Israel has arrested 468 Palestinians in Hebron since the beginning of the year
Middle East Monitor | 17 June 2010
A human rights report published by the Palestinian ‘Prisoner’s Forum’ has reported that since the beginning of 2010, Israeli Occupation Forces have ‘detained approximately 468 Palestinian citizens from the governorate of Hebron in the southern West Bank.
The report highlighted the fact that during the first half of this year, the Israeli forces launched a widespread campaign of arrests in various regions of Hebron. The campaign resulted in the detention of 468 individuals including 90 children, 110 students and 58 ill individuals.
The Prisoner’s Forum confirmed that the Israeli authorities had transferred 33 prisoners to administrative detention and sent 70 others to Ashkelon Central Prison. Additionally, another 50 detainees were transferred to al-Maskubiyya, al-Jamlah and Petah Tikva prisons.
The report also drew attention to the fact that Israeli military checkpoints “play a significant role in the process of targeting and detaining Palestinian citizens as they move around” and highlighted the fact that a large number of prisoners and detainees were arrested near these barriers.
Israel Closes Gaza Trade Crossings
By Saed Bannoura – IMEMC & Agencies – June 19, 2010
Despite Israel’s Thursday decision to “ease restrictions on Gaza”, the Israeli Authorities closed all trade crossings leading to the coastal region. The closure, unless extended, will last until Sunday.
Fattouh of the Border Crossings Authority in Gaza, said that Israel declared the crossings open on Thursday and shut them down Friday, and added that Israel allowed the entry of 200 sorts of goods in recent weeks, while most goods allowed into Gaza are food products in addition to wood, aluminum and glass.
Fattouh added that the allowed goods do not fill the real need in the Gaza Strip as construction materials are still not allowed into Gaza, in addition to materials needed for factories and other basic supplies.
Israel recently agreed to allow the entry of stationary supplies for students, cooking tools, toys for children and some types of furniture.
WHO: Medical equipment still banned from Gaza
Ma’an – 18/06/2010
Bethlehem: Spare medical parts and replacements are, in practice, barred from entry into Gaza, or only arrive “after great delays,” a World Health Organization spokesman told Ma’an on Friday.
Following the release of a report from the WHO on Gaza City’s Ash-Shifa Hospital, the spokesman emphasized that beyond the impeded access to parts, engineers are unable to enter Gaza to service the equipment. “Life saving equipment worth hundreds of thousands of dollars has been held up in Ramallah for over six months,” the statement said.
In the WHO’s profile, it says that most of the medical diagnostic equipment in Ash-Shifa hospital, a 560-bed facility in Gaza City, remains out of order. The CT scan, MRI, mammography, endoscope and gastroscope, a statement said, have all been waiting for service or spare parts for months, in some cases years.
The blockade Israel has imposed on the territory for the past three years is affecting the functioning of medical equipment threefold, the report found, with prohibitions, delays, and lack of qualified service personnel and power cuts/surges damaging delicate machines.
The CT scanner, used to diagnose cancers, cardiovascular disease, appendicitis, and dozens of other conditions, has only been running from parts borrowed from other facilities, and, the WHO said, its “radiation levels are above international norms. Without an alternative, however, it is used about 15 times a day for emergencies.”
According to the WHO report, a replacement machine is available in a warehouse in Ramallah, only “80 kilometres from Gaza city as the crow flies,” the report noted, adding “it has been lying there for over six months,” but has yet to receive clearance from Israeli crossings officials.
WHO officials say “patients with chronic diseases are particularly hard hit by the lack of appropriate equipment,” particularly the 200 odd dialysis patients served three times every week. A lack of dialysis machines means patients receive only half their necessary treatment, exposing them to severe health risks, while others are asked to come in for treatment during the late hours of the night and early morning, the statement reported.
Abbas Tells US Envoy Blockade Must Be Lifted
Al-Manar TV – 18/06/2010
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and US special envoy George Mitchell met in Ramallah Friday afternoon and discussed the peace process between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
The meeting focused on the progress of proximity talks between the two parties. Top PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat said that Abbas requested that Mitchell provide clarifications on reports that Israel plans to build 1,600 housing units in the occupied east Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo.
Erekat said Mitchell told Abbas that the US promise to the Palestinians that there would be no further construction in the settlements was still valid.
Erekat added that Abbas demanded that the US Administration work to lift the siege on the Gaza Strip and ensure that all the basic needs of the Strip’s population are met. The negotiator said Abbas demanded that the movement of goods between the Strip and the West Bank be permitted, and said the blockade is a form of collective punishment that cannot continue.
He stressed that all six crossings into Gaza should be opened and said reports of easement are not enough and the siege should be completely lifted.
“President Abbas insisted during the meeting on the need for a continuation of US efforts to achieve the complete end of the Gaza blockade,” his spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina told AFP following talks in Ramallah, the political capital of the occupied West Bank.
Mitchell met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday and was due in Egypt on Saturday for talks with its leaders.
Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif also made similar statements hours before the Abbas-Mitchell meeting. “Israel must lift its blockade on the Gaza Strip,” he said, stressing that his country has done its part by re-opening the Rafah crossing after three years of closure.
Argentina seeking justice for “systematic” crimes
By Kurt Fernández | Pulse Media | June 17, 2010
While some nations are known to take advantage of global distraction by the World Cup in order to perpetrate human rights violations, Argentina is pressing ahead in its efforts to prosecute crimes against humanity committed during the Guerra Sucia.
In the first of eight major human rights trials currently getting underway, a three-judge panel in Buenos Aires took up a case on June 3 in which six former military and intelligence officials from the 1976-83 dictatorship are charged with the illegal kidnap, torture, and murder of suspected political opponents from Uruguay, Chile, and Cuba.
The victims were among the 30,000 or so opponents of the Argentine regime who were disappeared during the Dirty War.
The case is “Automotores Orletti,” named for the Buenos Aires auto repair shop the dictatorship used as a ghastly clandestine “detention center.” One of many such facilities across the country, its kidnap victims were tortured with repair shop machinery and tools.
As most of the victims of this particular detention center were foreigners, Automotores Orletti serves to highlight the regional context of the Dirty War – part of a nearly continent-wide war waged on Communism by South America’s dictators at the encouragement of the United States government.
Operation Condor, named for the South American bird of prey, produced a solid block of state terrorism in which Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Uruguay, and Paraguay worked in concert to illegally eliminate political opponents anywhere they might be. The best known casualty was Orlando Letelier, former Chilean chancellor under President Salvador Allende, assassinated in Washington, D.C., in 1976 during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.
The Argentine officials accused in the Automotores Orletti case include Néstor Guillamondegui, a former vice commodore of the air force, Rubén Visuara, a former army colonel, and Eduardo Cabanillas, an ex army division general.
Also charged are three former intelligence officials: Honorio Martínez Ruiz, Raúl Guglielminetti, and Eduardo Ruffo.
The trial got off to a ponderous start with the “lectura,” a reading of detailed victims’ testimony and charges against the accused. Court officials, in their rush to get through the mountain of material, barely stopped to take a breath for hours and days on end. The speed of delivery rendered most of the material gibberish yet the standard Dirty War criteria stood out: sequestration, property theft, sadistic and often perverse torture, trafficking in newborns, and sometimes death.
The Automotores Orletti trial is being held in a stark multiple use room in the basement of the court building. The railroad car-shaped room is divided in half by a glass barrier, on one side of which sit the judges, lawyers, and accused. The testimony of kidnapping, torture, and murder is bone chilling and strangely out of sync with the displays of affection going back and forth between the accused and their elegant wives on the other side of the glass, who wave and blow kisses in between gossiping and fussing amongst themselves.
The trial, which seeks justice for 65 victims of alleged crimes, picks up again June 18, when live testimony could begin, a clerk for the court told me on June 11.
Other significant trials on the four-month horizon target top military and police officials of the dictatorship era in the cities of Córdoba, Mendoza, Rosario, Santa Fe, and Resistencia. They culminate in a trial scheduled to commence September 20 in Buenos Aires in which prosecutors will try to link former military dictator Jorge Rafael Videla – already serving life in prison for other Dirty War convictions – and others to a “systemic plan” to steal children from their sequestered parents and give them to families considered worthy. The plan will test whether top officials could be considered as responsables remotos, or indirectly responsible, according to a June 1 press notice from the judicial information center of the federal court system. The full release [in Spanish] describes the trials and other cases underway as well as convictions obtained so far in 2010.
As for other major human rights developments expected soon, Julio Alberto Poch – alleged to have been involved in death flights of some 950 detainees – should soon learn whether a federal judge has found sufficient evidence to try him or whether he should be freed.
A possible breakthrough also is expected in a case involving the adopted children of wealthy Buenos Aires newspaper publisher Ernestina Herrera de Noble, suspected of accepting “orphans” who were stolen from their parents during the Dirty War. The children, Marcela and Felipe Noble Herrera, resisted cooperating with the judicial system, but have been forced to relinquish clothing for DNA tests to determine if they can be connected with their birth parents.
Haaretz: Officers Shot Palestinian Lying On Ground
By Saed Bannoura – IMEMC News – June 16, 2010
The official Israeli version of an incident last Friday, in which a Palestinian motorist from East Jerusalem was killed by Israeli border officers after a motor vehicle accident, has been challenged by a new report released today by the Israeli paper Haaretz.
Ziad Jilani (photo from haaretz)
According to the new report, witnesses say that the motorist accidentally hit a group of Israeli border officers walking on the road, and was then killed in revenge by the other officers.
The witnesses reported that the motorist, 39-year old Ziad Jilani, was lying prone on the ground when the officers shot him in the face at point-bank range after kicking him in the head.
The incident took place in the Wadi Joz neighborhood, an area of increased tension since Israeli authorities declared it to be part of a planned expansion of Jewish settlements in what has historically been a Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem.
According to witnesses, a number of Israeli border officers on horseback and on foot entered the Palestinian neighborhood on Friday afternoon as Muslim prayers were getting out, creating a tense situation in the midst of heavy traffic. Jilani was driving along the heavily-trafficked road when some Palestinian youth began throwing stones at the officers.
Two witnesses said they saw one of the stones hit Jilani’s front windshield, causing him to swerve to the left and hit the officers. The officers began firing at Jilani, who drove away and pulled into an alley nearby, where they continued to pursue him, firing their weapons.
A witness who lives along the alley said she saw the vehicle pull in, and saw Jilani get out with the officers close behind him. She told a reporter from Haaretz, “There was shooting and I started to scream. My mother ran toward me and threw me to the ground. Everything happened within seconds. I realized he wasn’t walking normally, and saw the shattered windshield of the car, maybe from a stone. He ran until he fell over. He got out of the car, and they came after him. Not just one of them shot, but many of them, and then they started yelling in Hebrew for people to go back into their homes.” She said she saw the officers kicking Jilani in the head and then shooting him twice with rifles at close range, killing him.
A spokesman for the border police refused to comment on the eyewitness reports, instead claiming that the striking of the officers was an intentional act by Jilani, and that “Individuals have been killed and dozens wounded in vehicle attacks in Jerusalem between 2008 and 2009 … All of those attacks were committed by East Jerusalem residents, and in each case those close to the perpetrators described the incidents as ‘accidents.’”
Jilani was married with three daughters. His widow is a US citizen.
B’tselem: Gaza, 95% of factories are closed, 93% of water is polluted
By Haitham Sabbah • June 14th, 2010
Most of Gaza’s factories have closed and its water is polluted as a result of Israel’s siege policy, according to a new report being released today by the Israeli Human Rights group – B’tselem.
The siege policy has “led to economic collapse in Gaza,” B’tselem noted in a 44-page report (PDF) that looked at Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem during the period from January 2009 to the end of April 2010.
Following is a summery of this report:
- The prohibition on bringing in raw materials and exports into Gaza, which has been in place since Hamas’s takeover of the Strip in June 2007, forced 95 percent of the factories and workshops in the area to close.
- Before 2007, 4,000 types of goods were let into Gaza, compared with less than 150 that come in now. Among the restricted items are building materials such as iron and cement, which are needed to rebuild the 3,500 homes destroyed during last Israeli assault on Gaza – Operation Cast Lead.
- The quantity of goods that comes through the crossings is less than one-quarter of what entered prior to the siege.
- Before 2007, 70 trucks laden with export goods such as furniture, clothing and produce left Gaza daily for Israel. Now, only the export of strawberries and flowers to Europe is allowed in “certain instances”. Goods are coming into Gaza through a system of tunnels set up under the border with Egypt, although the system is not enough to revive Gaza’s economy.
- Electricity is a problem in Gaza. 98% of the residents suffer from blackouts ranging from eight to ten hours a day, while the remaining 2% do not receive any electricity at all.
- The power outages due to lack of fuel and spare parts have prevented the proper operation of wells and desalination plants.
- At the end of 2009, studies showed that 93% percent of the Gaza Strip’s water was polluted, with high quantities of chloride and nitrates.
- “The water supply is defective and thousands of residents are not even connected to the water grid. Waste treatment has also been affected. Every day, some 100,000 cubic meters of untreated or partially untreated waste-water flow into the sea.”
- A lack of pesticides and spare parts for irrigation systems makes it hard for farmers. Those with land near the border with Israel can no longer farm because access is forbidden or restricted, and those who violate these orders risk being shot.
- Fisherman cannot go out farther than three nautical miles, which limits the Strip’s fish supply.
- The number of Palestinian fatalities at the hands of the IOF dropped from 456 in 2008 to 83 from January 21, 2009, through the end of April 2010. These numbers do not include Palestinian deaths that occurred during Operation Cast Lead.
- The report noted that Israel demolitions had continued in Area C of the West Bank, where from January 2009 to the end of April 2010, the occupation forces had destroyed 44 residential structures. The demolitions left 317 Palestinians homeless.
- In 2009, the Jerusalem Municipality demolished 48 buildings in east Jerusalem. The demolitions left 247 Palestinians homeless.
- The report notes that the IOF had not stop building settlements and no outposts been removed.
- According to the report, very few IOF or police investigations into allegations of wrongdoing against Palestinians had actually lead to convictions. From the start of the second intifada in September 2000 to the end of April 2010, B’tselem reported 255 cases of violence to the military advocate-general’s office. Only 11 indictments were filed, and one of those was canceled.
- During that same period, B’tselem turned to the Justice Ministry’s Police Investigation Department concerning 180 cases of violence, but only 12 indictments were filed.
- Since September 2000, B’tselem has submitted 220 complaints to the Israel Police, demanding investigations of cases where Israelis harmed Palestinians or damaged their property. Only nine of these complaints resulted in indictments.
B’tselem executive director Jessica Montell said that the report was being released to mark “the 43rd anniversary” of the end of the Six Day War, which marked “the beginning” of Israel’s occupation.
“The ongoing occupation both violates” Palestinian rights and “poses clear dangers for Israel’s democracy,” Montell said. “For this reason we as Israelis must demand accountability for actions taken in our name in the occupied territories and work to change in policies that infringe human rights.”
ICRC: Gaza closure must be lifted
The hardship faced by Gaza’s 1.5 million people cannot be addressed by providing humanitarian aid. The only sustainable solution is to lift the closure.
ICRC News Release | June 14, 2010
The serious incidents that took place on 31 May between Israeli forces and activists on a flotilla heading for Gaza once again put the spotlight on the acute hardship faced by the population in the Gaza Strip.
As the ICRC has stressed repeatedly, the dire situation in Gaza cannot be resolved by providing humanitarian aid. The closure imposed on the Gaza Strip is about to enter its fourth year, choking off any real possibility of economic development. Gazans continue to suffer from unemployment, poverty and warfare, while the quality of Gaza’s health care system has reached an all-time low.
The whole of Gaza’s civilian population is being punished for acts for which they bear no responsibility. The closure therefore constitutes a collective punishment imposed in clear violation of Israel’s obligations under international humanitarian law.
“The closure is having a devastating impact on the 1.5 million people living in Gaza”, said Béatrice Mégevand-Roggo, the ICRC’s head of operations for the Middle East. “That is why we are urging Israel to put an end to this closure and call upon all those who have an influence on the situation, including Hamas, to do their utmost to help Gaza’s civilian population. Israel’s right to deal with its legitimate security concerns must be balanced against the Palestinians’ right to live normal, dignified lives.”
The international community has to do its part to ensure that repeated appeals by States and international organizations to lift the closure are finally heeded.
Under international humanitarian law, Israel must ensure that the basic needs of Gazans, including adequate health care, are met. The Palestinian authorities, for their part, must do everything within their power to provide proper health care, supply electricity and maintain infrastructure for Gaza’s people.
Furthermore, all States have an obligation to allow and facilitate rapid and unimpeded passage of all relief consignments, equipment and personnel.
Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit is about to enter his fifth year in captivity. Hamas has continued to rebuff the ICRC’s requests to let it visit Gilad Shalit. In violation of international humanitarian law, it has also refused to allow him to get in touch with his family. The ICRC again urges those detaining Gilad Shalit to grant him the regular contact with his family to which he is entitled. It also reiterates that those detaining him have an obligation to ensure that he is well treated and that his living conditions are humane and dignified. *
Ruined livelihoods
Although about 80 types of goods are now allowed into Gaza – twice as many as a year ago –over 4,000 items could be brought in prior to the closure. Generally, the price of goods has increased while their quality has dropped – this is one consequence of the largely unregulated trade conducted through the tunnels that have been dug under the Gaza-Egypt border to circumvent the closure.
Fertile farmland located close to the border fence has been turned into a wasteland by ongoing hostilities, affecting people’s livelihoods in many rural communities. The buffer zone imposed by Israel extends in practice over one kilometre into the Gaza Strip, covering a total area of about 50 square kilometres that is host to nearly a third of Gaza’s farmland and a large share of its livestock. Agricultural activities in the area are hampered by security conditions. Israel’s enforcement of the buffer zone and frequent hostilities have resulted not only in civilian casualties and the destruction of civilian property but also in the impoverishment and displacement of numerous families.
Gaza’s fishermen have been greatly affected by successive reductions imposed by Israel on the size of the fishing grounds they are allowed to exploit. The latest restriction to three nautical miles has cut down both the quantity and quality of the catch. As a result, nearly 90% of Gaza’s 4000 fishermen are now considered either poor (with a monthly income of between 100 and 190 US dollars) or very poor (earning less than 100 dollars a month), up from 50% in 2008. In their struggle to survive, the fishermen have little choice but to sail into no-go zones, at the risk of being shot by the Israeli navy.
“I have already been arrested and my boat has been confiscated several times,” said Nezar Ayyash, who heads Gaza’s fishermen’s union. “But this is our life here. We know that fishing can cost us our lives, but we have no other choice but to go out with our boats: we need to feed our families.”
No cure in sight for ailing health-care system
Gaza is suffering from an acute electricity crisis. The power supply in Gaza is interrupted for seven hours a day on average. The consequences for public services, especially the primary health-care system, are devastating. Hospitals rely on generators to cope with the daily blackouts.
The power cuts pose a serious risk to the treatment of patients – and to their very lives. It takes two to three minutes for a generator to begin operating, and during that time electronic devices do not function. As a result, artificial respirators must be reactivated manually, dialysis treatment is disrupted and surgery is suspended as operating theatres are plunged into darkness.
To make matters worse, fuel reserves for hospital generators keep drying up. Three times this year, fuel shortages have forced hospitals to cancel all elective surgery and accept emergency cases only. Gaza’s paediatric hospital had to transfer all its patients to another facility because it could no longer function. Laundry services have repeatedly shut down. With the prospect of increased electricity consumption during the hot summer months when air conditioning is required, the situation is likely to deteriorate further if hospitals do not receive ample fuel.
Fluctuations in the power supply can also damage essential medical equipment. Repairs are difficult owing to the closure, under which the transfer into Gaza of spare parts for medical equipment is subject to excessive delays of up to several months.
The transfer of disposable electrodes, which are used to monitor the heart rhythm of cardiac patients, has been delayed since August 2009. Without this equipment, patient lives are at risk, as heart problems may not be detected in time. Because of the restrictions in place, most heart monitors in Gaza will be unusable by the end of this month. The run-down state of equipment is one of the reasons for the high numbers of patients seeking treatment outside the Strip.
Stocks of essential medical supplies have reached an all-time low because of a standstill in cooperation between Palestinian authorities in Ramallah and Gaza. At the end of May 2010, 110 of 470 medicines considered essential, such as chemotherapy and haemophilia drugs, were unavailable in Gaza. When chemotherapy is interrupted, the chances of success drop dramatically, even if another painful round of treatment is initiated. Haemophilia patients face life-threatening haemorrhages when compounds such as Factor VIII and IX are not available.
More than 110 of the 700 disposable items that should be available are also out of stock. The only way to cope is to re-use such items as ventilator tubes or colostomy bags, even though doing so can lead to infections that endanger patients’ lives.
“The state of the health-care system in Gaza has never been worse,” said Eileen Daly, the ICRC’s health coordinator in the territory. “Health is being politicized: that is the main reason the system is failing. Unless something changes, things are only going to get even worse. Thousands of patients could go without treatment and the long-term outlook will be increasingly worrisome.”
The health-care system is further weakened by severe restrictions imposed on the movement of people into and out of Gaza. The restrictions prevent medical staff from leaving the Strip to get the training they need to update their skills, and technicians from entering to repair medical equipment.
Lack of sanitation hazardous for health and the environment
The lack of proper sanitation and certain agricultural practices are polluting Gaza’s aquifer. Only about 60% of the territory’s 1.4 million inhabitants are connected to a sewage collection system. Raw sewage discharged into the river Wadi Gaza, which snakes through urban areas, jeopardizes the health of the communities living on its banks.
Because the aquifer is over-exploited, drinking water in most of Gaza contains high levels of nitrate, chloride and salt. The water is unfit for consumption, and the risk of contracting an infectious disease is high.
Assembling enough suitable materials to carry out sanitation projects is a slow and haphazard process. Materials obtained through the tunnel trade can be of questionable quality, while some items, such as certain electro-mechanical pumps, cannot be found at all, which hobbles construction efforts.
“The current situation is critical and may lead to an irreversible trend in the degradation of underground fresh water,” said Javier Cordoba, who oversees the ICRC’s water and sanitation activities in Gaza. “Large-scale projects, such as the construction of a desalination plant, must be undertaken to meet water-supply needs without further exposing the aquifer. The closure must be lifted so that the 4.5 billion US dollars pledged by donor countries over a year ago can be put to use.”
* Over 800 Gazan detainees in Israeli prisons have been prevented from meeting face-to-face with their loved ones since June 2007, when Israel suspended the ICRC’s family visit programme. To mitigate the effects of this measure, the ICRC has doubled its own visits to Gazan detainees and stepped up its efforts to maintain family links by delivering written and oral messages between detainees and their families.
Wheat harvest met with live ammunition in Gaza “buffer zone”
International Solidarity Movement | 13 June 2010
Israeli forces attacked women farmworkers and international human rights activists with heavy gunfire during three days’ wheat harvest in the southern Gaza Strip. The Israel-imposed “buffer zone” illegally claims over 30% of Gaza’s arable farmland. In Khoza’a village, east of Khan Yunis, substantial wheat remains unharvested despite severe poverty and food shortages, as a result of the attacks.
Tuesday, the first day of harvest, did not take place inside the 300m “buffer zone”. However, snipers approached the harvest in Israeli military Jeeps on two occasions, shooting live ammunition around five women who were crouching to hand-collect the wheat with four International Solidarity Movement (ISM) activists. The women laid down in the wheat during the attack but did not leave, and harvest continued after the Jeeps had left. Activists communicated the non-threatening nature of the work to soldiers with a megaphone.
A more severe attack was levied Wednesday, as the harvest continued within 300 meters of the fence. 5 ISM activists and 2 journalists were present as Israeli military Jeeps approached at 7 a.m. and fired several rounds, similar to the previous day. At 8:30, the Jeeps parked on a small hill near the fence. Snipers stood atop the Jeep closest to the workers, with a clear view of the obviously non-threatening hand-harvest. Israeli snipers then rained over 50 rounds on the women, activists and journalists, causing the women to crawl along the ground and shriek with fear. Rounds of live bullets hit within a meter of
people’s heads, meaning any deviation would almost certainly hit someone. The harvest finished at 10 a.m.
Thursday, the final day of harvest, was cut short by two gunfire attacks at 8:00 and 8:30 a.m. Roughly 20 rounds were fired very close to the farmers and 3 ISM activists present. The women were evidently more fearful of attack, and those present agreed that a third attack was imminent and would target them. This proved a correct assumption as, soon after finishing at 8:45, 4 jeeps arrived and remained at the fence. The wheat will likely remain unharvested.
“We were shot at repeatedly with live ammunition; the deafening fizz and crack of the bullets flying past our ears”, states ISM activist Adie Mormech. “The women courageously returned after each attack. On the last day, after snipers had already come twice and fired many rounds quite close, it was clear that someone would be intentionally hit if we stayed. Consequently, the wheat will not be harvested. It is infuriating that this violence continues against what is clearly a peaceful endeavor to farm the third of Gaza’s arable land which is patrolled by the Israeli military.”
While unemployment levels hover near 42% in Gaza and 60% of its 1.5 million residents lack food security,¹ Israel’s illegal buffer zone greatly exacerbates the humanitarian crisis. 30% of Gaza’s arable farmland, and some of its most fertile, lies within the buffer zone.² Farmers who attempt to work in the zone face live fire and crop destruction. The number of crops grown in the zone has consequently been reduced from a diverse range to wheat and other less labor-intensive harvests, which further negatively impacts the nutrition and economic condition of Gazans. An additional 17% of farmland was destroyed in Israel’s war of aggression,³ making 47% (nearly half) of Gaza’s farmland now marginally usable.
The buffer zone has also reduced Gaza’s fishing zones to 1-3 miles offshore. In the first four months of 2010, 19 naval attacks led to two shootings and three arrests, as well as numerous confiscations of fishing equipment. The narrow fishing zone, in which over 3,600 fishermen work daily, is gravely over-fished.²
Israel’s decision to instate a 300-meter buffer zone is in violation of Oslo Accords, and people are routinely shot as far as two kilometers from the border. Israeli attacks in the buffer zone injured 50 persons and killed 14 between January and April 2010. In the past twelve months, at least 220 Israeli attacks have been carried out, with 116 coming since the beginning of 2010 (as of April 30th).²
¹ PCHR Fact Sheet: The Illegal Closure of the Gaza Strip
² PCHR Fact Sheet: The Buffer Zone in the Gaza Strip
³ Oxfam: Failing Gaza: No rebuilding, no recovery, no more excuses
Egypt rejects Algerian aid into Gaza
Press TV – June 12, 2010
Egyptian authorities have refused to allow an Algerian humanitarian aid convoy to enter into the Gaza Strip which has been under a crippling three-year Israeli blockade. The ship, carrying seven tons of medicine and two tons of powder milk, docked in Egypt’s Al-Arish sea port on Friday.
Fifteen people onboard the ship including Algerian lawmakers, businessmen and peace activists were seeking to break the Gaza siege by organizing the convoy.
Algerian daily Al-Khabar said that the convoy was prevented from entering Gaza despite a prior agreement signed between the Algerian Foreign Ministry and Egypt in this regard. The daily added that the Egyptian officials only allowed three Algerian lawmakers to visit Gaza though the Rafah border crossing for a few hours.
The move came two weeks after the Israeli military attacked the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in international waters in the Mediterranean Sea, killing at least 20 peace activists including nine Turkish citizens on board the M.V. Mavi Marmara and injuring about 50 other people who were part of the team on the six-ship convoy.
Israel imposed the blockade on Gaza after the Palestinian resistance movement, Hamas, won parliamentary elections in June 2007.
Some 1.5 million people in the coastal strip are being denied their basic rights, including freedom of movement, and their rights to appropriate living conditions, work, health and education. Poverty and unemployment rates stand at approximately 80 percent and 60 percent respectively in the Gaza Strip.
Egypt has joined Israel in imposing a three-year-long blockade on Gaza, sealing its borders with the strip and effectively cutting off all links to the coastal sliver.
Egypt-US concede failure of steel barrier along Gaza borders
Palestine Information Center – 11/06/2010
NAZARETH — Hebrew media sources have revealed that an atmosphere of pessimism prevailed in the meeting of US Vice-president Joe Biden with Egyptian president Husni Mubarak in Sharm e-Sheikh due to the failure of the steel barrier strategy in tightening the grip on the besieged Gaza Strip.
Military and security consultants from both countries were profoundly disappointed after “Hamas engineers” in the Gaza Strip succeeded in penetrating the barrier, the sources added.
The sources also disclosed that reports received by Biden alleged that “Hamas engineers” succeeded in excavating 18 meters under the ground and in planting burning materials in the way of the steel slabs that melted the foundations of the barrier and made them of no effect.
Furthermore, the sources said that that the USA decided to abandon the project and stopped financing it, and started to pull out all American military engineers participating in and supervising the project.
The US-Egypt plan was meant to destroy all tunnels along the Gaza Strip borders with Egypt in a bid to complete the Israeli siege and suffocate the 1.6 million Palestinians living in the Strip.
A growing part of the Obama legacy
By Glenn Greenwald | June 9, 2010
Physicians for Human Rights yesterday released a report documenting (while relying on heavily redacted material) that “medical professionals who were involved in the Central Intelligence Agency’s interrogations of terrorism suspects engaged in forms of human research and experimentation in violation of medical ethics and domestic and international law.” To those paying close attention, the evidence suggesting that this occurred has long been clear. Today, The New York Times Editorial Page said this:
The report from the physicians’ group does not prove its case beyond doubt — how could it when so much is still hidden? — but it rightly calls on the White House and Congress to investigate the potentially illegal human experimentation and whether those who authorized or conducted it should be punished. Those are just two of the many unresolved issues from the Bush administration that President Obama and Congressional leaders have swept under the carpet.
When the history of the Bush era is written, the obvious question will be: what was done about the systematic war crimes, torture regime, chronic lawbreaking, and even human experimentation which that administration perpetrated on the world? And the answer is now just as obvious: nothing, because the subsequent President — Barack Obama — decreed that We Must Look Forward, Not Backward, and then engaged in extreme measures to carry out that imperial, Orwellian dictate by shielding those crimes from investigation, review, adjudication and accountability.
All of that would be bad enough if his generous immunity were being applied across the board. But it isn’t. Numerous incidents now demonstrate that as high-level Bush lawbreakers are vested with presidential immunity, low-level whistle blowers who exposed serious wrongdoing and allowed citizens some minimal glimpse into what our government does are being persecuted by the Obama administration with a vengeance. Yesterday it was revealed by Wired that the Army intelligence officer analyst who reportedly leaked the Apache helicopter attack video to Wikileaks — and thus enabled Americans to see what we are really doing in Iraq and other countries which we occupy and attack — has been arrested (Wikileaks denies the part of that report claiming that the whistle blower also leaked to it “hundreds of thousands of classified State Department records”). This latest episode led Der Spiegel today to decry Obama’s “war on whistle blowers” as more severe than the one waged by the Bush administration (English translation here).
At least in these areas, that’s the Obama administration in a nutshell: protecting Bush extremism and war crimes from any form of accountability while significantly escalating the punishment for those who tried to bring about some minimal degree of transparency (thereby also escalating the intimidation toward those who might want to do so in the future). As the very pro-Obama NYT Editorial Page puts it today: the human experimentation accusation and the question of whether crimes were committed are just “two of the many unresolved issues from the Bush administration that President Obama and Congressional leaders have swept under the carpet.” If you really think about it, that’s a rather damning statement.
Leftist commentators consistently push a shallow and economically reductive narrative that frames American foreign policy as the sole domain of greedy White capitalists while choosing to ignore the obvious Jewish power structure directing these events. When the veneer of this supposed corporate imperialism is stripped away, it becomes clear that the United States has often served as a vehicle for the specific goals of organized Jewry. The life of Samuel Zemurray stands as prime evidence of this hidden mechanism.
Aletho News 