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Return March organizers: Israel’s terrorism will not intimidate us

Palestine Information Center – March 28, 2018

GAZA – National committee for the March of Return, during a press conference held near the Great March of Return’s tent east of Gaza city which was targeted by Israeli gunfire on Wednesday morning, said that Israel will not succeed in terrorizing the Palestinian people.

The committee affirmed that preparations for the Great March of Return are ongoing, calling on the world nations to support this popular movement.

Head of the committee Khalid al-Batsh said that the Great March of Return is a purely peaceful event and that Palestinians are entitled to demand their right of return which is guaranteed by international law.

The PIC reporter said that the Israeli tanks stationed near Gaza’s eastern border fence fired two missiles on Wednesday morning at two sites east of al-Zaitoun neighborhood in Gaza city. No injuries were reported.

Member of the committee Ismail Ridwan warned the Israeli occupation against using violence against the protesters participating in the Great March of Return.

The Islamic Jihad leader Ahmad al-Modallal said that the Israeli occupation is in a state of confusion and trying to thwart this popular movement by various means. He continued to say that Israel will never be able to break the Palestinian will or kill the Palestinian dream of return.

The coordinating committee of the Great March of Return in February announced its intention to launch popular mass demonstrations toward the Palestinian territories occupied since 1948 in demand of the Palestinian refugees’ right of return.

March 28, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel readies extra troops, snipers and drones, for Palestinian ‘March of Return’

Courtesy: defenseindustrydaily.com
MEMO | March 27, 2018

Israeli authorities are preparing extra troops, snipers and drones ahead of the Palestinians’ planned “March of Return”, a six-week long series of actions beginning this Friday with Land Day protests.

According to the Times of Israel, Israeli occupation forces are “gearing up” for protests expected to take place along the Gaza Strip’s perimeter fence, “putting additional units on alert out of concerns that large numbers of Palestinians might try to break through the barrier and rush into Israel”.

The majority of Palestinians in the occupied and blockaded Gaza Strip are from nearby communities ethnically cleansed by Israel in the 1948 Nakba.

Land Day, which takes place annually on 30 March, marks the Israeli government’s appropriation of land from Palestinian citizens in 1976, and the bloody repression of protests against the seizure. The March of Return initiative is intended to continue until 15 May, the 70th anniversary of the Nakba.

Citing a “military source”, the Times of Israel reported that in preparation for the expected protests, “additional army battalions, Border Police units, and dozens of snipers will be deployed along the Gaza border on Friday, in order to keep demonstrators from crossing”.

In addition, “police officers will be stationed a bit farther back, in order to keep back any Palestinians who breach the first line of defence”, while “additional teams of IDF soldiers will also patrol the Israeli communities closest to the border”.

Israeli forces are also likely to “deploy drones that can drop tear gas on protesters on the Gaza side of the border, a technique that the Border Police tested earlier this month.”

In regular protests since December, Israeli occupation forces have used lethal violence against Palestinian demonstrators, killing a number of unarmed protesters and injuring hundreds more.

 

March 27, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

‘Great March of Return’ is peaceful, insists Hamas, and warns Israel against any aggression

MEMO | March 27, 2018

A member of the Hamas Political Bureau stressed on Tuesday that the proposed “Great March of Return” is intended to be a peaceful activity. Dr Khalil Al-Hayya also warned the Israeli occupation authorities against taking any aggressive steps against the march or those who take part. According to Al-Hayya, this will include Palestinian men, women and children.

The return to occupied Palestinian lands is the legitimate and inalienable right of every individual Palestinian refugee, the spokesman pointed out. International laws and conventions make the right of return an individual rather than a collective right which cannot be negotiated away en masse.

Speaking at a press conference in the Gaza Strip, Dr Al-Hayya insisted that the intention behind the march is entirely peaceful. “That is why we are involving our wives and children,” he explained. “We want to stand at the border of our occupied land, without carrying guns, to convey our message to the world.” At the same time, he issued a warning to the Israelis not to attack unarmed and peaceful crowds, including women, children and the elderly.

Addressing other Palestinians in particular, the Hamas official reminded them that their homeland has been stolen from them. “We were displaced for the first time 70 years ago, since when we have been living with deprivation, homelessness, misery and loss.” As such, he asserted, the people will never concede their land. “Palestine has been irrigated with the blood of our fathers and grandfathers. It is inevitable that we will return. Our right to do so is recognised by international laws, conventions and UN Resolutions.”

Al-Hayya reminded the world that the Palestinians in Gaza have been living under a near total Israeli-led siege for 11 years. “This has caused severe poverty in the territory, with food and medicines in extremely short supply. We call upon the international community to end the siege and allow the Palestinians in the Strip to live in security.”

Turning his comments to the Israeli occupation authorities, he pointed out that the Palestinian struggle has been for justice, and that it is a just cause supported by freedom-loving people around the world. “We, the Palestinian people, seek liberation from Israel’s occupation. We call upon the Israelis to end their occupation of our land and let us return so that we might live in peace and security. This is our legal, humanitarian and political right.”

In conclusion, Dr Al-Hayya maintained that no matter how long the occupation lasts, it will end one day, despite its military hardware and US support. “Our right to Palestinian land is inalienable and we will not concede it. We are insistent upon our right to return and our right to establish our independent state.”

Read also:

Israel readies extra troops, snipers and drones, for Palestinian ‘March of Return’

March 27, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli forces pound Beit Lahia in Gaza Strip following false Iron Dome alert

Press TV – March 25, 2018

Israeli forces have pounded the Palestinian town of Beit Lahia after dozens of rocket sirens sounded in southern Israel following light artillery fire from a drill carried out by Hamas’ military arm in the northern Gaza Strip.

The Iron Dome missile system was activated several times late Sunday evening as a result of the artillery fire from the Hamas’ maneuver.

There were no immediate reports on the possible casualties from the attack.

Israeli media reported multiple interceptions launched from Ashkelon following a barrage of rockets fired from Gaza. But the Israeli army later confirmed no rockets had been fired into Israel. It said the Iron dome anti-missile system was activated after heavy machine gun shooting in the Gaza strip.

The Israeli military frequently bombs the Gaza Strip, with civilians being the main target of such attacks.

Israel has also launched several wars on the Palestinian coastal sliver, the last of which began in early July 2014. The military aggression, which ended on August 26, 2014, killed nearly 2,200 Palestinians. Over 11,100 others were also wounded in the war.

The Gaza Strip has been under an Israeli siege since June 2007. The blockade has caused a decline in the standards of living as well as unprecedented levels of unemployment and unrelenting poverty.

The Israeli regime denies about 1.8 million people in Gaza their basic rights, such as freedom of movement, jobs with proper wages as well as adequate healthcare and education.

March 25, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Video, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

The Blood of Gaza Will Be on the Hands of Mahmoud Abbas in Israel’s Next Attack

By Robert Inlakesh | American Herald Tribune | March 20, 2018

‘Palestinian President’ Mahmoud Abbas, has announced his plans to collectively punish the civilian population of the Gaza Strip, justifying his decision by accusing Hamas of something he has no evidence for.

Yesterday at a press meeting, held in Ramallah (Occupied West Bank), Mahmoud Abbas – President of the ‘Palestinian Authority’ (PA) – lashed out at Hamas, announcing his plans to increase the suffering in the Gaza Strip.

Mahmoud Abbas, who like Israel, illegally occupies his position in the West Bank, has accused Hamas of orchestrating the attempted assassination of Rami Hamdallah. Rami Hamdallah is the current Prime Minister of the ‘Palestinian Authority’.

On the 13th of March, the Palestinian PM’s convoy was attacked, shortly after passing the Beit Hanoun/Erez crossing (Gaza/Israel border). The attack left 9 members of Hamdallah’s security personnel injured, he survived with no injuries.

Almost within minutes of the attack taking place, allegations were mounted by PA members, against Hamas. No consideration was given to the possibility of an Israeli attack. This attack was carried out so close to border with the occupying power, yet somehow there is absolutely no suspicion on the part of the PA.

Adding to the fire, yesterday, Mahmoud Abbas indicated his belief, that Hamas was behind the assassination attempt. Abbas offered no evidence to support this allegation, an allegation which has been condemned by Palestinian factions, such as the PLFP and Islamic Jihad.

The true colors of Mahmoud Abbas begin to shine…

The PA president, who accuses Hamas of the assassination attempt, does not punish Hamas, instead he decides to tighten the grip around the throat of Gaza’s civilian population.

Mahmoud Abbas announced that he would “take national, legal and financial measures” against the Gaza Strip, in response to Hamas. But make no mistake, Abbas is not punishing Hamas, he is collectively punishing Gaza.

Hamas officials will not suffer from the treacherous decisions of Abbas. No Hamas official will lose their access to food, nor their access to clean water.

No Hamas officials are going to die as a result of this PA decision, the dead will be of the civilian population, 52% of which are children!

It was an integral part of the ‘Unity Deal’, signed between Hamas and Fatah parties, that the PA help the humanitarian situation in Gaza, this part of the deal was promised last September. Since the highly anticipated signing of the ‘Unity Deal’, there have been next to no efforts from the PA to help Gaza. The situation in the Gaza Strip has gotten so much worse, since the deal, that Gaza is in a declared state of emergency.

Not only does Abbas understand the situation, on the ground, in Gaza, he helped Israel create it. Just last year, the Palestinian authority – prior the ‘Unity Deal’ – stopped paying for the import of diesel fuel into the besieged Strip. The PA even reduced the salaries of its members in Gaza, this reduction ranged from 30-70 percent of the individual’s wages, placing many below the poverty line.

Mahmoud Abbas is doing the work of Israel

The situation in Gaza has deteriorated significantly, to the point now, of complete collapse. Another conflict between Hamas and the Israeli Regime seems highly likely, with Israel having much incentive to now launch a large scale attack.

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of the Israeli regime, is currently under corruption investigation and is even losing support to further right-wing parties. Israel has also just privatized and centralized, most of their weapons manufacturing companies to Elbit Systems, meaning the demand for using weapons in Gaza is high. There is also nothing Israelis like more, than to see Gazans suffer and any excuse to launch an attack will win praise from the country’s population.

The PA’s Mahmoud Abbas, has been looking to steal the Gaza Strip from Hamas, hoping to have already achieved this aim by now. Frustration has been expressed from the PA, after going to Egypt several times, in an attempt to push Hamas to hand control of the besieged strip over. Hamas has resisted this, including the PLO call – on the 28th of Feb this year – to deploy 3000 PA policemen, from Ramallah to Gaza, in order to take over the strip militarily.

During the past 3 months, municipalities in Gaza have been forced to take an approximate, 30% pay cut, from their employees. Gaza has now also come to a 50% unemployment rate. Gaza’s population of 2 million, are now 80% below the poverty line, 96% of the water in Gaza is also unfit for human consumption.

The actions of Mahmoud Abbas, will mean the further collapse of social services, as well as all other aspects of life, in Gaza. Instead of solving any disputes like men, Abbas and his traitorous PA, punish the population of Gaza, waiting for war or revolution, anything but freedom.

If a confrontation between Hamas and Israel is to take place, Abbas and his PA will once again, most likely, hide and use the assassination attempt, as an excuse not to act against Israel.

The two state delusion, is gone, Israel won’t have it, nor will the US.

Mahmoud Abbas understands that his actions in the UN and with the International community, will not bring peace, instead he tries to squeeze every bit of power and money he can, out of a false dream. Instead of bringing the people together, the “President” of the PA, for now, divides his people, collectively punishes Gaza, watches the West Bank disappear and runs security forces for Israel’s illegal occupation.

To the people of Gaza, Mahmoud Abbas continues to declare himself, no friend and no representative.

March 22, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Hamas denounces Abbas’s accusations regarding Gaza explosion

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum
Palestine Information Center – March 13, 2018

GAZA – The Hamas movement on Tuesday slammed the Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas’s statements in which he held Hamas responsible for the explosion that targeted the Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah in Gaza.

The Movement stressed that what happened was a crime and an attempt to harm the reconciliation.

Hamas’s spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said in a press statement that his Movement strongly condemns the attack on Hamdallah’s convoy in Gaza, affirming that this crime is a thinly veiled attempt to undermine the reconciliation efforts and harm Gaza’s security.

Barhoum slammed the “ready accusations” made by Abbas and called on Gaza’s Ministry of Interior to open an urgent investigation into the crime to hold its perpetrators accountable.

Hamdallah’s convoy was targeted by a blast shortly after it arrived in the Gaza Strip through Beit Hanoun (Erez) checkpoint. No injuries were reported.

Gaza’s Ministry of Interior said that Hamdallah resumed his mission scheduled for Tuesday and affirmed that security services are investigating the incident.

March 13, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , | Leave a comment

Sderot, ‘Bomb Shelter Capital of the World’, Not As Heroic As Israel Claims

By Stuart Littlewood | American Herald tribune | March 12, 2108

CBN News has run a story with the headline “Israel Takes Diplomats on Tour along Gaza Border”, in which deputy foreign minister, Tzipi Hotovely, tells them it’s her duty to let them “see the real challenges on the ground”.

Sderot, which has become known as ‘the bomb shelter capital of the world’, is a compulsory stop on these propaganda tours. Being only a mile from the Gaza Strip residents have little time to take cover, though very few have been killed by Gaza’s erratic garden-shed missiles.

The story of brave Sderot is told ad nauseam to brainwash the media and their own people besides the coachloads of gullible foreign politicians and tourists. The Israeli authorities have studiously counted and broadcast the number of home-made Qassam projectiles, claiming that more than 15,000 “terrorist” rockets have “rained down” on Sderot since the Israeli occupier pulled its citizens and troops out of the Gaza Strip in 2005 saying they were making a concession of territory designed to bring peace. Of course, it didn’t. Why?

For several reasons. Israel’s “concession” was the handing back of territory that didn’t belong to them in the first place. Furthermore the pull-out on the ground has still left Israel occupying Gaza’s territorial waters and airspace, and in control of all land crossings – including the one into Egypt. The Zionist regime has thus maintained a vicious blockade on the tiny coastal enclave for the last 10 years. Hotovely and her regime colleagues, who preach non-stop about Israel’s right to self-defence, fail to understand that the Palestinians have the same right and are entitled to mount an armed resistance against their illegal occupier.

What Israelis never admit to is how many missiles, bombs, shells, mortar rounds and other high-tech ordnance launched by their F-16s, helicopter gunships, drones, tanks and navy gunboats have slammed into crowded Gaza, causing horrendous slaughter and reducing homes and vital infrastructure (much of it paid for by EU and American taxpayers) to rubble.

And there’s another little fact that Hotovely is careful not to mention. Sderot is built on the lands of a Palestinian Arab village called Najd, which was ethnically cleansed by Jewish terrorists in May 1948 before Israel was declared a state and before any Arab armies entered Palestine. The 600+ villagers, all Muslim, were forced to flee for their lives. Britain, the mandated government, was on watch while this and many other atrocities were committed by rampaging Jewish militia.

Arabs owned over 90 percent of the land in Najd and, according to UN Resolution 194 and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, they are entitled to return home. But, as we have come to expect, Israel refuses to recognize the rights of others and will not allow them back. Anyway, what is there for them to return to? The 82 homes there were bulldozed. Najd was one of 418 Palestinian villages and towns ethnically cleansed and wiped off the map by Zionist Jews. Its inhabitants became refugees in Gaza and their families are probably still living in camps there.

The irony is that some of them may be manning the rocket launchers….

When Barak Obama visited Sderot he spouted the well-worn mantra backing Israel’s right to protect its citizens from rocket attacks. “If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I would do everything to stop that, and would expect Israel to do the same thing.” Well said, Obama. But let’s hope you wouldn’t be so stupid or arrogant as to live on land you stole from your neighbor at gun-point.

March 12, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | Leave a comment

The Next Logical Step: General Assembly Intervention Plan to End the Maritime Siege of Gaza

Break the Maritime Siege of Gaza | February 15, 2018

Gaza is the largest open air prison in the world, with 2 million people, mostly children. Now it is lacking potable water, with only 2-4 hours of electricity per day. There is severe widespread physical and psychological trauma and illnesses from numerous Israeli bomb attacks and ground invasions. These have killed thousands and left hundreds of thousands homeless, with widespread infrastructure destroyed. Gaza is suffocating. The UN has predicted that Gaza will become uninhabitable within the next 2 years.

Background

In 1967, Israel invaded and occupied the Gaza Strip. The people of Gaza have suffered under a maritime siege ever since. This blockade is inhumane and illegal. It amounts to collective persecution.

Unlike any other seafaring people in the world, Gaza’s Palestinians have been unable to use their ports to conduct any international commerce for over 50 years — since the 1967 Six Day War.  Ships from the Gaza Strip are prevented from leaving Gaza territorial waters, and international cargo is prevented from sailing directly into Gaza. Israel illegally blocks food, medicine, fuel, repair equipment, and other materials to and from Gaza. All goods intended for Gaza must go through Israeli ports, and Israel completely controls what is allowed in and out of Gaza. For the last 11 years, this siege has become extremely severe.

Despite international standards of 20 nautical miles, Gaza fishing vessels are limited to 3-6 nautical miles, depending on the whims of the occupier.  Fishers often suffer violent attacks by Israeli warships.  They have been injured and killed, and many Gazan fishing vessels have been confiscated, damaged and destroyed.

An international civil society group, the Free Gaza Movement, breached this maritime siege by successfully sailing into Gaza five times in 2008. Ever since, attempts to sail additional boats into Gaza by the Free Gaza Movement, and subsequently the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, have been stopped by violent Israeli piracy in international waters. Activists have been injured and killed, thrown into Israeli prisons, and deported. Boats and ships have been hijacked and confiscated by Israel.  In 2014, “Gaza’s Ark,” an international initiative to build a cargo ship in Gaza to sail Gaza merchandise to international markets was crushed when Israeli warplanes completely destroyed the reconstructed ship in Gaza Harbor just before the boat’s renovation was complete. To date, the international community has been unwilling to take any substantial action that could give Gaza the right to maritime commerce like all other countries in the world.

For decades, the U.S. has consistently blocked resolutions at the UN that are critical of Israel. Since the UN Security Council is hopelessly deadlocked with inevitable U.S. vetoes, and since acts of Israeli piracy toward international vessels attempting to reach Gaza occur without consequence, it is time to take the next logical step:  A UN General Assembly Intervention Plan (GAIP) toward ending the maritime siege of Gaza.

A Solution 

Several groups are now proposing General Assembly action under the “Uniting For Peace Doctrine” to permanently and nonviolently end the Israeli maritime blockade against Gaza. U.S. vetoes have prevented the Security Council from solving the decades-long Israeli occupation and oppression of the Palestinians. The international community cannot continue to simply stand by and allow the suffering of the Palestinians to continue, especially in Gaza, where the abuse is so clear and so preventable. The General Assembly can implement this General Assembly Intervention Plan, a flotilla of state-sponsored cargo ships to carry humanitarian supplies to Gaza free of any Israeli interference. The G.A. can also require that the Israeli blockade end under threat of serious sanctions.

The blockade is a clear “breach of the peace.” The Israeli maritime blockade of Gaza is seen by most international experts as illegal. Ironically and to the point, Israel itself identified the creation of a maritime blockade by Egypt in 1967 as being illegal and a casus belli (an act of war). The United States backed that Israeli position in 1967 asserting that uninvolved nations could break an illegal blockade between A and B, and the U.S. President, Lyndon Johnson, proposed such a flotilla of military ships to break what he understood to be an illegal Egyptian maritime blockade of an important Israeli port.

The Uniting for Peace Doctrine states:

“Conscious that (the) failure of the Security Council to discharge its responsibilities where there appears to be a … breach of the peace … does not relieve Member States of their obligations or the United Nations of its responsibility under the Charter to maintain international peace and security, … (The General Assembly states that) in any cases where the Security Council … fails to act as required to maintain international peace …, the General Assembly …. shall … (step in and make) appropriate recommendations to Members for collective measures (of any kind) … to maintain or restore international peace and security.”

This General Assembly action would not be vulnerable to any Security Council veto, because it will not need American approval. This blockade is an issue that can be completely solved by the General Assembly without force or violence. Furthermore, such action would stipulate that the Israeli maritime blockade ends under threat of serious sanctions. It is time to take concrete substantial support for the Palestinians, in particular, for the people of Gaza.

Moving Forward

A group of activists from the U.S. and Sweden went to the United Nations for a week this past November, coinciding with the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. Our intention was to bring attention to this General Assembly Intervention Plan for Gaza, gain support, and generate discussion among a number of missions.

While at the UN, along with our allied organizations, we had meetings with officials from the Palestine Mission to the UN and 12 other nations.

Riyad Mansour, the Ambassador for the Palestine Mission to the UN, met with us and gave his blessings. Although he was not able to fully endorse this initiative based on a first meeting, he assured us that he would not oppose it. We also paid visits to several other UN Missions and distributed the 11-page General Assembly Intervention Plan for Breaking the Maritime Blockade of Gaza.

We also were able to make contact with Ambassador Fode Seck of Senegal, who chairs the CEIRPP, Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People. On Wednesday, November 29, 2017, we attended the UN sessions of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. At the evening reception, we had informal discussions with other mission representatives and members of civil society supporting Palestinian rights.

In summary, the General Assembly Intervention plan is the next logical step, following the giant footsteps of the Free Gaza Movement and the Freedom Flotilla Coalition. Its goal is to permanently end the 50 year old maritime siege of Gaza. The GAIP is gaining a growing list of endorsers, which include, but are not limited to:

Richard Falk, Rima Khalaf, Hans von Sponeck, Denis Halliday, Miko Peled, Mazin Qumsiyeh, Ramzy Baroud, Rashid Khalidi, Freedom Flotilla Coalition, BDS South Africa and the Rachel Corrie Foundation.

– If you would like to see the full General Assembly Intervention Plan and/or endorse our initiative and/or help move this process forward, please contact us at BreakMaritimeBlockade@gmail.com

February 16, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

Ex-Egypt envoy: Evacuation of Sinai serves ‘deal of the century’

MEMO | February 8, 2018

A former Egyptian ambassador said that the current displacement of residents of the Sinai Peninsula sets the stage for the implementation of “the deal of the century”, adding that the Egyptian authorities are spreading “lies” by saying that the displacement is being carried out in the context of the fight against  Daesh.

Abdallah Al-Ashaal told Al-Resalah that there is no explanation for the displacement operations except that there is a conspiracy taking place at the hands of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority.

The conspiracy, according to Al-Ashaal, aims at establishing an entity and not a state for Palestinians under the pretext of expanding the Gaza Strip.

A Saudi-backed developmental plan seeks to establish infrastructure projects in Northern Sinai, such as the King Salman University and desalination and power plants, he added. These projects are “definitely not being worked on for those who are being displaced in the Sinai.”

Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas is part of the deal, Al-Ashaal said. “If this was not the case, there would be a search for another person who would accept it, and [dismissed Palestinian Liberation Organisation member] Dahlan is related to … this deal.”

In Al-Ashaal’s view, the plan also includes the two Red Sea islands of Tiran and Sanafir that Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi handed over to Saudi Arabia in 2016.

The developmental plan that Sisi talks about includes expanding the Gaza Strip, Ashaal said. “Why the expansion and how can it be useful for Gaza that its borders stretch to the border of Arish [the Sinai city]?” Ashaal asked.

Using “security concerns”, Egypt has been emptying Sinai of its residents beginning with the border town of Rafah near the besieged Gaza Strip.

Local media reported yesterday that the Egyptian Ministry of Defence has asked the Ministry of Health to be ready for a state of emergency and for all hospitals in Ismailiyah to be prepared for a wide-scale military operation in northern Sinai.

February 8, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A $1 billion proposal will exploit Gaza for the benefit of Israel’s security narrative

By Ramona Wadi | MEMO | February 1, 2018

When considering Gaza’s dire humanitarian conditions, it is impossible not to remember what Israeli government adviser Dov Weisglass said in 2006 when the Israeli siege started: “The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger.” How much of that callous, initial calculation remains valid today is debatable, as Palestinians in Gaza suffer health issues which are a direct consequence of Israel’s restrictions on the food available for the population, the illegal blockade on the enclave and the disaster wrought by the periodic bombardments of Gaza, the latest major offensive being “Operation Protective Edge” in 2014.

The international community has repeatedly echoed a statement that Gaza will be “unliveable” by 2020. It appears that the deadline might need an extension as Israel will be submitting a $1 billion aid request to the international community because, according to the colonial power, it is Gaza itself that has brought the population to the verge of implosion.

Haaretz has reported comments that attest to Israel’s attempt to deflect its own responsibility and accountability. According to Israeli President Reuven Rivlin: “The entire world must know and understand that the ones preventing reconstruction are Hamas. Israel is the only party in the region that, under any conditions, supplies the residents’ minimal needs so that body and soul can survive.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu echoed Rivlin’s words: “It’s absurd that Israel has to take care of the most basic necessities of life which the Hamas government ignores.” Major General Yoav Mordechai was more forthright in amalgamating the proposed projects to Israel’s security narrative, albeit while misrepresenting legitimate resistance as “terror”. Exonerating Israel of all blame for Gaza’s “failed economy”, he added that investing in the enclave is “an additional element of the IDF’s security doctrine.”

There is nothing new about this Israeli tactic. As part of its colonial expansion, it embarks upon destruction, displacement and deprivation; in compensation, it draws up projects for the international community to fund. Although Israeli officials eliminate culpability and timeframes in their rhetoric, it is obvious that, if there was no colonial presence in Palestine, it is likely that Palestinians would not have experienced the humiliation of aid dependency and having their needs classified according to what Israel decides the international community should focus upon.

Taking their cues from the misguided and erroneously depicted narrative about Gaza, the international community will likely acquiesce to Israel’s latest demand and thus, as a result, fund both colonialism and Israel’s security narrative which is integral to the development which Israel is allegedly envisaging for the territory. Considering that Israel’s focus on Gaza comes after US cuts in financial aid to Palestinians, it should prompt some close scrutiny. It may applaud what officials define as combating the purported bias against Israel, yet the vacuum left by the US withholding aid to Palestinians, although meagre when compared to the accumulation of needs, exposes colonial violence yet further.

The Israeli plan for Gaza’s infrastructure, therefore, is a step towards alienation. Ushering in a new form of dependency upon Palestinians in Gaza is not a step towards economic opportunity. This time there are many opportunities for Israel, which can extend its warped concept of humanitarian aid and development to a population which it has coldly and deliberately terrorised, murdered and maimed over many decades. Approval by the international community, including finance for the proposed projects, will allow Israel to push the limits in collaboration further. In the event that Israel decides to raze Gaza again with another brutal military offensive, the financial hits will be incurred by its international accomplices, following the established pattern of Israel’s demolition of EU-funded structures, only more severely. It is clear that Israel is seeking to inflict similar repercussions on the remaining fragments of Palestinian territory and there is no swifter way to achieve this than by inviting the international community to participate.

February 1, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel’s endgame in Gaza: Resistance is futile

Israel’s deliberate targeting of Gaza’s health sector and denying those in need of humanitarian care from obtaining it constitute a crime against humanity

By CJ Werleman | Middle East Eye | January 16, 2018

Some describe Gaza as either the world’s largest “concentration camp” or “open air prison”, while others liken it to the modern-day equivalent of the Warsaw ghetto.

Whatever appropriate analogy you apply to the enclave, that traps two million Palestinians on a slender piece of coastal land along the Egyptian-Israeli border, it’s impossible to overstate the level of human misery and suffering that is taking place there today.

A catastrophic situation

When I spoke with Dr Basem Naim, the former Palestinian minister for health and resident of Gaza, I referred him to a UN report that forewarned that Israel’s medieval-like blockade promises to make the territory “uninhabitable” by 2020.

“What do they [UN] mean? It’s uninhabitable here now,” Naim told me. “The situation today is catastrophic.”

Dr Naim explained how Israel’s intentional cutting of Gaza’s power supply, meant to exert pressure on Hamas but, instead, punishing ordinary Palestinians, is having dire affects on the health sector in Gaza.

“The typical Palestinian gets only three to five hours of electricity each day,” he said. “You can’t pump water to apartments that are above ground level. You can’t pump sewage, which is why more than 95 percent of Gaza’s drinking water is undrinkable.”

He explained that hospitals, which depend on 24-hour electricity, are unable to perform life-saving surgeries, and that some, including Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, have ceased doing operations altogether.

This is happening while newborn babies and the elderly freeze to death in the winter, and die from heat exhaustion in the summer. This is happening because Israel is allowing only 120 watts of power to be provided to Gaza, knowing that 400 watts are needed to meet the basic minimum survival needs of two million Palestinian people.

“The scarcity of energy and the severe shortage of fuel in Gaza have damaged all aspects of life in the Strip,” said the International Committee of the Red Cross in a statement issued last year.

Closed borders

But the biggest problem facing the imprisoned citizens of Gaza is the “closed borders”, according to Dr Naim. He explained:

“For example, the last time Rafah border crossing was opened, which was one week ago, came after more than 100 days of closure, and out of the 35,000 people waiting to leave Gaza through Rafah, only 2,000 were able to leave, and the others must wait again for another 100 days. When I talk about 35,000 people, I’m talking about urgent humanitarian cases; patients, and people who need to meet their families for urgent situations. It’s nearly impossible for Palestinians in Gaza to get urgent medical care in Israel, Egypt, or Jordan.

“If a Palestinian wants to leave Gaza for urgent medical care or treatment, he or she must wait 70 days to get [an] Israeli reply saying he or she is allowed or not. And after 70 days, and even if the request is approved, he or she must come to Erez crossing for an interrogation, and he or she might be arrested. I know many cases where the families of patients were blackmailed by Israeli security forces, like Shin Bet, under these very circumstances.”

It’s worth noting that it’s not only from Gaza that Palestinians are denied freedom of movement. Earlier this month, Omar Barghouti, who lives in Israel and is one of the founders of the boycott, divest and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israeli occupation, was denied the right to visit his cancer-stricken mother in Jordan.

Israel’s refusal to allow a prominent Palestinian figure, who has a demonstrable lifetime track record of non-violent activism, undercuts Israeli claims that travel bans have little to do with security and everything to do with meting out collective and inhumane punishment to the Palestinian people, writ large.

A new report published by the human rights group Gisha – Legal Centre for Freedom of Movement shows that 2017 was the worst year for the movement of Palestinians in and out of Gaza since Israel’s attack on Gaza in the summer of 2014, reducing the number of exit permits by 51 percent from 2016 to 2017.

The report shows that Israel allowed fewer than 6,000 monthly exits in 2017 compared with the more than 14,000 allowed the previous year.

The authors of the report also identified a list of policies that were carried out by Israeli authorities to prevent or restrict freedom of Palestinian movement through the Erez crossing.

These new restrictive measures were “introduced with little or no justification provided as to their purpose and, it appears, no consideration of the impact they would have on the lives of Gaza’s residents”.

Targeting the health sector

These measures include “significant extension of the processing times of permit applications, leaving thousands of permit applications pending with no response; a new directive prohibiting Palestinians from exiting Gaza with electronic devices, toiletries and food; freezing travel to the American Consulate; mandatory shuttle services to Allenby Bridge Crossing; “security blocks” blocking travel for medical patients, traders, and humanitarian workers; increase in the frequency and severity of “security interviews” at Erez; trader permits cancelled as new approvals declined; travel for Friday prayers in Jerusalem remaining blocked, and; recipients of permits for travel abroad increasingly made to sign a commitment not to return for a year.”

It’s not only inexcusable for Israel to impose any kind of restriction of movement, but to deliberately target Gaza’s health sector by cutting power to the Strip, and then to deny those in need of humanitarian care from obtaining it – constitutes a crime against humanity by any definition.

“The magnitude, the deliberateness, the violations of international humanitarian law, the impact on the health, lives, and survival, and the overall conditions warrant the characterisation of a crime against humanity,” says Richard Falk, a former UN special rapporteur for human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories.

“This is an increasingly precarious condition. A recent study reports that 46 percent of all Palestinian children in Gaza suffer from acute anaemia. There are reports that the sonic booms associated with Israeli overflights have caused widespread deafness, especially among children. Children need thousands of hearing aids.

“Malnutrition is extremely high in a number of different dimensions and affects 75 percent of Palestinians in Gaza. There are widespread mental disorders, especially among young people … Over 50 percent of Palestinian children in Gaza under the age of 12 have been found to have no will to live,” wrote Falk in 2008.

When I referred to Falk’s findings from a decade ago, Dr Naim said things have become “much worse”, pointing to the fact that much of Gaza’s critical infrastructure was destroyed during Israel’s 2014 assault, noting that 20,000 tons of explosive ordinance was dropped on the Strip by Israeli jets and artillery, and that unemployment and poverty have skyrocketed since.

Breaking the Palestinians’ will

Israel’s restriction on Palestinian movement is also preventing Gaza from building a functioning civil society as human rights workers, social workers, health workers, educators, engineers, etc are denied opportunities to expand their knowledge and skills in other countries.

It also runs afoul of Israel’s “obligations to respect the human rights of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, including their right to freedom of movement, which includes, with some limitations, a right to enter and leave one’s country and to choose one’s place of residence within it,” according to Human Rights Watch.

In fact, Palestinians in Gaza may visit their families in the occupied West Bank only if he or she can prove their relative is “dead, dying, or getting married“, which constitutes another violation of not only international law but also the Oslo Accords that stipulate the Palestinian territories – East Jerusalem, Gaza, and the West Bank – constitute one unified territorial entity. Israel has made movement between the territories all but impossible for Palestinians.

Given that nearly a third of Palestinians in Gaza have relatives in either the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem, or Israel, one can see how needlessly cruel Israel’s brutal policies of occupation truly are.

Of course, Israel tries to justify its near total freeze of Palestinian movement in and out of Gaza with concerns for its security, but this has always been a rhetorical fig leaf for Israel’s sustained effort to break the will of the Palestinian people.

Israel’s intent has always been to strangle Palestinian political, social, and civil life in the hope that those it occupies will come to the realisation that resistance is futile.

– CJ Werleman is the author of Crucifying America (2013), Koran Curious (2011), and he is the host of Foreign Object. Follow him on twitter: @cjwerleman 

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January 27, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Why is the Israeli army suddenly concerned about Gaza?

By Jonathon Cook | The National | January 21, 2018

More than 10 years ago Israel tightened its grip on Gaza, enforcing a blockade on goods coming in and out of the tiny coastal enclave that left much of the two million-strong population there unemployed, impoverished and hopeless.

Since then, Israel has launched three separate major military assaults that have destroyed Gaza’s infrastructure, killed many thousands and left tens of thousands more homeless and traumatised.

Gaza is effectively an open-air prison, an extremely overcrowded one, with only a few hours of electricity a day and its ground water polluted by seawater and sewage.

Last week Israeli military officials for the first time echoed what human rights groups and the United Nations have been saying for some time: that Gaza’s economy and infrastructure stand on the brink of collapse.

After a decade of this horrifying experiment in human endurance, the Israeli army finally appears to be concerned about whether Gaza can continue coping much longer.

In recent days it has begun handing out forms, with more than a dozen questions, to the small number of Palestinians allowed briefly out of Gaza – mainly business people trading with Israel, those needing emergency medical treatment and family members accompanying them.

One question asks bluntly whether they are happy, another whom they blame for their economic troubles. A statistician might wonder whether the answers can be trusted, given that the sample group is so heavily dependent on Israel’s good will for their physical and financial survival.

But the survey does at least suggest that Israel’s top brass may be open to new thinking, after decades of treating Palestinians only as target practice, lab rats or sheep to be herded into cities, freeing up land for Jewish settlers. Has the army finally understood that Palestinians are human beings too, with limits to the suffering they can soak up?

According to the local media, the army is in part responding to practical concerns. It is reportedly worried that, if epidemics break out, the diseases will quickly spread into Israel.

And if Gaza’s economy collapses too, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians could be banging on Israel’s door – or rather storming its hi-tech incarceration fence – to be allowed in. The army has no realistic contingency plans for either scenario.

Nonetheless, neither Israeli politicians nor Washington appear to be taking evasive action. In fact, things look set to get worse.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last week there could be no improvements, no reconstruction in Gaza until Hamas agrees to give up its weapons – the only thing, in Hamas’s view, that serves as a deterrent against future Israeli attacks.

Figures show Israel’s policy towards Gaza has been actually growing harsher. In 2017, exit permits issued by Israel dwindled to a third of the number two years earlier – and a hundredfold fewer than in early 2000. A few hundred Palestinian business people receive visas, stifling any chance of economic revival.

The number of trucks bringing goods into Gaza has been cut in half – not because Israel is putting the inmates on a “diet”, as it once did, but because the enclave’s Palestinians lack “purchasing power”. That is, they are too poor to buy Israeli goods.

Mr Netanyahu has resolutely ignored a plan by his transport minister to build an artificial island off Gaza to accommodate a sea port under Israeli or international supervision. And no one is considering allowing the Palestinians to exploit Gaza’s natural gas fields, just off the coast.

In fact, the only thing holding Gaza together is the international aid it receives. And that is now in jeopardy too.

The Trump administration announced last week it is to slash by half the aid it sends to Palestinian refugees via the UN agency UNRWA. Mr Trump has proposed further cuts to punish Mahmoud Abbas, the increasingly exasperated Palestinian leader, for refusing to pretend any longer that the US is an honest broker capable of overseeing peace talks.

The White House’s difficulties will only be underscored on Sunday evening, when Mike Pence, the US vice-president, arrives in Israel as part of Mr Trump’s supposed push for peace.

Palestinians in Gaza will feel the loss of aid severely. A majority live in miserable refugee camps set up after their families were expelled in 1948 from homes in what is now Israel. They depend on the UN for food handouts, health and education.

Backed by the PLO’s legislative body, the central council, Mr Abbas has begun retaliating – at least rhetorically. He desperately needs to shore up the credibility of his diplomatic strategy in pursuit of a two-state solution after Mr Trump recently hived off Palestine’s future capital, Jerusalem, to Israel.

Mr Abbas threatened, if not very credibly, to end a security coordination with Israel he once termed “sacred” and declared as finished the Oslo accords that created the Palestinian Authority he now heads.

The lack of visible concern in Israel and Washington suggests neither believes he will make good on those threats.

But it is not Mr Abbas’s posturing that Mr Netanyahu and Mr Trump need worry about. They should be listening to Israel’s generals, who understand that there is no defence against the fallout from the catastrophe looming in Gaza.

January 22, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment