming there.” Gaza port is one of the more polluted areas, with a combination of sewage and the usual boat oils and wastes found in marinas.

Gaza’s economy is decimated – 95 percent of industries have shut down. Fishers constantly face the threat of Israeli gunboats, and struggle to provide for their families. Merchants cannot import goods via Israel as they had done for years prior, instead bringing smuggled goods in via the tunnels.

Hamsa Al-Bateran, 22, presents the face of Gaza’s extreme poverty. Living in a single room with an asbestos ceiling with his wife Iman and their three- month-old son, he is now desperate.

Before his son was born, Al-Bateran scoured the streets of Gaza for recyclable plastics, loading his findings onto a horse cart. Sometimes people would hire his horse and cart to move large items.

“My son got ill. I had to sell the horse and cart so I could pay his hospital bills. Now I have no way of earning money.”

Al-Bateran is forever thinking of finding ways to survive. Recreation is a concept he doesn’t even consider.

“I even thought of working in the tunnels. I’ll do any job, I just need to earn money to feed my wife and baby, buy milk for him,” he said. He does not hold a Palestinian refugee card, and so is not eligible for the dry food aid that most refugees in Gaza receive. Without this and with no source of income, he depends on aid from his impoverished relatives.

For a recent university graduate, prospects are not good. Ahmed works in a small convenience shop in Beit Hanoun. “I work every day, from 8 am to 6 pm,” he says. “I get about 20 shekels a day.” This is the same amount most farm labourers receive, although some working in and near the buffer zone are paid more. But they face mortal danger under Israeli soldiers’ shoot-to- kill policy.

Mahfouz Kabariti, 51, has a decorations shop in Gaza city. “I used to import from China. My business is failing because of the restrictions on imports. Now I buy poor quality, expensive items brought through the tunnels.”

Like many, he feels there is little point opening early. “I used to open my shop at 8 am. But now, I open around 11 am and close early. It’s just my son and I working in the shop now. We had to let our employees go, there was no work for them.”

Said Al-Saedi, 50, has fished for over 30 years. “In the 1980s, we used to take the boat out for six or seven days before returning. We’d sail near Libya, to Port Said in Egypt. We could easily earn 20,000 per month,” he says. “Today, I don’t fish, I can’t fish.”

In a rotten state

Eva Bartlett | Inter Press Service

29 August 2009

Abu Abed can’t make a profit, and although 54 years old, he still has not married. “I can’t pay my rent, I can’t afford a wedding.”

His shop, roughly 3m by 4m, costs him more than 3,500 dollars a year in rent alone.

His wares are laid out on tables on a busy pedestrian street in the Saha market area in Gaza City. The goods, plastic toys and running shoes imported from China, were brought in via the tunnels between Gaza and Egypt, at a high price.

One large bag of grain filled with the cheaply made toys cost 30 dollars to purchase, but the tunnel trip added another 70 dollars to Abu Abed’s expenditures. “I can make maybe 20 dollars when I sell these toys, but that will take two or three months.”

Now that the month of Ramadan is under way, festive decorations and toys are among his stock. Yet with unemployment in Gaza hovering near 50 percent, and searing poverty at 80 percent, few can afford the luxury of such items, at now grossly inflated prices.

“That toy is 20 shekels,” Abed says pointing to a plastic toy. “It should only cost maybe five or six shekels. People don’t want to buy it.” But if Abu Abed wants to break even, he cannot sell the toy for less than 20 shekels.

For Ghazi Attab, a fruit vendor in Saha market, regular crossing procedures couldn’t come quickly enough. He estimates that 30 percent of his produce is spoiled due to long hours in the sun waiting for Israeli clearance to enter Gaza.

“The Israelis don’t allow the fruit to enter Gaza right away. It sits at the crossings for five or six hours under the sun,” he said, pointing to a box of rotted mangos.

Hazem, father of four, has a store in a different region of Saha. The shelves are stocked with shampoo, hair and skin creams, cosmetics, toothpaste, cleaning products, and other everyday items. All of his stock was brought through the tunnels, at a high price.

Before the Israeli siege on Gaza, Hazem used to import goods via Israeli crossings.

“I’d buy goods coming from China, and when they arrived at Ashdod, it would take just another week for them to be checked and to enter Gaza.”

After Hamas took power in Gaza in June 2007, following its election victory in early 2006, there was a noticeable delay in the arrival of imported goods.

“Suddenly it was taking two months for imports to enter Gaza,” Hazem said. From two-month delays it came to entering only around Ramadan, to not entering at all.

Aside from losing a direct route of importing, Hazem has more than 80,000 dollars at stake.

“When I bought goods from China in October 2008, the items weren’t forbidden,” he says, referring to the Israeli-imposed restrictions on what can enter Gaza. According to a report in the Israeli daily Haaretz in May 2009, only 30 to 40 items are being allowed into Gaza.

The majority of items on Hazem’s list are banned. Two containers full of these items sit in a storage facility in Ashdod, for which he has had to pay 550 dollars per month since October 2008.

Among the items are underwear, socks, caps, gloves, belts, perfumes, toothpicks, toothbrushes, scarves.

“We have to pay import tax to Israel. I paid 1,468 dollars on my goods, plus paid for the actual goods themselves.” That is in addition to storage charges for the containers.

“But I can’t send the stuff back to China,” he adds. He pays the rent, he says, in hope of importing the goods one day and digging himself out of debt.

According to the Palestinian Chamber of Commerce in Gaza, there are currently over 1,700 containers of imported goods ordered by Gaza merchants being stored in Israel and the West Bank until they are allowed into Gaza. A breakdown of the items listed by the Chamber of Commerce includes clothing, shoes, electronics and toys.

Over half of the containers have been held in storage since 2007. The Chamber of Commerce reports direct losses of an estimated 10 million dollars, including storage and handling costs, and indirect losses in losing contracts and ties with outside suppliers.

On Aug 23, the new school year began for nearly 450,000 school children in Gaza. Many of these children will attend classes unprepared, as notebooks and other items needed for school have not been allowed into Gaza. Nor has the construction material needed to repair the many schools damaged by Israeli shelling and bombing during Israel’s three-week war on Gaza last December-January.

Currently, the Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing is the only entrance point for commercial goods after the better equipped and larger Karni crossing was closed by Israeli authorities. Karem Abu Salem does not operate at full capacity, and there are long delays in inspection of Gaza-bound goods.

A report this month by the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) notes that during the first five months of 2007, an average of 583 trucks entered Gaza per day. Now, the daily average is 112, of which 70 percent are food products.

OCHA further notes that “95 percent of the industrial establishments, or 3,750 establishments, were forced to shut down, and the remaining five percent were forced to reduce their level of activity.”

With crossings closed or barely functioning, most of Gaza’s goods are brought in at steep prices via the tunnels. Last week Egyptian authorities announced a seizure of such goods bound for Gaza before the start of Ramadan. Among the millions of dollars worth of goods seized were wood, glass, electronic equipment and appliances, tyres, carpets, and large quantities of sweets, nuts, and foodstuffs used during Ramadan.