Israel 'using food and medicines as weapons'

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

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

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

Says Costa Dabbagh, from Near East Council of Churches, a Christian Aid partner, "It is not acceptable for us to be waiting for food to come. We want to live freely with Israel and other countries in peace, we are not against any individual or government, but we are against imprisonment."

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

[Ekklesia]

Free Gaza protest successful

Israel agreed to allow two boats to dock in Gaza in what activists on board called a “historic occasion” that they vowed to turn into a “regular passage from Gaza to the outside world”. “Everybody is ecstatic,” said Jeff Halper, from aboard one of the two vessels, the 20-metre Free Gaza and the 18m Liberty, that set sail for Gaza on Friday from Cyprus. “We broke the siege,” he said. On Friday, the Israeli foreign ministry had issued a tough-worded statement warning the Free Gaza organisation, the group behind the action, that Israel would “make sure this provocation does not take place” and that “all options are being considered”. Reports from Gaza suggested the Israeli navy had deployed and could prevent the boats from reaching the strip. But late yesterday, Israel appeared to backtrack and said the 46 activists, carrying humanitarian aid including hearing aids for Palestinian children, could disembark in Gaza, where they were greeted by hundreds of cheering Palestinians. “I think it is a historic occasion,” Jeff Halper, a participating Israeli-Jewish activist, said just after the two boats entered Gazan waters. “I think it shows people power and I think it should give hope to people all over the world under oppression that there are people out there and you can achieve things.” Israel has led an international boycott of Gaza since Hamas seized power in the territory in June 2007. Trade crossing between Gaza and Israel are closed to all but basic humanitarian supplies, causing widespread shortages of fuel, electricity and basic goods in Gaza and decimating the local economy.

'Free Gaza' boats set sail from Cyprus

Despite Israeli objections and attempts to intervene, Cyprian authorities have given the go-ahead for two boats filled with humanitarian supplies and 60 international activists to set sail for the Gaza Strip. The boats took off at midnight Thursday.

The 'Free Gaza' movement has been collecting money and supplies since last year to allow the unprecedented blockade-breaking trip to move forward. As the sixty activists gathered in Cyprus two weeks ago, the Israeli government issued statements indicating that the Israeli navy would shoot the boats if they tried to bring the humanitarian aid to Gaza. In addition, activists on the boat have reported receiving death threats for their work.

The aim of the group is to bring much-needed medicine, medical supplies and food to the civilian population of Gaza, which has been suffering under an Israeli-imposed siege for over a year.

Tom Nelson, the Portland, Oregon-based lawyer for the group, says they are simply trying to expose the truth about Israel's targeting of civilians in Gaza.

[IMEMC]

Gaza poverty mounts despite Hamas-Israel truce

UN official John Ging, operation director of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), says, "The situation in the Gaza Strip continues to deteriorate and the number of poor people continues to increase one month after a truce has been reached”.

Following a truce brokered by Egypt between Israel and Gaza militant groups, which took effect on June 19, Israel has slightly eased the blockade imposed on the strip and allowed more amounts of food, fuels and raw materials into Gaza.

Ging announced that his international relief organization decided to offer 6.5 million U.S. dollars as an urgent aid to around 100,000 poor Gaza residents registered at UNRWA.

[Xinhua]

The Silent Violence of Gaza's Suffering

The world’s largest prison—Gaza prison with 1.5 million inmates, many of them starving, sick and penniless.

The humanitarian crisis brought about by Israeli government blockades that prevent food, medicine, fuel and other necessities from coming into this tiny enclave through international relief organizations.

The Israeli government is barring most of the trucks from entering Gaza to feed the nearly one million Palestinians depending on international relief, from groups such as the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). The loss of life from crumbling health care facilities, disastrous electricity cutoffs, gross malnutrition and contaminated drinking water from broken public water systems does not get totaled.

These are the children and their civilian adult relatives who expire in a silent violence of suffering that 98 percent of Congress avoids mentioning while extending billions of taxpayer dollars to Israel annually. UNRWA says “we are seeing evidence of the stunting of children, their growth is slowing.” Cancer patients are deprived of their chemotherapy, kidney patients are cut off from dialysis treatments and premature babies cannot receive blood-clotting medications.

The misery, mortality and morbidity worsens day by day. Here is how the commissioner-general of UNRWA sums it up, “Gaza is on the threshold of becoming the first territory to be intentionally reduced to a state of abject destitution, with the knowledge, acquiescence and-some would say-encouragement of the international community.”

[Excerpt of an article by Ralph Nader]

More than 50% of Gaza casualties weren't militants

The Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem said in a statement that more than half of the Palestinians killed in the Gaza Strip in operations in recent days did not take an active part in the fighting.

This statement came after the IDF Chief of Staff issued a statement saying that 90 percent of those killed were in fact armed militants.

According to data gathered by B'Tselem, 106 Palestinians were killed between February 27 and March 3. Fifty four of them were civilians who didn't take part in the fighting, and 25 were under 18, the statement said.

B'Tselem expressed concern over the high number of civilians, especially children, who have been killed recently in the Gaza Strip. "Israel has a right to defend its citizens from rockets, which are in themselves a war crime, and it is what it must do," the organization wrote. "Israel must do so within the confines of the law, which must conform to the criteria of differentiation and proportionality as defined by international humanitarian law."

[Haaretz]