What is going on in the Gaza Strip – By Rashid A. Shahin

I am a Palestinian writer and usually write in Arabic. I rarely write in English or address foreigners, but since things are worsening in the Palestinian Territories especially in the Gaza Strip, I thought it would be a good idea to write an article in which I highlight on what is going on in this part of the world and that should be directed to the non Arabic speaking readers.

I could present so many photos which reflect the brutality of the Israelis and their practices against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, but since these photos are so painful I prefer not to show them. If anyone is interested in seeing them, they can contact me on my e-mail address below and ask for them, and I will be glad to send them through.

What was behind the idea of this article is that I have received so many e-mails, photos and statistics about the miserable situation the Palestinian people are living in the Occupied Territories.

I will reproduce some of the statistics which a Swiss friend sent to me through which you people out there can imagine how the Israelis are making the Palestinian lives beyond imagination.

Actually I don’t know if you out there know that the Gaza borders are controlled by Israel and have been mostly closed since January 2006. This means nothing goes in or out unless the Israelis say so, including human beings, food, fuel, medical supplies, press coverage, educational materials etc.

According to a December 2007 report by Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP), a British charity based in London, 1.5 million People live in the Gaza Strip and over a million of these are refugees. Over 80% live below the poverty line, with 1.2 million people in Gaza dependent on food handouts.
Only 41% of Gaza’s food import needs are currently being met.

Just these few facts are enough to show how bad and tragic the situation is in the Strip.

Moreover, the Palestinian Health Ministry says there are no stocks left of 85 essential medicines, including chemotherapy drugs, strong antibiotics and several psychiatric drugs. For a further 138 drugs there are only stocks for three months at most. Supplies of nitrous oxide for surgical anaesthesia will run out in two weeks.

The Map statistics also revealed that 17.5% of patients who have requested access to East Jerusalem, Israel or abroad for emergency or chronic medical treatment have been denied permits since June 2007.

In October 2007, the public provider of water and sanitation services received 50% of the amount of fuel it needs to operate its wells, pumping stations and treatment plants. As a result, 210,000 people are able to access drinking water supplies for only one to two hours a day.

But how were things during the month of April 2008?
As if it couldn’t get any worse…
Israel has slowly been decreasing the amount of fuel being let into Gaza over the past few months to critical levels. At this moment in time NO FUEL has been allowed in to Gaza for the last 8 days, this includes cooking gas.

Not only does this affect cars, so there is no transport but more importantly the electricity plant needs fuel to provide electricity to civilian homes in Gaza as well as the hospitals. Frequent power cuts occur and can last up to 12 hours. The hospitals are in constant crisis and only have a limited supply of emergency fuel. Approximately 70% of ambulances are grounded due to a lack of fuel.

The head of Gaza’s main power plant has warned it will have to halt electricity supplies to some 500,000 people unless Israel resumes fuel shipments there.

Even the fishermen have not been able to take their boats out fishing for two months due to the shortage of fuel. Fishing is one of the only sustainable food sources within Gaza. There is also a lack of fuel to power the sewage plant that cleans the raw sewage, so it is being dumped right into the sea. Israel has given Gaza seven nautical miles to fish in, but due to the raw sewage being dumped, they can no longer fish there.

If we add to this frequent and random air strikes by the Israeli military, Palestinians in Gaza are living in chronic emergency conditions. In fact Israel has created something similar to an open prison.

Israel controls the borders and therefore has to supply basic human rights for the people within those borders. And since Israel is responsible for supplying the Strip with all the needed items and supplies – as an occupying force- “it is useless to speak about the disengagement since Israel is closing the area from land and sea” they should do so and should facilitate the Palestinians life in that area. From a legal point of view they should do so. Palestinians basic human rights are being violated. The Palestinian people rely heavily on aid from charity organizations. The international community must put pressure on Israel to come into line with UN regulations on human rights.

I believe the Palestinians have either been forgotten or the international community is turning a blind eye. Most of the press coverage of Gaza is about militant activity and not about the average person who is living there. It seems that people around the world have forgotten that this conflict involves innocent people’s lives. I don’t want to talk here about where the Palestinian refugees came from and who caused their problem in the first place as this is another issue and is something that can be discussed in another story or article.

The people in Gaza don’t want to rely on aid or charity. They want to work, to build an economy and to have opportunities, but Israel is ensuring none of this can happen. The world must remember that not everyone in the Gaza Strip is a militant, just as not every football supporter is a hooligan. We should remember that not all Irish people were part of the IRA. The people of Gaza are just like you out there, men, women and children with hopes and aspirations.

Ref: Maan, by Rashid A. Shahin
***Rashid A. Shahin- a Palestinian writer and journalist based in Bethlehem and can be contacted at Sadapril2003@hotmail.com

Beit Hanoun families flee Israeli onslaught

Gaza – Ma’an – Dozens of Palestinian families from the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun left their apartments in tower number one at the An-Nada neighborhood to tower number 25 trying to find shelter from Israeli shelling.

The coordinator of the local committee for countering Israeli attacks, Sabir Za’aneen said he saw dozens of women and children leaving their apartments and screaming as they headed towards tower number 25. He explained that they were seeking shelter after shrapnel of Israeli shells and gunshots broke the windows of their apartments.

He also claimed that the Israeli soldiers deliberately fired at water tanks on the rooftops of the buildings as well as electricity cables.

Seven people, including a mother and her four young children, were killed by Israeli fire in Beit Hanoun earlier on Monday.

Ref: Maan

ANALYSIS / Hurry up and shoot before the cease-fire

The Israel Defense Forces avoided accepting any form of responsibility for the death of Miyasar Abu Muatak and her four young children in a shanty neighborhood of Beit Hanun Monday. According to the army’s version, the mother and children were not killed by two missiles fired from an aircraft, as the Palestinians maintain, but as a result of “secondary explosions.” The missiles were aimed at two Islamic Jihad militants that had been identified carrying large bags, which are believed to have included explosive devices. As a result of the blast, the shed which was the family’s home was destroyed. Defense Minister Ehud Barak did not bother with the details. As far as he was concerned, he said Monday, only Hamas – whose gunmen operate among civilians – are responsible for the death of “uninvolved civilians.”

The Israeli version relies on descriptions by Givati Brigade officers, who called in the aircraft, and on photos of the damage. Also important is the type of munitions that Israel has deployed in recent years in the Gaza Strip. They are lethal, but more precise, so their collateral damage is relatively limited. The damage evident at the site of the killing is much more like that caused by the detonation of a large explosive device.

It is hard to imagine that the army, after seven and a half years of the second intifada, does not appreciate the need to immediately respond in the media. Most likely is that photos, if it has them, do not provide unequivocal evidence to boost the IDF’s claims.

It is also doubtful whether the release of photographs will make a difference. The Hamas media warned Monday of an Israeli “campaign to exterminate the Palestinian people.” The scenes from Beit Hanun offered perfect proof as far as the radical Islamic group is concerned. The foreign media, who only emerge from their slumber after scenes like this, are also certain who is responsible for the killing of women and children: Israel.

Even if the Palestinian version is debatable, there have been plenty of precedents in the Strip: from the killing of the seven members of the Ghalia family on the Gaza beach in June 2006 (responsibility for which Israel denied), to the artillery barrage that killed 19 civilians in Beit Hanun in November that year.

Nonetheless, it is not at all certain that Monday’s killing will affect the cease-fire negotiations. The Hamas political leadership is very keen to achieve a hudna, a cease-fire, even though the group’s military wing has reservations. It is possible that Hamas will make do with the Qassam barrages it fired Monday as the appropriate Palestinian response to the incident. Its real test will be its ability to impose its will on the smaller factions, and Tuesday will be critical in signaling which way the situation may go. Representatives of Hamas and the smaller Palestinian factions are scheduled to meet in Cairo with representatives of Egyptian intelligence.

For the time being the IDF is behaving as if there is no hudna on the horizon. The attacks inside the Strip continue as usual, based on the argument that a cease-fire is not effective and the “ticking bombs” – imminent terrorist attacks – are still ticking. Intelligence seems to back this position. But from a diplomatic point of view, it is difficult to comprehend Israel’s stance: Even if a cease-fire collapses, as the senior officers argue, why not allow the Palestinians to be the ones who break it?

Israel was drawn into a hudna after Egyptian pressure and the government’s concerns that a major ground operation in Gaza would result in heavy IDF casualties. But the government is not pleased with the idea of a cease-fire: It seems there is a zero-sum game mentality dominating the political leadership. After all, they argue, if Hamas is so desperate for a cease-fire, it can’t be a good thing for Israel. Khaled Meshal, the head of the Hamas politburo in Damascus, did nothing to assuage Israel’s concerns on Sunday, when he declared that any cease-fire will be a temporary hiatus in the fighting, which will allow Hamas to strengthen its ranks for the next confrontation. It is therefore no wonder that the IDF is pushing to carry out as many strikes as possible before a cease-fire

Ref: Haartez

Settlers to move into E. J’lem police HQ

Based on an agreement signed with former police commissioner Moshe Karadi, right-wing settlers will take up residence in a group of buildings in Jerusalem’s predominantly Arab neighborhood Ras al-Amud in the next few days. The building had hitherto served as the Samaria and Judea District Police headquarters.

The buildings are slated to become the nucleus of a new Jewish neighborhood in the so-called Holy Basin area, the fate of which is supposed to be decided in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

Police officials said yesterday that work began before Pesach on vacating the place, and that in the coming days they will finish moving the offices to a new facility built in controversial Area E1, which connects Jerusalem with Ma’aleh Adumim.

Concurrently, right-wing settler groups filed a request with the Jerusalem Planning and Construction Committee a few days ago to approve construction of a new neighborhood of 110 housing units on the vacated site.

The request states that the new neighborhood, Ma’aleh David, is intended to link up with the Ma’aleh Zeitim neighborhood, which was built in the heart of Ras al-Amud by tycoon Irving Moskowitz, with the encouragement of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert while he was mayor of Jerusalem.

In all, the neighborhoods of Ma’aleh David and Ma’aleh Zeitim are projected to house around 250 Jewish families in an area with 14,000 Arab residents.

Nadav Shragai, writing in Haaretz on January 8, reported that the right-wing groups active in “redeeming Jerusalem” by buying up Arab land were negotiating with the Bukharan community committee to purchase the land and building that housed the police’s Samaria and Judea District headquarters, which were acquired by the committee during Ottoman rule.

Noga Ben David, one of the leaders of the community, declined yesterday to discuss whether right-wing settler groups are behind the deal, saying he prefers to remain silent until the police vacate the premises.

Under the contract the police signed with the Bukharan community in July 2005, a copy of which was obtained by Haaretz, the community committee undertakes to apply to the Civil Administration and arrange for 14 dunams of land to be allocated in Area E1 for building a replacement building for the police. The committee undertook to plan the replacement building and surrounding development at its own expense.

This barter arrangement allowed the police to finance the new headquarters while bypassing the Budget Law.

The Palestinian Authority’s chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, told Haaretz yesterday that allowing right-wing settler groups to move into the old police station in Ras Al-Amud, as the nucleus for a new neighborhood, would undermine the peace talks.

As for the new police station in E1, strong American objections have kept Israeli governments in recent years from implementing the E1 plan, which effectively envisions annexing to Jerusalem a wide swath of land on the eastern side of the Green Line.

The PA has persuaded the Americans that Israeli construction in that area would slice the West Bank in two, making a contiguous Palestinian state impossible. The Americans have made it clear during the current round of peace talks that they are opposed to altering the status quo in Jerusalem.

For this reason, the inauguration of the new police station was postponed at the last minute on the eve of the last visit by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Erekat, who accompanied PA President Mahmoud Abbas on his visit to the United States last weekend, said that President Bush assured them he would object to any attempt to turn the Palestinian state into “Swiss cheese.”

The land on which the police station is located has a convoluted history: It was expropriated for “public purposes” by the Jordanian government, conquered by Israel in the Six-Day War, then legally handed over to the Israel Lands Administration, and finally given to the police – “for public purposes.”

Asked on what authority the police had handed over land it received from the ILA to an entity that designates it for residential construction in a sensitive area, the Public Security Ministry said: “At issue is an agreement that was signed with the Israel Lands Administration, the police and the Bukharan community’s endowment, whose rights to the land in Ras al-Amud were recognized by the court. In a circular agreement, the endowment undertook to build a new building for the district headquarters in return for the old headquarters.”

No response was received from the ILA before press time.

Ref: Haaretz

Sketch from “Iraq”

The “New” Pilgrims

The biggest threat to the future of the Jewish people is no longer anti-Semitism or genocidal war, but rather apathy and loss of identity among Jews themselves. By facilitating the visits of thousands of young Diaspora Jews to Israel, the Birthright Israel program is reviving a traditional Jewish custom to meet these modern challenges – pilgrimage to the holy land.

Since it began in the winter of 2000, Birthright has brought over 160,000 Jews, aged 18-26 from 52 countries to Israel, offering fully subsidized 10-day visits. These voyages of discovery have a refreshing message for the Jewish communities in the Diaspora, as well as in Israel, and could radically change the way Jews think about themselves. This, in turn, could help reverse the insidious trends that threaten the Jewish future.

Pilgrimage is a set of individual acts, which culminate in a mass movement. It creates a special time framework in which unique experiences occur. Over the generations, pilgrims have tended to dress up in distinctive costumes, signifying an alteration in their existential state. The pilgrimage is to a venerated site, takes place at a defined time and has unique ritualistic practices. The pilgrims and the society they come from and to which they return see the pilgrimage as outside the compass of their daily routine. It has its own system of time and space, its own social connections and patterns of behavior, known in the literature as “liminality.”

Those who return from a pilgrimage are accorded a special status in society, and are expected to conduct themselves in an exemplary manner. They transform the experience they underwent into a new plane of being. In many ways, the pilgrimage is a consciousness-altering experience.

However different Birthright, which emphasizes fun as much as anything else, may be to traditional pilgrimage, it has many of the same characteristics. It is also a movement of individuals that surges into a mass wave. The preparation, the special conduct before, during and after the journey ensure a similar though modern ritual. It too has the capacity to change attitudes and patterns of behavior in the routine worlds – in our case, in the Diaspora and in Israel.

To gain as much as possible from the Birthright program, we should examine how to intensify the “born-again” experience for the participants from the Diaspora. The goal should be a profound change in consciousness caused by the experiences they encounter on the journey. This kind of personal change, which might seem like a mutation of the personal identity gene, is a process that can be guided by carefully crafted educational content.

Ref: Jersualem Post
Prof. Menahem Ben-Sasson of Kadima is Chairman of the Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee.

Read also. israel-and-the-refugees-fifty-nine-years-of-dispossession

Demography – the need to have a large majority of Jews to sustain a Jewish state – has certainly been a key concern for Israel since its foundation.
Under a 1947 UN-sanctioned plan to partition Palestine, Israel would have been established on 55% of the former territory, without a significant transfer of population, the Jews in the territory would have scarcely have exceeded the Arab population there.
The 1948 war ended with Israel in control of 78% of the former Palestine, with a Jewish-Arab ratio of 6:1.
The equation brought security for Jewish Israelis, but emptied hundreds of Palestinian villages and towns of 700,000 inhabitants – the kernel of the Palestinian refugee problem today.
With the justification of not wanting to jeopardise its Jewish majority, Israel has kept Palestinian refugees and their descendants out of negotiations on a settlement to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Ref: Obstacles to peace

World Bank: Israel limits impact of aid to Palestinians

Despite $7.7 billion in aid pledged to Palestinians, economic growth in PA muted due to Israeli-imposed restrictions on travel and trade, new World Bank survey reveals. Figures show 96% of industrial operations in Gaza suspended

Billions of aid dollars pledged to the Palestinians to bolster peace talks with Israel are having a muted economic impact because of Israeli restrictions on travel and trade, the World Bank said on Sunday.

Confidence Crisis
Abbas doubts deal with Israel possible this year / Reuters
Palestinian leader skeptical following US visit but vows to ‘negotiate until very end’
Full Story
The lending agency told donor nations in a report that per capita income in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in 2008 would be static, if not lower, despite the $7.7 billion in aid pledged to the Palestinians in December.

The World Bank said modest gains in economic growth in the occupied West Bank, where western-backed President Mahmoud Abbas’ government holds sway, were not sufficient to offset the “severe contraction” seen in Hamas-controlled Gaza.

Israel tightened its blockade of the Gaza Strip after the Islamist group’s takeover in June from more secular Fatah forces loyal to Abbas.

“While the PA (Palestinian Authority) has moved ahead with its economic reforms, albeit slowly, there has been little progress on relaxing movement and access constraints,” the bank said in the report, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters.

The World Bank said the impact of these restrictions, including hundreds of checkpoints and roadblocks in the West Bank, “cannot be overestimated.”

Industrial operations suspended
Western aid, frozen after Hamas won control of the Palestinian Authority in January 2006 elections, has since resumed to Abbas’ government to bolster final-status peace talks launched with Israel in November.

But those talks have shown little sign of progress and Israel has balked at removing major West Bank checkpoints and roadblocks, arguing that they are necessary to stop suicide bombers from reaching its cities. Palestinians call the obstacles collective punishment.

While the International Monetary Fund has projected growth of 3% in 2008, the World Bank said: “Taking into account population growth, it can be concluded that under the current movement and access restrictions, per capita incomes will drop or remain the same.”

The World Bank said Israel’s tightened cordon of the Gaza Strip has “considerably eroded whatever private sector backbone remained in the economy, and in a manner that is progressively more difficult to reverse.”

The bank, citing business associations in Gaza, said the current restrictions have led to the suspension of 96% of Gaza’s industrial operations.

Following a recent visit by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Israel announced plans to remove 61 barriers in the West Bank. But a UN survey subsequently found that only 44 of the 61 obstacles had been removed and that most of them were of little to no significance.

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