Maghazi Refugee Camp. Stephen McCloskey. All rights reserved.The tenth
\nanniversary of Israel\u2019s illegal blockade of the Gaza Strip has been marked by a
\nglut of new reports from human rights organisations alerting the world to a
\ndeepening humanitarian crisis in the territory. Perhaps the
\nstarkest warning has come from the International
\nCommittee of the Red Cross in suggesting that "a systemic collapse of an
\nalready battered infrastructure and economy is impending."\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n
What
\ndistinguishes this crisis from the disasters and emergencies that normally push
\ncivilian populations to the edge of catastrophe is that it is not the result of
\na hurricane, flood, tsunami, drought or famine but the calculated policy of the
\nIsraeli government.\u00a0<\/p>\n
this crisis is the result of the calculated policy of the Israeli government\u00a0<\/p>\n
As Harvard
\nscholar Sara Roy, who has meticulously researched the
\nimpact of Israel\u2019s policy-making on Gaza for thirty years suggests, \u201cWhat is
\nhappening to Gaza is catastrophic; it is also deliberate, considered and
\npurposeful.\u201d Roy argues that Gaza has been subjected to \u2018de-development\u2019
\nmeaning that it has been "dispossessed of its capacity for rational and
\nsustainable economic growth and development, coupled with a growing inability
\nto effect social change". So, what we are witnessing in Gaza today is the
\n\u2018logical endpoint\u2019 of this policy; "a Gaza that is functionally unviable".<\/p>\n
In its public
\npronouncements on Gaza, Israel insists that the blockade is a security matter
\ndesigned to keep Hamas, the Palestinian political group with a militant wing,
\nat arm\u2019s length. In its more off-guard moments, however, Israel has revealed
\nits true hand in Gaza. <\/p>\n
United States government cables
\nleaked to Wikileaks show that the Israeli government kept the US embassy in Tel
\nAviv briefed on the blockade and on "multiple occasions" said their policy
\naimed "to keep the Gazan economy on the brink of collapse without quite pushing
\nit over the edge."\u00a0<\/p>\n
This appears
\nto have been Israel\u2019s blockade policy from the outset as the BBC reported an Israeli
\ngovernment adviser, Dov Weisglass, as having said in 2006: <\/p>\n
\u201cThe idea is to put
\nthe Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger.\u201d And, in 2012,
\nan Israeli court forced the release of a government \u2018red lines\u2019 document which detailed \u201cthe number of
\ncalories Palestinians in Gaza need to consume to avoid malnutrition.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n
The Israeli
\nhuman rights organisation Gisha,
\nwhich won the legal battle to have the red lines document published, argues
\nthat \u201cthe research contradicts Israel's assertions that the blockade is needed
\nfor security reasons.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The chilling
\ncalculation behind the \u2018red lines\u2019 policy underlines the extent of Israel\u2019s
\ndeception in publicly suggesting that the blockade is a security measure while
\nprivately, and quite methodically, inflicting collective punishment on an
\nalready desperately poor population, mostly comprising refugees. \u00a0<\/p>\n
On visits to
\nGaza\u2019s eight refugee camps, I\u2019ve seen stunted children clearly undernourished
\nand underweight, living in desolate, concrete environments devoid of any greenery
\nor safe spaces to play. The camps are concrete blocks heaped upon each other
\nconstrained in their expansion on the ground by Gaza\u2019s tiny area of 360 square
\nkilometres which is home to 1.8 million people; a population density akin to
\nthat of Manhattan or Tokyo.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Around 70
\npercent of Gazans are refugees and, according to the Euro-Med
\nMonitor for Human Rights, food insecurity in the territory is at 72
\npercent and unemployment at 43.2 percent. \u00a0<\/p>\n
This economic
\ncrisis has created serious mental health problems in Gaza. Sara Roy quotes the
\nGaza Community Mental Health Program which has found that \u201cforty percent of
\nPalestinians are clinically depressed, a rate unmatched anywhere in the world\u201d
\nwith Gaza\u2019s Shifa Hospital receiving \u201cup to 30 patients every month who have attempted
\nsuicide.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Israel
\nimposed the blockade on Gaza in 2007 following the return of a Hamas government
\nin elections in 2006. The US and EU followed Israel\u2019s lead in refusing to
\naccept the legitimacy of the election result. International pressure
\ncontributed to an internal Palestinian power struggle which resulted in Hamas
\nassuming control of Gaza and the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority
\ngoverning the West Bank. \u00a0<\/p>\n
While Israel
\nhad withdrawn its settlements from Gaza in 2005, it remained the territory\u2019s occupying
\npower under international law by controlling its borders, airspace and coastline.\n<\/p>\n
As Sara Roy suggests, the 2005 withdrawal reflected \u201cIsrael\u2019s desire to rid
\nitself of any responsibility for Gaza while retaining control of it.\u201d \u00a0She regards the core goals of Israel\u2019s
\ndisengagement as seeking:\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cto internally divide, separate, and isolate the The imposition The tunnels Euro-Med With only a The social Zeitoun School. Stephen McCloskey. All rights reserved.The most The wreckless and petty politicking by the PA will add to the bitterness of internal relations in Palestine<\/p>\n The World Health Organisation (2017) has This crisis This This has been Robert Fisk 2017 is also These unhappy Jabalia Refugee Camp. Stephen McCloskey. All rights reserved.Gaza\u2019s Only external BDS urges Maghazi Refugee Camp. Stephen McCloskey. All rights reserved.The tenth anniversary of Israel\u2019s illegal blockade of the Gaza Strip has been marked by a glut of new reports from human rights organisations alerting the world to a deepening humanitarian crisis in the territory. Perhaps the starkest warning has come from the International Committee of the Red…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1120\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nPalestinians \u2013 demographically, economically, and politically \u2013 so as to ensure
\nIsrael\u2019s full control both direct (West Bank) and indirect (Gaza Strip) \u2013 over all <\/em>Palestinian lands and resources\u201d.<\/i><\/p>\n
\nof strict border controls tightly limiting the movement of goods and people
\nacross Gaza\u2019s borders by Israel has been compounded by the closure of smuggling
\ntunnels into Gaza by General Abdel Fattah El Sisi, who seized power in Egypt
\nthrough a military coup in 2013.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nwere an economic lifeline for Gaza and the passenger terminal at Rafah into
\nEgypt, which became the only means for most Palestinians of leaving Gaza, has
\nopened only intermittently under Sisi. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\nMonitor for Human Rights found that less than 50 percent of requests to exit
\nGaza for medical treatment through Israel\u2019s Erez Crossing were approved in 2016
\nand 43 cancer patients were refused permission to cross to seek treatment in
\nthe first half of 2016. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\ntrickle of Palestinians securing passage through the Rafah crossing, these
\nclosures can be a death sentence for patients in need of medical assistance. They
\nalso deny opportunities for employment and study overseas which, for the
\nmajority, are the only escape routes from poverty.<\/p>\nThe compounding pressures of war<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\npressures of poverty, isolation and economic inertia caused by the blockade
\nhave been compounded and exacerbated by three Israeli military operations in
\nGaza since 2008, which have collectively claimed the lives of 3,745
\nPalestinians and wounded 17,441.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nrecent operation, \u2018Protective Edge\u2019, was a 51-day onslaught in July and August
\n2014 that killed 2,131 Palestinians, of whom 1,473 were civilians, 501 were
\nchildren and 257 women. There were 71 Israeli casualties; 66 soldiers and five
\ncivilians.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n
\ninfrastructural damage caused by \u2018Protective Edge\u2019 was devastating with: 78
\nhospitals and clinics damaged; 7 schools destroyed and 252 damaged; 17,800
\nhomes damaged or completed destroyed; and half of the open-field crop areas damaged
\nor destroyed. Just 46 percent of the $1.59 billion pledged by donors for
\nreconstruction in Gaza has been received and a constant source of crisis is the
\ngreatly reduced electricity supply which impacts on all aspects of daily life
\nin Gaza. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\nsaid that the worsening electricity outages are \u201cthreatening the closure of essential health services which would
\nleave thousands of people without access to life-saving health care.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nhas been compounded by the Palestinian Authority\u2019s decision
\nthis summer not to pay the full fuel bill to Israel for Gaza\u2019s electricity
\nsupply in an attempt to weaken Hamas and wrest back control of the territory. <\/p>\n
\nwreckless and petty politicking by the PA will add to the bitterness of
\ninternal relations in Palestine and further delay overdue elections in the Occupied
\nPalestinian Territories. It leaves the prospects for much needed Palestinian
\nunity and strategy at a low ebb.<\/p>\nUnhappy anniversaries<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\na year of significant and painful anniversaries for Palestine. It is the
\ncentenary of the Balfour
\nDeclaration in which the British Foreign Secretary in 1917, Arthur James
\nBalfour, declared \u201cwith favour the establishment in Palestine of a national
\nhome for the Jewish people.\u201d Theresa May has celebrated the centenary with
\n\u2018pride\u2019 and seems unconcerned with the continued marginal existence of Palestinians
\non their own land.<\/p>\n
\nwas closer to the mark when he described
\nthe Balfour Declaration as the \u201cmost mendacious, deceitful and hypocritical
\ndocument in modern British history.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n
\nthe 50th anniversary of the six
\nday war in 1967 when Israel seized control of the\u00a0West Bank, East
\nJerusalem,\u00a0Gaza Strip, as well as the Syrian\u00a0Golan
\nHeights, and the Egyptian\u00a0Sinai Peninsula. This annexation has
\ncontinued apace since then with the settlement of 600,000 colonists in
\nsettlements across the West Bank that Amnesty
\nInternational describes as illegal under Article 49 of the Geneva
\nConvention.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nanniversaries are as much a result of the collusion and mendacity of western
\npowers as they are of the relentless colonialism of Palestinian land by Israel
\nwhich should compel us all to take action and oppose the siege and construction
\nof settlements.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\ncreaking infrastructure and impoverished population cannot countenance another
\ndecade of siege and war, and Israel has shown itself unwilling to respect its
\nhuman rights obligations as the territory\u2019s occupying power.<\/i><\/p>\n
\npressure will change Israel\u2019s policy toward Gaza which is why Palestinian civil
\nsociety has reluctantly called for international support of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS)
\nmovement. This is a non-violent, vibrant and truly global movement for freedom,
\njustice and equality in Palestine inspired by the South African anti-apartheid
\nmovement.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\naction to pressure Israel to respect international law and is supported by
\ntrade unions, churches, academics and grassroots movements across the world. Supporting
\nBDS will hasten an end to the siege and help lance a running sore in the Middle
\nEast and international relations. It deserves your support.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"