#Israel - open all six borders and lift siege to avert humanitarian disaster in #Gaza - Sept 01 2014

by Diane V. McLoughlin, September 02, 2014

Israel is demanding a bilateral committee be formed to coordinate inspections of  all truck shipments into Gaza. [1]

Israel continues to maintain the illegal military siege despite understandings to the contrary arrived at during the preliminary ceasefire negotiations, the first phase of which concluded a few days ago.[2]

The siege of Gaza is now into its seventh year. The siege has destroyed Gaza's economy, the conditions of which are described as being worse than the Great Depression.  It has had a particularly devastating effect on the physical health of Gaza's children. They do not get enough to eat.  Israel, in addition to cutting calories in, at one point even denied in children's shoes, hearing aids and school supplies. What is allowed in seems to depend on the year and the whim of whichever functionary is in charge along with how much attention the world pays.

Israel has caused immense destruction in Gaza this summer.  Israel bombed hospitals, ambulances and schools along with tens of thousands of homes, rendering hundreds of thousands of people homeless.
Israel killed over 2,000 Palestinian people including approximately 500 children. As many as 1,500 children have been orphaned. Over 10,000 people have been injured. 1,000 children were severely injured and will suffer lifelong disabilities.

Many fear that Israel has no intention of honoring the ceasefire agreement. The deal was to open all borders and that is not happening. The last daily report over the weekend I read indicated that 100 truckloads of food were able to get in along with 200 trucks bearing construction supplies.

Six years ago, the estimated daily shipments of food, fuel, and other goods was in the neighborhood of 500 to 600 trucks per day.  The number of truckloads necessary to sustain human life in the face of Gaza's destruction is obviously going to be many more. It will be nothing less than a humanitarian catastrophe if this is not made to happen.

The water treatment plants were bombed. The sewage treatment plants likewise were bombed. Thus there is not even any clean drinking water to drink. The risk of water-borne disease is a very grave concern.

Winter will be coming on soon.  People are homeless with nowhere to live.

There is no way to accomplish the impossible demand of inspecting down to the last toothpick every box and bag in every truck without hopelessly clogging up the entry points.

There are people who hold power and influence over whether or not food, medicine or housing construction materials get in. One, Deputy Minister of Defense, Danny Alon, tweeted days ago that Israel should prevent water and food into Gaza.  So even if a sensible plan is laid out between the parties about truck inspections and so forth, robust monitoring to ensure swift and efficient processing at the border crossings will be a must.

What exactly is the purpose of the siege in the first place?  The people of Gaza are refugees who had their homes taken away from them by Israel in 1948.  They would like to go home.

On a positive note, efforts to raise humanitarian funds for Gaza are underway in countries such as Qatar and Turkey.


[1] Israel demands formation of bilateral committee to supervise entry of construction material to Gaza; MEMO - Middle East Monitor; Monday, September 01, 2014.

[2] Gaza blockade shows no signs of loosening; Maan New Agency, September 2, 2014:

'...Number of trade trucks entering daily ha[s] remained roughly static at its wartime level of between 200 and 250'

'...the medical need in Gaza [i]s acute.' 

"Even before the aggression, there were severe shortages of drugs - 28 percent of essential goods were at zero stock," she said. "Now the situation is critical." ...

'...much of Gaza's infrastructure [is] destroyed, food aid is only a short-term fix - stemming the humanitarian crisis over the longer term requires deals on restricted items such as cement and heavy machinery.' 

"You can't bring in bottled water for 500,000 people. You need to repair the water facilities. To do that you need technical equipment. that is the most cost-effective way of giving Gazans clean water," he said.''
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$5.00 USD - monthly $10.00 USD - monthly $25.00 USD - monthly

     

Latest statistics - #Israel assault on #Gaza - August 15 2014

Latest Statistics for Operation Protective Edge - Israel's assault on Gaza
August 15 2014; by Diane V. McLoughlin

Gaza: 459 children killed; 1,962 total fatalities; 226 have been identified as being from armed groups; 9,986 injured including 3,009 children;16,700 homes destroyed or severely damaged; 335,000 people in shelters or doubled-up in homes; 25 schools entirely destroyed or severely damaged [ochaopt.org - Occupied Palestinian Territory Gaza Emergency Situation Report, as of August 12 2014 pdf].

Report: United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA): 'Humanitarian relief personnel, objects used for relief operations – including UNRWA schools in Gaza used as shelters – are protected under international law. 

'Whilst data on damage to UNRWA installations is according to preliminary information and subject to change based on further verification, particularly in those areas pending unexploded ordnance (UXO) clearance, UNRWA estimates that at least 103 installations have been damaged since 8 July 2014, the majority being UNRWA schools. There is also recorded damage to health centers, sanitation and social services facilities, and the UNRWA compound in Gaza City. Some of UNRWA installations were damaged on multiple occasions.' [Gaza Situation Report No. 37 August 15 2014; UNRWA] .

Hospitals; ambulances; rescue workers:

Excerpt of first-person accounts of an incident by ambulance emergency rescue workers:

Background: Mohammad Al-Abadlah, 32, a paramedic who worked for the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS), was killed on 25 July in Qarara by Israeli army gunfire when he was attempting to rescue an injured man stranded in an area controlled by the Israeli military. Hassan Al-Attal, 40, a colleague of Mohammad Al-Abadlah who was with him at the time and witnessed the shooting, told Amnesty International:

“On 25 July, my colleague Mohammad Al-Abadlah and I were tasked with reaching an injured man in Qarara...At one point while driving in the ambulance we were blocked by live electric wires on the road. We informed the Red Cross that the road was blocked and we could not cross. They asked us to try to cross somehow, but we told them we couldn’t. They then called the Israelis and told them about the wires blocking the road and how we were unable to cross. They got back to us saying the army says to get out of the car and cross on foot with our flashlights. So, Mohammad said to me ‘Let’s go, they agreed that we can go walking and collect the case from them directly’.

“We got out, we crossed about 10-12 metres and suddenly we were being fired at directly. My colleague screamed and said ‘I’ve been shot’. The shooting continued everywhere, so I could not pull him away or else I too would have got shot and fallen beside him – so I ran and sat in the ambulance. I called the station and told them we had been fired at and Mohammad was injured. The head of the centre came with two ambulances to try and save our colleague. When the colleagues got out to try and take Mohammed, they too were fired at. The head of the centre asked the Red Cross to ask for shooting to stop while we evacuated Mohammad. We brought him but sadly he died...'. 

Corroborating testimony, by Mohammad Ghazi Al-Hessy, head of the PRCS’s centre in Khan Younis, who received the call to rescue Mohammad and attended to it with his other colleagues, includes this: 

“When we received this call from the Red Cross. They said it was Israel that had requested the evacuation of the injured person...'.

 [Evidence of medical workers and facilities being targeted by Israeli forces in Gaza; Amnesty International report, August 7 2014];

Farms and food production facilities: 'The recent fighting has resulted in substantial direct damage to Gaza's 17,000 hectares of croplands as well as much of its agricultural infrastructure, including greenhouses, irrigation systems, animal farms, fodder stocks and fishing boats.' [Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations; August 14 2014];

Water, electricity and sewage infrastructure - targeted. [Under fire in Gaza and not a drop to drink; Kristen Chick; Christian Science Monitor; July 24 2014.]

Israel: Three civilians, 67 soldiers killed; one gas station hit;  damage to a few homes.  

EUs Baroness Ashton resign?: Toulouse, Gaza and All Children Who Suffer From Conflict

by Diane V. McLoughlin, March 23, 2012


Nile Gardiner, writing in The Telegraph (link, below,) argues that Baroness Ashton, EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, should resign for comments she made at the recent UNRWA conference, 'Palestine refugees in the changing Middle East.' (UNRWA: United Nations Relief and Work Agency.)

I disagree. Baroness Ashton should be commended.  She stated the following:

"We are gathered here because we have recognised the potential of the youth of Palestine. Against all the odds, they continue to learn, to work, to dream and aspire to a better future. And the days when we remember young people who have been killed in all sorts of terrible circumstances – the Belgian children having lost their lives in a terrible tragedy and when we think of what happened in Toulouse today, when we remember what happened in Norway a year ago, when we know what is happening in Syria, when we see what is happening in Gaza and Sderot and in different parts of the world – we remember young people and children who lose their lives. Here are young people who are asking not to be leaders of the future, but to be taken seriously as leaders of today. And it is to them that we should look and to them we should listen and it is to them that I pay tribute."

Mr. Gardiner writes that, 'The comments drew an angry response from Israeli leaders.'

Tough.  First of all, this suggests that these 'Israeli leaders' represent all Jewish opinion, when nothing could be further from the truth.  There are contemporary Jewish writers; philosophers; and political leaders; there are rabbis as well as Jewish historians, who argue for the civil liberties of all people in Israel-Palestine.  However, there are others who are not interested in equal rights in Israel-Palestine.  And the latter are a threat to the long-term stability of Israel.  They also contribute to the fear that they will  increase anti-Semitism for Jews throughout the world.

This excellent article by Jewish Voice for Peace's 'Muzzlewatch' helps bring context into the discussion. In early September, 2011, despite months in the planning between the Museum of Children's Art of Oakland, California (MOCHA) and Berkley California's Middle East Children's Alliance (MECA), a planned exhibit of Gaza children's art was abruptly cancelled, due to intense pressure brought to bear against it by several local Jewish groups.  The art depicts childrens' experiences during Israel's 2008-2009 assault on Gaza, known as 'Operation Cast Lead.' (Cancelling the exhibit probably did not have the intended effect. As evidenced here, it helped raised the exhibit's profile, instead.)

Below: From the exhibit, 'A Child's View From Gaza'  

These attempts to censor all discussion of the immense suffering daily being inflicted upon 1.5 million men, women and children in Gaza; that seeks to stifle all peaceful advocacy within civil society toward securing their freedom as well as clinching an end to the conflict; creates a pressure cooker of hopelessness, despair and frustrated rage.

Newspapers should be responsible enough not to provide a platform for anyone who would seem to insinuate that some children are of more intrinsic worth than others. I fail to see what other conclusion I am encouraged to reach, than this, from reading Mr. Gardiner's piece.

The public discourse is now far advanced from such ignorance regarding the oppression of the Palestinian people, as well as Gardiner's blatant pro-Israel bias that flies in the face of the facts. He trots out the tired propaganda that Israel is a "fully democratic government...which goes to extraordinary lengths to avoid civilian casualties"; both platitudes are proveably false. 

The fact of the matter is that deflecters in no way serve Israel's long-term interest, if her interest is peace, which I argue it is. Turning attention away from Israel's current deeply flawed and racist reality prolongs, rather than shortens, the conflict.   

Preceeding the catastrophic Toulouse outrage by days, an innocent twelve-year old Gaza boy was on his way to school one morning when an Israeli drone cut him down from above. His upper body was discovered in a search of the neighborhood when he didn't show up for school; it had been blown into some brush.  His poor mother is beyond consolation.

The suffering of children in all conflicts is clearly what the Baroness laments. But for the children of Gaza, this, apparently, is beyond the pale.

The now-deceased Toulouse shooting suspect is alleged to have committed his heinous acts to avenge the suffering of Palestinian children (as well as France's participation in the military occupation of Afghanistan.)  This is the reasoning of a deranged man.  One does not garner the world's sympathy for the atrocities your foe commits against you by committing atrocities. Such inexplicable acts only further the false claim that there are no partners for peace on the other side.
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Link:  Baroness Ashton should resign over her appalling remarks equating Toulouse with Gaza – Telegraph Blogs