JULY 2006
UPDATE
19TH JULYHorrific scenes of bloodied children with
severe shrapnel wounds being rushed to casualty in the
neighboring Deir Al-Balah refugee camp were witnessed by
an AFP photographer after an Israeli shelling on Mughazi.Arab News
At least nine Palestinians have been killed in fresh Israeli operations in Gaza and the West Bank.
Under heavy gunfire Israeli tanks entered Mughazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip before dawn. The Israeli incursion into Gaza comes less than a week after Israeli forces withdrew from the area. The Israeli army said five of its soldiers were injured in the operation, which saw some 30 Israeli armoured vehicles in the camp by sunrise, residents told the Associated Press news agency.
At least 45 Palestinians, including children, were wounded, Palestinian hospital officials said.
Following the shellings, Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya called on the US to "to restrain the Israeli aggression" and stop the nearly month-long offensive in Gaza that has seen at least 100 Palestinians killed.
"All that we ask the American administration is to take a moral stance toward the Palestinian people, and the Palestinian suffering and to bear its responsibility as a superpower in this world," he said. BBC World News
18th July
ONCE
AGAIN IN GAZA: The Israeli F1-6s jets today attacked the
Palestinian Foreign Ministry in Gaza for the second time
in a week, leaving the building in ruins as it stepped up
an offensive three weeks after the capture of a soldier.
Three residents were wounded when a missile was dropped
in the early hours by an F-16 jet that destroyed what was
left of the foreign ministry building, security sources
said. It had already been badly damaged in the raid last
Thursday.
The attack came after tanks, armored vehicles and
bulldozers rolled into Beit Hanun before dawn, went into
the deepest Israeli incursion into the area since Israel
began its punishing offensive on June 28, three days
after soldier Gilad Shalit was seized. Five Palestinians
from were killed in the ongoing attack by the Israeli
Army, the attack is still going on and many people are
getting injured.
Operation Summer Rain, spearheaded with the twin objectives of retrieving the soldier and stopping rocket attacks on Israel, has now left more than 100 Palestinian killed and hundreds injured. Three Palestinians from Hamas were killed when an Israeli aircraft fired a missile and targeted them. Another 20 people were wounded, including a woman and a baby, by sporadic gunfire and Israeli shelling in the northern incursion. The bodies arrived at the hospital and many body parts are missing.
Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya, whose Gaza offices were bombed by Israel on July 2, denounced the international community for not stepping in to halt the Israeli onslaught amid the rising death toll. "I am wondering whether the international community has been so silent ever before in the face of such cruelty. I've never heard of or read about the acceptance of such cruelty," he said to journalists and reporters in Gaza City.
Dozens of Palestinians living on the edges of Beit Hanun fled their homes, taking shelter in UN-run schools in the nearby Jabaliya refugee camp, among those, the mother of 8 children Umm Bassam Alian, who was there hiding inside the UNRWA school seeking shelter and asking where to sleep tonight when the soldiers are turning her house into a militant post used to sniper Palestinians living in the area. Civilian people were among the victims here in the North. This miserable situation continues as people are running out of food.
" What are those Israelis? They don’t feel that we have children and we want to live in peace?" she asked while her littlie child continued to cry asking for food which she simply cannot afford. She tried to calm the child by trying to lull him to sleep in her arms. "Does the world know about this?" she asked me, then she said:" if the world knows about this, why are they letting it happen when we are all humans and suffering?"
The night is still not over and the children had to go to sleep with no food. Is that something that American or British child have to go through every night?
JOURNALISTS ARE TARGETED:
Two journalists working for the Japanese News Agency were injured yesterday by Israeli snipers while covering the news in the northern part of Gaza Strip.
The director of Kamas Adwan hospital said that "Ambulances crew have brought them Kay Oto Saki 27 , a Japanese journalist who wasinjured in his right leg" while his assistant, a Palestinian named Majdi Abdeen 25 was also injured in his right leg. He is still in the hospital, while the Japanese journalist was transferred immediately into an Israeli hospital in Israel.
The Israeli soldiers targeted one of the ambulances while it was on its way to evacuate injured people in the north of Gaza.
The
Israeli F-16s jets bombed the Palestinian Ministry of
Economic causing huge destruction in the building.
On Thursday 14th: Israeli Bulldozers devastated vast
areas of arable lands in Beit Lahia and Khan Younis in
the Gaza Strip. The war is still going on, and the
Israeli Army is bombing everywhere in the Gaza Strip.
This aims only to
terrify the children, women and old men sleeping in their
houses. A Palestinian woman, 56, told me ' I don’t
know why the world is still silent. Until when? They are
killing us inside our homes. For the sake of God and all
our children, please intervene and stop killing us in
Gaza.' She was hiding inside her house and talking from a
window of a kitchen, terrified of getting out of her
house.
The number of people who were killed is increasing from one minute to the next. Now tens of people have been injured and killed in the north of Gaza. No water, no food, no electricity ... everything is under siege. The woman told me: "We have not been able to go to our farms and get vegetables to cook for the children." There was shooting towards us as she was speaking to me.
Israeli bulldozers began devastating agricultural lands here in Al Salateen area, west of Beit lahia and seized a house, turning it into a military post, used by Israeli soldiers as snipers.
Three bulldozers also razed wide area of olive trees and planted lands owned by Abu Anza and Abu Rjeila families in al Faraheen area, east Khan Younis refugee camp. The situation is getting worse all over in the southern and northern parts of the Gaza strip.
The children here are appealing to you and to everyone who will listen to stop this attack. The children are born to live and not to die by Israeli shelling which does not diffeneciate between targeting a child, a woman or even and old man praying in a mosque.
http://rafah.virtualactivism.net/news/todaymain.htm
Silvia Cattori on the telephone to Gaza City(north Gaza)
Silvia Cattori: What is the mental state
of the population after weeks of bombings and
deprivations? A: We have suffered.
We are in a dramatic situation. The Israeli army has
entered up to Saladine Street; the military has cut Gaza
in two: it is like it was before. They have installed a
base. There are a dozen tanks with bulldozers. They are
in the process of razing land, greenhouses; they are
destroying all that remains of life. For two weeks, the
F-16s and the drones bomb and destroy our homes. There
are hundreds of dead and badly wounded.
S.C.: Is it blind bombing of everything as
opposed to bombing that is targeting
"terrorists"?
A: The day before yesterday, for example,
the Israelis attacked a house, assassinating an entire
family, under the pretext that it sheltered Mohamed Daif,
the head of those firing the Qassam rockets. However, it
wasn't true. Unfortunately, an entire family, a father, a
mother, five daughters and two sons lost their lives.
S.C.: Having cut Gaza in two, are the
soldiers threatening the population from this position?
A: Yes, their tanks, posted in the centre
of the Gaza Strip, between Del Balla and Kahn Younes, are
currently firing rockets - just like in the north of
Gaza.
S.C.: Are the tanks moving?
A: No, the Israeli soldiers are chicken;
they are afraid of being attacked by the resistance.
S.C.: Do the members of the Hamas
Government still show themselves on the street?
A: We are seeing no one. They are all on
the list of the next assassinations. They only come out
when they have a rendez-vous, but it is always done with
great secrecy.
S.C.: During the two weeks of the bombings
that have left you without water, without electricity,
without food, have you been afraid for your family?
A: The first attack by the Israeli planes
at Betlaya was near my house. It was there that there
were a large number of wounded and killed. The children
were in a panic. Fearing that Israel would attack our
neighbourhood, we left our house to move away from the
zone. Now, we have returned home.
S.C.: How do people put up with living in
such a horrible situation? Do they want you to free the
captured soldier as quickly as possible to end Israel's
pretext to continue the collective punishment? A: The majority of the Palestinians support the
position of the resistance, the position that the soldier
won't be released until Israel releases 1000 of the
weakest prisoners they hold, women and children.
Prisoners that are living - contrary to the Israeli
propaganda film shown recently on television in the west
that we have heard about - under inhuman conditions. This
film didn't talk about the torture of the prisoners,
didn't show prisoners being held like beasts in tents,
plagued by insects and disease, didn't say that most of
the prisoners can only see their families once every six
months. [1]
S.C.: Has the accord signed between Fatah
and Hamas two weeks ago taken affect?
A: They were speaking of an entente. But
on the ground, it is the contrary. The Fatah militia
continues their assassinations, so the Palestinians
continue to be threatened by two enemies: that is, by
Israel and by those Palestinians who are collaborating
with the occupier in order to destablize Hamas. The
Israeli attacks actually prevented a civil war between
Palestinians. At this moment, each Palestinian, no matter
what party, feels above all like a target of Israeli
shooting.
S.C.: Can even the father of a family like
you, who has nothing to do with the resistance, be hit by
what they call a targeted assassination?
A: You must know that our crime is being
Palestinian, to belong to Palestine. If I find myself by
chance in the same taxi as someone that an Israeli plane
wants to assassinate, I can be killed.
S.C.: For that you will have to face more
and more aggression? The Israeli army has announced that
Operation Summer Rain will last as long as necessary.
A: You know that Israel is government by
lunatics at this moment. They are narrow-minded
politicians. They have unleashed war in Gaza, and, as of
two days, they have declared war on Lebanon. Maybe that
will give us a bit of a break because the pressure is
only longer only concentrated on us.
S.C.: One thing that is worrisome in any
situation of war is the trauma undergone by the children.
Are they still normal after all they have had to endure?
A: The other day I wanted to take my kids
to the sea. My three-year-old daughter started to cry.
She said, "No, Daddy, I never want to go to the
beach again." I asked her why. "I don't want to
die." I said, "OK, if you don't want to die,
I'll go with your brothers and sisters." "You
neither. No one should go to the beach," she cried.
You can see how a three-year-old child reacts after
seeing on television the family massacred on the beach.
If I talk about the beach, she cries.
S.C.: Were the victims these last months
people like you, people who are not armed, who have no
protection, and who do not harm anyone?
A: Almost all of the victims are
civilians. However, the Israeli army justifies the
bombings of families who are eating or sleeping saying
that there are fighters among them. There are members of
the resistance, but they aren't among these victims.
Everyone in Palestine, with the exception of the
collaborators, is a resistor in spirit.
S.C.: With such a catastrophic situation,
one that is ongoing, in what kind of mental state are
you? A: We continue to live in
spite of the unlivable situation Israel imposes upon us.
We are accustomed to living this life that isn't a life.
There is no food, there is only brackish water, there is
no electricity. This is our life. But it is better than
living a life where we crush ourselves.
SC.: How will you be able to rebuild yet again the entire
infrastructure that the Israel bombing is destroying? Do
you think they can be put back in action quickly?
A: The Israelis will never leave standing
anything we build. Each time that we repair the
transformer in the north or the south of Gaza, they bomb
it again. We have yet to hear any protests from the Arab
or European states. Some states have condemned the
Israeli operations, but their condemnations are too weak.
It isn't enough to make Israel back off. From the moment
that Europe cut off our aid, it meant they have been
collaborating with Israel in its collective punishment,
to starve us and to make us suffer more.
S.C.: Do you have the impression that the
journalists who obtained permission to enter Gaza have
been correctly informing the world on the suffering you
are undergoing?
A: It is always the same thing, whether
they come or not. I would have been very happy it if had
been you who had gotten permission to come, because I am
certain you would have reported with honesty. We follow
the news. It is always a superficial and Israeli version
of things that is shown. The suffering of the people, our
pain, all those at CNN, Fox News, the BBS, have no idea
what it is. They lie in our faces. We watch their lies
live. All they have to do is what
you do, go out into the street and get people to talk.
It's not by them all staying in the same five star hotels
in Gaza that they will be able to find the truth.
S.C.: They don't go out into the streets?
A: Even when they go, they conform to the
information given by Israeli press officers or the
supervision of their agencies. At the end of the day,
they say what their Jerusalem or other office tells them
to say and don't say what they have been told not to say.
You're a journalist; you should know how it works.
.................................
S.C. I was interrogated by the Israel
secret service Sabak on my arrival at Ben Gurion airport.
Won't I put any Palestinian I meet into danger if these
services, which have their spies on every Palestinian
street, are watching me now?
A: You can't put anyone in danger. Every
Palestinian is in danger. At any moment, the drone that
is flying overhead can strike me. Don't let yourself be
intimidated. Do you know why they intimidated you when
you arrived and why they follow you? Because those people
are afraid of you?
S.C.: Afraid of me? Are you joking?
A: All of these soldiers and spies that
make up the most formidable army in the world, in spite
of their power, are afraid of anyone who uses his
words...to speak the truth. They are afraid of those who
speak the truth. They are weak people. We can win this
fight even though our means are nothing compared to
theirs, because we have the will and the courage that
they don't have. ....
Everywhere around, here in Gaza, or over
there in the West Bank, are people struck by misfortune
that breaks your heart. We are one people and we are
suffering together. We are one unique body.
P.S.: This interview was
conducted via internet and telephone. Translated by Signs of the Times www.signs-of-the-times.org
South Gaza:
Rafah and the Border Crossing
into Egypt
In
addition to the Israeli bombing, there is the daily
shelling by Israeli F16s, helicopters and Israeli
warplanes over at the Gaza beach where a number of
Israeli warships are patrolling and shooting at people
who are passing by the main road of Salah Al Deen in the
middle of the Gaza Strip. Israeli helicopters bombed the
building of the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
in Gaza City causing damage to the building and
everything inside it. A large number of people were
killed and injured throughout the Gaza Strip. The entire
Gaza Strip is being besieged, there are tanks and
bulldozers everywhere, and Israeli helicopters hover
overhead all day.
Humanitarian crisis and death:
When you don’t have medicine, food, clean water and
are only sleeping in the street, I can assure you that
death is just around the corner. This is what's happening
right now at the Rafah border with Egypt, where over 5
thousand Palestinians are waiting to get back into
Palestine. Palestinians have been waiting for more than
three weeks, sleeping in the streets on the Egyptian
side.
On a local radio interview this morning with one of the
people who are stuck at the border, a 28 years old woman
said: "There are thousands of us here,
people who were outside of Gaza, who found the crossing
closed when we tried to go home. There are children here
who need medication, old women and men who are in very
bad shape, and need medicine and water".
She added: "There is nowhere to sleep, very few
bathrooms for thousands of people, most of us have run
out of money and we can no longer survive like this
— we appeal to all human rights organizations to end
this terrible situation! People are dying and we don't
know how to preserve their bodies and it's not possible
to bury them here." She was appealing to the
international community and the world to stop this
humanitarian crisis at the Rafah border and to put
pressure on Israel to reopen the border and let people
return to Gaza, and to allow those inside Gaza who need
to travel to hospitals, to do so.
So far, 9 Palestinians have died awaiting entry into the
Gaza Strip on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border
crossing which has been closed for nearly three weeks.
At least 5,000 Palestinians, including 578 children, are considered to be "urgent humanitarian cases.
Two people died at the crossing on Tuesday - a 19 years old woman and a 17 month old infant.
The young woman, named Mona Ismail, was returning from an operation in a Cairo hospital. She died as a result of a severe deterioration in her medical condition as she waited at Rafah. The infant, who was stuck as well named Hamza Abu Taleb, died of heat stroke.
Two
other people also died over the past few days while
waiting at the crossing. Hani Dawahidi, 70, suffered a
heart attack after waiting nine days to return to Gaza
after receiving medical treatment in Egypt. Muhammed
Shuhab, 15, also died at the crossing after undergoing
heart surgery in Cairo and now I got more news from Rafah
border saying a 28 years old woman just passed away while
she was waiting at the Rafah border.
The people who are stuck on the Rafah border are in bad
need for water, food, and medication, if this continues,
the number of the people dying will increase, as well as
to the skin diseases spreaded among people as a result of
not washing themselves for three weeks and waiting under
the hot summer days on the Rafah border.
Rafah border can no longer work, since Israel is not
letting the European Union observers come and carry out
their work as it used to work three weeks ago. http://rafah.virtualactivism.net
As Israel’s violent siege of Gaza continues, the Associated Press reported this week that dozens of Palestinians with American passports have left Gaza, escorted out of the Strip in a convoy of United Nations vehicles. One Palestinian American mother said she and her children could no longer stand the terrifying sonic booms produced by Israeli aircraft flying overhead during the night. These fleeing Palestinians have two things that most of their kin in Gaza lack: they have lots of money that they might have invested in rebuilding Gaza’s economy were Israel not intent on destroying it; and they are familiar with a language and ideas that might have conveyed very effectively to Western audiences the horror currently being endured by Gaza’s civilian population. They are also among the least radicalized elements of Gaza’s population and might have been the ones most willing to start a dialogue with Israel -- had Israel shown any interest in negotiating. But of course their absence from Gaza, and flight to America, will not be mourned by Israel. How much Israel fears the presence in the occupied territories of Palestinians who have lived in the West -- those who have money and influence, and speak in a language the non-Arab world can understand ....(full article) www.dissidentvoice.org
15th July: Palestinian militants blew through the
wall between Gaza and Egypt on Friday, allowing hundreds
of Palestinians to return to their homes in Gaza. They
had been stranded on the Egyptian side since the border
was closed more than two weeks ago, after two Israeli
soldiers were killed in an attack.
Ali Khatar, 71, opened his front door for the first time in two days to find his kitchen wall completely destroyed and the engine of his minibus sheared off by an Israeli tank.
For 48 hours, Mr Khatar, his wife, daughter, and two grandchildren, huddled in the back room of their house as Israeli tanks and soldiers fought Palestinian militants in the street outside. Whenever the family heard gunfire they dived to the floor, fearful that a bullet would penetrate the house's breezeblock walls. But by Saturday morning, the Israeli army had pulled out of Beit Lahiya, leaving churned-up roads and agricultural plots; damaged water pipes and electricity lines; and demolished walls and shattered windows.
Israel attacked the Palestinian economy ministry in Gaza City early on Saturday as its military operations continued.
WHAT ARE THEY FIGHTING FOR Tanya Reinhart
Israeli Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert is now on record at his cabinet
meeting declaring "that he intended to make the
lives of Gazans ever more miserable."
This is a remarkable public confession of barbarity that
even a few years ago would have been concealed behind an
Israeli smokescreen of humanitarian rhetoric and
misdirection. But there's little need for concealment
now.
A shorter version of this article was scheduled to appear
Thursday,
July 13 in Yediot Aharonot, but postponed to next week
because of the
developments in Southern Lebanon. (*)
Whatever may be the fate of the captive soldier Gilad
Shalit, the Israeli army's war in Gaza is not about him.
As senior security analyst Alex Fishman widely reported,
the army was preparing for an attack months earlier and
was constantly pushing for it, with the goal of
destroying the Hamas infrastructure and its government.
The army initiated an escalation on 8 June when it
assassinated Abu Samhadana, a senior appointee of the
Hamas government, and intensified its shelling of
civilians in the Gaza Strip. Governmental authorization
for action on a larger scale was already given by 12
June, but it was postponed in the wake of the global
reverberation caused by the killing of civilians in the
air force bombing the next day. The abduction of the
soldier released the safety-catch, and the operation
began on 28 June with the destruction of infrastructure
in Gaza and the mass detention of the Hamas leadership in
the West Bank, which was also planned weeks in
advance. (1)
In Israeli discourse, Israel ended the occupation in Gaza
when it evacuated its settlers from the Strip, and the
Palestinians' behavior therefore constitutes ingratitude.
But there is nothing further from reality than this
description. In fact, as was already stipulated in the
Disengagement Plan, Gaza remained under complete Israeli
military control, operating from outside. Israel
prevented any possibility of economic independence for
the Strip and from the very beginning, Israel did not
implement a single one of the clauses of the agreement on
border-crossings of November 2005. Israel simply
substituted the expensive occupation of Gaza with a cheap
occupation, one which in
Israel's view exempts it from the occupier's
responsibility to maintain the Strip, and from concern
for the welfare and the lives of its million and a half
residents, as determined in the fourth Geneva
convention.
Israel does not need this piece of land, one of the most
densely populated in the world, and lacking any natural
resources. The problem is that one cannot let Gaza free,
if one wants to keep the West Bank. A third of the
occupied Palestinians live in the Gaza strip. If they are
given freedom, they would become the center of
Palestinian struggle for liberation, with free access to
the Western and Arab world. To control the West Bank,
Israel needs full control Gaza. The new form of control
Israel has developed is turning the whole of the Strip
into a prison camp completely sealed from the world.
Besieged occupied people with nothing to hope for, and no
alternative means of political struggle, will always seek
ways to fight their oppressor. The imprisoned Gaza
Palestinians found a way to disturb the life of the
Israelis in the vicinity of the Strip, by launching
home-made Qassam rockets across the Gaza wall against
Israeli towns bordering the Strip. These primitive
rockets lack the precision to focus on a target, and have
rarely caused Israeli casualties; they do however cause
physical and psychological damage and seriously disturb
life in the targeted Israeli neighborhoods. In the eyes
of many Palestinians, the Qassams are a response to the
war Israel has declared on them. As a student from Gaza
said to the New York Times, "Why should we be the
only ones who live in fear? With these rockets, the
Israelis feel fear, too. We will have to live in peace
together, or live in fear together." (2)
The mightiest army in the Middle East has no military
answer to these home-made rockets. One answer that
presents itself is what Hamas has been proposing all
along, and Haniyeh repeated this week - a comprehensive
cease-fire. Hamas has proven already that it can keep its
word. In the 17 months since it announced its decision to
abandon armed struggle in favor of political struggle,
and declared a unilateral cease-fire ("tahdiya"
- calm), it did not participate in the launching of
Qassams, except under severe Israeli provocation, as
happened in the June escalation. However, Hamas remains
committed to political struggle against the occupation of
Gaza and the West Bank. In Israel's view, the
Palestinians elections results is a disaster, because for
the first time they have a leadership that insists on
representing Palestinian interests rather than just
collaborating with Israel's demands.
Since ending the occupation is the one thing Israel is
not willing to consider, the option promoted by the army
is breaking the Palestinians by devastating brutal force.
They should be starved, bombarded, terrorized with sonic
booms for months, until they understand that rebelling is
futile, and accepting prison life is their only hope for
staying alive. Their elected political system,
institutions and police should be destroyed. In Israel's
vision, Gaza should be ruled by gangs
collaborating with the prison wards.
The Israeli army is hungry for war. It would not let
concerns for captive soldiers stand in its way. Since
2002 the army has argued that an "operation"
along the lines of "Defensive Shield" in Jenin
was also necessary in Gaza. Exactly a year ago, on 15
July (before the Disengagement), the army concentrated
forces on the border of the Strip for an offensive of
this scale on Gaza. But then the USA imposed a veto. Rice
arrived for an emergency visit that was described as
acrimonious and stormy, and the army was forced to back
down (3). Now, the time has finally came. With the
Islamophobia of the American Administration at a high
point, it appears that the USA is prepared to
authorize such an operation, on condition that it not
provoke a global outcry with excessively-reported attacks
on civilians.(4)
With the green light for the offensive given, the army's
only concern is public image. Fishman reported this
Tuesday that the army is worried that "what
threatens to burry this huge military and diplomatic
effort" is reports of the humanitarian crisis in
Gaza. Hence, the army would take care to let some food
into Gaza. (5) From this perspective, it is necessary to
feed the Palestinians in Gaza so that it would be
possible to continue to kill them undisturbed.
=== *Parts of this article were translated from
Hebrew by Mark
Marshall.
UPDATE
Mohammed's report on the food shortages in Gaza also
appears in Norwegian in Morgenbladet today.
Death by Degrees
by Mohammed Omer
reporting from the Gaza Strip, Occupied Palestine
www.rafahnotes.blogspot.com
It was a sunny spring day in Deir Al
Balah, a town in northern Gaza, a lovely day to be
outdoors, but Yakoub Rabah, driving his donkey cart down
the street, was distracted, troubled, and not in the mood
for conversation. He stopped the cart frequently,
gathering any bit of scrap lumber or fallen tree branches
he could find into his cart.
Asked why he was gathering wood, he said, "The
Israelis keep closing the border at Karni," as if
that were all the explanation any fellow Gazan could
possibly need. But, he was reminded, the border was open
today. "Yes," said Rabah, "but for how
long? Over the weekend there was no bread, and it opened
Monday—but only for half an hour. Then they said it
would be open today, and maybe it is, but even if some
food gets into Gaza, the Israelis can close it again
whenever they want. Right now, my family is running low
on cooking gas for the stove. The price on propane
cylinders has been rising steadily. Any day now, we'll
run out and I'm afraid we won't be able to find any more.
Propane has to come through Karni too—everything
does! If we have firewood, we can still cook."
Of course, Mr. Rabah agreed that food to cook was in
dangerously short supply, and he feared the coming days
would only be worse. "I know they say some flour is
coming into Gaza, but will it be enough? My family ran
out of flour and we stopped baking bread some time ago.
We switched to rice and macaroni, but they've become very
expensive and hard to find. So now my wife and seven
family members are rationing—we use only a tiny bit
of sugar in tea now. We're stretching the tea we have to
make it last. Our challenge now is whether we survive
this or give up and die."
The same rationing Mr. Rabah was practicing in his home
has been adopted by bakery owners throughout Gaza. Last
weekend, bakeries were using the last of their emergency
stocks of flour as people lined up for hours. One small
woman asked persistently for "Five shekels worth of
bread, please! Five shekels worth! Please!" but
there was more resignation than urgency in her voice. She
was being jostled in a long line of would-be customers,
most of them men, at the Al Kholi Bakery in Gaza City.
Amneh Abdelal, a housewife of 37 from the beach refugee
camp, braved the crowds herself with her youngest child,
a toddler just starting to walk, since her husband,
crippled in the Intifada, is housebound.
"I used the last of our flour yesterday," she
explained. "None of the grocers have any flour at
all, so I've been here in line for hours now." But
whether she would be one of the fortunate few to get any
bread before the bakery was forced to close was an open
question.
In a press conference Tuesday, UNRWA's director of
operations for Gaza, John Ging, warned that the opening
of the Karni Commercial crossing Monday and Tuesday had
done little to relieve the severe food shortages. On
Monday, the crossing was shut down after half an hour as
Israeli authorities cited a "security threat."
Mr. Ging said that on Tuesday, he visited the crossing,
and although twenty trucks of flour indeed entered Gaza
from Israel, Karni was only operating at 10% capacity,
and Israel had specified that this opening was only
"temporary." Since the start of 2006, the
crossing, which is the only import/export hub into the
Gaza Strip, has been closed nearly 50 days. Throughout
Gaza, flour mills and bakeries normally keep an emergency
inventory of 30 to 60 days' supply on hand, but for
weeks, have been forced to use that stock. With the
emergency supplies exhausted last weekend, the World Food
Program and UNRWA's normal food distribution program, on
which 735,000 Gazan refugees depend, has come to a
complete halt. The limited deliveries of flour have done
little to ease the situation. Many restaurants and
bakeries have closed, while the few that are open ration
the amount each customer can buy, hoping to serve as many
as possible before closing again.
Exports have ground to a standstill during the prolonged
closures, and Gaza's agricultural sector has been
especially hard-hit as farmers have watched their trucks
loaded with strawberries, vegetables and cut flowers,
slated for export to markets in Europe, rot in the sun as
they waited, sometimes for days, at the closed Karni
Commercial Crossing. The loss to the Gaza economy has
been estimated at between US$500,000 and $600,000 per
day.
Gaza's health care system has also been crippled by the
border closures, as vital drugs, infant formula, and
medical supplies remain stuck in Israel. Hospitals and
clinics throughout Gaza normally keep emergency supplies,
but those are running dangerously low. Anesthetic drugs
are so scarce that all elective surgery has been
canceled. Supplies of chemotherapy drugs, antibiotics,
and kidney dialysis solutions are near to exhausted,
creating life-threatening emergencies for those patients.
"We have no idea how to deal with patients,"
said one doctor at Gaza City's Al Shifa hospital.
"We see dozens of them every day, and can do nothing
for them because we have no supplies. Right now, I am a
surgeon who cannot do surgery."
The international community has begun to pressure Israel
to relieve the impending humanitarian disaster in Gaza.
In a surprising but welcome move, the American Ambassador
to Tel Aviv hosted a Sunday evening meeting at his home
for representatives of Israel, Palestine, the EU and the
UN, and the temporary opening of Karni was the result.
Israel is pressing to move import/export operations to
the much smaller Kerem Shalom crossing in south Gaza,
while the Palestinians are working toward a permanent
re-opening of Karni.
While international law says an occupying power is
responsible for the welfare of the civilian population in
occupied territories, Jerusalem-based Israeli-Arab Druze
lawyer, Usama Halabi, explained that some might argue
that Israel's withdrawal of ground troops from Gaza last
September relieved them of that responsibility.
"However," said Mr. Halabi, "Israel
controls the airspace, the seacoast, and all imports and
exports, so they are still an occupying power and
responsible for the food shortages. In my opinion,
closing the border is simply a way for the Olmert
government to put pressure on the newly-elected Hamas
government, to try to ensure their failure before they
even officially take power. But starving over a million
civilians can never be the right way to solve political
differences."
It is not an exaggeration to speak of impending
starvation among a population where 40% of the children
are already malnourished. When asked if the Israeli
government is truly willing to let the elderly, the ill,
the pregnant women and the children of Gaza literally die
of starvation, Mr. Halabi replied, "I don't think
this policy will get wide support from Israeli citizens,
but I think the government itself is perfectly willing to
see Palestinians starve."
Mr. Halabi's opinion is widely echoed among Gaza's
citizens. Abu Kamal, a man of 51 from Jebalya said,
"Israel always boasts that it's the only democracy
in the Middle East. Well, we had a fair and completely
democratic election in January, and by democratically
choosing Hamas, starvation is our reward. That's how much
the Israeli government respects democracy!"
The Tel Aviv government has been insisting this extended
border closure and the resulting impending famine in Gaza
is purely due to security concerns. "There is no
security problem here," said Hassan El Wali, a
security official on the Palestinian side of Karni.
"The Israelis told us that the crossing point would
be open for several days but we are not really sure about
that," Wali said, and accused the Israelis of
dreaming up security problems as a tool against the
Palestinians. On Tuesday, an Israeli official confirmed
to the Associated Press that the Karni closure was in
part to send a message to Hamas, although he also said
the security threats were real. He insisted on anonymity
because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
The Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza,
presently set up only for travelers and their personal
effects and run by Palestine, Egypt and EU monitors,
offers a bit of hope for the future. Egypt has offered to
send trucks of flour into Gaza at once, but are still
waiting on the Egyptian side for clearance to cross. A
delegation of Rafah children demonstrated at the Rafah
Terminal with signs asking the EU to pressure Israel to
reopen the Karni crossing permanently. The European
observers received the children and their official letter
to the European Union. The demonstration took place
around mid-day and as the EU monitors were served their
lunch, they chose to forego their meal and give their box
lunches to the Rafah children as a gesture of solidarity
and good will.
International law speaks of the illegality of
"collective punishment," but it is easy to lose
sight of the individual children, grandparents, and
pregnant women, the mothers, fathers, and babies behind
the verbiage, the statistics, and graphs. Language
quickly becomes inadequate. How exactly do we parse out
the nuances of starvation? Should we call it a
"crisis" now when hungry people are lining up
outside bakeries throughout Gaza? Should we save the term
"disaster" for the day when Gazans die of
starvation? These fine points of reporting probably
matter little to Mrs. Abdelal and hundreds of thousands
like her who, if not Saturday night, then last Sunday,
had to explain to her little boy why he had to go to bed
hungry.
Cpl Gilad Shalit was taken prisoner in a
raid
First Israeli soldier kidnapped
by Palestinians since 1994
Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip have been threatened with "extreme measures" by Israeli forces seeking to rescue a captured soldier.
Israel's prime minister said his forces would do whatever was necessary after tanks moved into the strip overnight.
In the first big incursion since the Gaza withdrawal last year, the tanks stopped near a disused airport.
There were no early reports of clashes
but the incursion brought condemnation from the main
Palestinian factions.
Covered by artillery and helicopter gunship fire, the tanks moved in from the Kerem Shalom crossing near southern Gaza.
Planes also bombed three bridges linking the north and south of the strip, and Gaza's main electricity transformer. BBC WORLDNEWS
UPDATE
Six of senior Hamas civilian leaders in the West Bank,
who were kidnapped from their homes by Israeli occupation
terrorist forces yesterday. From left to right: Nayef Al-
Palestinians dug in behind walls and embankments in the
southern Gaza Strip on Wednesday after Israel sent in
troops and tanks, and bombarded bridges and a power
station
Palestinian senior negotiator Saeb Erakat told CNN: "I condemn in the strongest possible terms this attack on our infrastructure. We have 1.3 million people under siege in Gaza.
"Israel is in the process of reoccupying Gaza -- not in traditional sense -- but through control of water, electricity, food and medical supplies, and I don't think the international community should allow it.
"A chance should be given to diplomacy. I urge
the United States to intervene immediately."
COMMENT from xymphora.com
DEBKAfile reports: Negotiations begin through third and
fourth parties on projected Palestinian prisoners’
release in exchange for kidnapped Israeli Corp. Gilead
Shalit. Our exclusive sources report the talks are going
forward on three tracks mediated by Egypt, France, Qatar,
Saudi Arabia and the UK. A team of Egyptian intelligence
officers led by Gen. Omar Suleiman is most actively
involved. None of the diplomats are in direct contact
with the abductors; some are working through paid
intermediaries. Monday afternoon, June 26, the talks ran
into an impasse over Israel’s pre-condition for
concrete proof that Gilead Shalit is alive before the
talks can proceed. Israel demanded a video tape and a
short note in his writing. Israel’s insistence on
this point derives from its concern over his condition
and need to find out if he is alive and the state of his
injuries, if any. The message the intermediaries have
been instructed to convey is that the negotiations will
go nowhere without this condition being met. One of the
proposals, according to DEBKAfile’s intelligence
sources, is for the release of “political
prisoners” in Israeli jails. This category would
apply to the longest-serving Palestinian prisoners,
although the precise definition is in dispute between
Israel and the Palestinians. In any case, the bargaining
has not yet gone beyond the stage of throwing out ideas.
Meanwhile, DEBKAfile reports Israeli intelligence efforts
to locate the missing soldier’s place of confinement
is hindered by local informants’ refusal to
cooperate .
Rowan Berkeley | 06.26.06 - 11:48 pm
Friday, June 30, 2006
Gaza-friday night 1.30 am
the power still off , it comes on
and off irregularly, the electricity company is trying
hard , to supply power to 1.5 million population,who used
to get electricity by the power plant , that has been
completely destroyed 2 nights ago ,tonight another
electrical generators has been attacked and destroyed
completely , in the middle camps and jabalia ,i tried to
explain to my daughter the complicated mechanisms of
power distribution , and how the electrical company is
trying hard,she was so frustrated ,to learn that we will
be receiving patchy power for another 3 month AT
LEAST.and we need to rationalise many things , food
consumption,water use , going out,may be smiling and
laughing ,and the worst is when the hospitals had to
rationalise surgical operations , due to lack of
medications,and power and fuel.life will continue and the
shameful official arabic and international sielence will
continue ,this is not the start,and will not be the end
Palestinian people will continue their struggle against
injustice and occupation of the large famous democracy in
the area(Israel) , and yet occupying force???it is not
strange it is happenning in Iraq,by the most powerful and
democratic country USA,with its support, Israel has free
hand , both are new colonial forces.
they are attacking Gaza city right now , jablia,and Beit
Lahia, the ER department of AlAwda Hospital ,received 7
casualities , (moderetly injured). they launched at least
15 missiles,the noise of the jet fighters and Apachi
heliocapters ,interrupted my already interrupted
sleep,iam fully awake now , i didnot get good sleep ,for
4 days , the targets were different places ,inside gaza
city.
things are clear for me , the
military operation in Gaza ,aims to destroy the
infrastructure completely,to end up with no goverment no
PA , no negotiations with palestinians,peace is not
israel goal, israel is a colonial , racist regeime,hiding
behind democracy.and its citizens security.
THE AIR RAID IS CONTINUING
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Gaza under large scale military attack
Dear freinds
i sent this email to my feind Hilary in the uk , i felt
tense and wanted
to share what iam going through with her , i think i like
to share it with
you too , and try to tell the world what is going on
in solidarity
Mona ElFarra
Dear Hilary
I am writing while the jet fighters are in the sky , with
their horrible sound , bringing death and horror,it is
10.30pm, I am still like everyone waiting , i hope they
will not go ahead with their operation into Gaza, the
outcome could be horrible ,the resistance movemet are
going ahead with their preperation too,but the balance of
power is obvious to wich side, any way Israel with
resistance or no resistance is attacking us all the time,
but this time will be different ,and in the process many
civilian lives will be lost,iam listening to the local
radio, it seems that the operation started in khanyunis
,the artilary started shelling ,under the cover of apachi
heliocapters,and jet fighters , i am able to write now ,
do not know what will happen next,the power might cut off
soon, few hours ago , Mohammed and Sondos had a narrow
escape during their way home , a car exploded 150 meters
from my home , close to the president home, one person
died and 4 injured, i cannot help feeling of worry, i am
after all a mother ,
i shall stay strong , tommorrow i am going to the red
crescent society office, we are supposed to get some
medications to be used at Alawda hospital for the
emergency department,that was stopped at the closed
borders , i am hoping to get it through with the help of
WHO , i am not
sure if we shall receive them in time, but i shall keep
trying. the aeroplanes sound in the sky is geting louder
. i shall keep writing , it is big relief for me ,
love you all
Mona
ps Hilary is my freind in the Uk
Alawda Hospital is inside jabalia refujee camp, 2 weeks
ago, it received
the Galia family children,who lost their parents during
the beach
incident.
Mohamed and Sondos are my dear
kids, i pray for the safety of all the the
children of the world,including israeli children
ALAWDA HOSPITAL MEDICTION SUPPLIES IS ENOUGH FOR ONE WEEK
, OF ROUTINE USE,IF THE OPERATION CONTINUE , AND
CASULITIES NUMBERS INCREASE A HEALTH DESASTER WILL FOLLOW
IAM JUST WARNING
the operation against Gaza ,is continuing,it is 1.30
am,the gaza bridge has been destroyed,the jet fighters
are still in the sky hitting many targets.
the gaza
power plant was hit bt at least 7 missiles , i can see a
big fire from my window , and hear the sirens of
emergency vans,the gun boats started shelling too , i
live by the beach .
this is updating in the morning ,28th of june 7 am last
night , it was very dangerous for me to reach the
computer the power was cut off , i stayed on the floor
with my son and daughter, we did not sleep at all like
all the residents in gaza strip.while trying to get
some hours of sleep , we didnot manage , the jet fighters
sonic bombs started showering us , it is very loud and
horrifying voice , they are continuing their attacks.
i contacted the hospital several times , no casualities
yet, the operation
is going on in different parts of the gaza strip, but it
is focused in the
south,rafah, i have no idea about the casulities
I WILL CONTINUE FURTHE UPDATES ON MY BLOG at http://fromgaza.blogspot.com/
A LETTER ENCLOSED IN ONE FROM DOROTHY
Lama
is a mother, a daughter, a wife, a good friend, a brave
woman and a peace activist – Lama lives in Gaza
An hour ago I was listening to the radio and the moderator was reading Tawfiq Zayyad’s* (Palestinian poet) famous poem "Like Twenty Impossible". I felt like crying! We are really impossible. I don't know how we can really still live, laugh, love, and heat, eat, sleep…etc. under the circumstances we live in.
Normal people think and plan their future but we cannot. I wake up in the morning and the first thing in my mind is “Do we have electricity? Is the water still running? Is the fridge still working? Is the TV still working? Can I have a shower before going to work? Can I dry my hair after the shower? Will I be able to buy yogurt and cheese in the supermarket today? Will I find fuel for the car today? Will we have electricity to watch the semifinal match in the Mondial today?” So many questions the minute you open your eyes in the morning. It sounds silly but since last week we all awaken with the same questions every morning.
Then Luai wakes up. He will be four years old on the 21st of August. He still says “Good morning” but immediately asks: “Do we have electricity? Can I take a shower, Mommy?” Today he added: “When will we go to the sea, I haven't been there for a long time, Mommy. I want to swim, I miss the sea.” “We won’t go to the sea these days” I answer. “But why, Mommy? I saw yesterday from the car it's still there. Well it's not safe to go to the sea, I will fill in the bath for you and you can swim in it.” “But Mommy, you said that we can't do that because we don't have electricity and it means we don't have water, you told me that I must only have quick showers these days.” I remembered that I told him that he has to take care when he opens the water and explained to him the problem of water and electricity earlier. I could not answer him, I don't want him to know that the seashore might be bombed by the Israelis the way they bombed the electric power station (he doesn't know anything about what happened to the Ghalia family a couple of weeks ago). I just try to run away to work as quickly as I can to escape from his questions.
At work, we are lucky we have electricity because we have an electric generator. I even brought my hair dryer to work so that we can fix our hair. Well we are still human, females, and we still want to look nice in spite of the circumstances. Still, the only subjects are: how many hours of electricity each one had the day before in her area? How many shellings did they count? Did you wake up because of the Apaches over our building? Did you hear the bombing of the Islamic University? …etc.
I read Samia's peace "June 1982, Beirut, June 2006 Gaza". I was in Beirut, too. So many similarities. But I was 16 ½ years of age. I had no responsibilities, no worries. Dad was the one who worried about me and my sisters. And Mama was in Damascus. I knew that I had to do something so I volunteered in the civil defense and the hospitals for the whole period of the war. Now I'm 41 years old, I have a child and no other members of the family with me, all of them are outside distributed in three countries: Syria, Austria and the United States.
In Beirut I didn't know what fear is. Now! Oh, my God! I know what my parents felt at that time. I'm always afraid, mainly to lose my only child, either by being directly killed by the Israelis or because he becomes ill and I have no medication for him. It is the most difficult responsibility in our world.
Write, write, write…..!
Everybody is asking me to write about our life in Gaza under the current situation, so this is what I thought I would write today.
I hope I didn't make you desperate, because I'm not. Believe me, today I reserved a table in a fancy restaurant so that I can watch the semifinal between Germany and Italy and I'm for Italy.
Lama
Gaza 4-7-2006