But first, some essential background:

The Gaza Power Plant was constructed in the optimistic years of the Oslo process.

Hamas pulled off a surprise victory in the January 2006 elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council, and Fatah was furious. As punishment for the pro-Hamas vote, almost all aid was cut off to the Palestinian Authority [in both the West Bank and Gaza] by the large international donors, particularly but not exclusively those represented in the Quartet [the U.S., Russian Federation, the EU + the UN, which is not a donor but when it works on the ground is mainly an implementing body]

During this donor cut-off, for some 18 months, Palestinian Authority [PA] employees were paid no salaries, and relied on bank loans arranged by the PA but on which the employees had to pay interest.

In the midst of that turmoil and hardship, in late June 2006, the Gaza Power Plant was bombed by the Israeli Air Force, in reprisal for a cross-border raid by Palestinian militants on the Kerem Shalom area [just outside the southeastern corner of the Gaza Strip, where the borders of Egypt's Sinai, Israel's Negev Desert, and the Gaza Strip all meet], during which IDF Corporal Gilad Shalit was seized and taken into Gaza, [where he was held prisoner until his release in a prisoner exchange with Hamas brokered by Egypt in 2011].

For the six sweltering summer months of 2006, there was very limited electricity in the Gaza Strip.

Israel has supplied some 20 percent of the daily need in Gaza through 11 feeder lines at the northern and western perimeter of the Gaza Strip. Egypt now supplies 17% cross border from Egyptian Rafah to Gazan Rafah [the city of Rafah is divided into two], up from 11 percent earlier.

The Gaza Power Plant was not repaired until November 2006.

It then began to supply most of the balance of energy needed, to the central Gazan Strip area, where Gaza City is located, and where some 500,000 of the inhabitants of Gaza live. At the time that the Gaza Power Plant came back on line in late 2006, the European Union began to pay subsidies of some 10 million dollars a month or so needed to import from Israel [via Nahal Oz] the industrial diesel fuel needed to run the reconstructed Gaza Power Plant.

The PA ordered the fuel supplies for Gaza from Israel, the sole supplier, and the EU paid for them…

Then, after the Hamas rout of Palestinian/Fatah Preventive Security Forces in mid-June 2007 — which PA President Mahmoud Abbas called a “military coup” — things went from very bad, to much worse. PA President Mahmoud Abbas then carried out what can only be called a “political coup”, by immediately dissolving a short-lived “National Unity Government” and establishing an “Emergency Government” headed by the Abbas-appointed Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, while Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas continued as Prime Minister of what essentially became a separate administration in Gaza. Though Haniyeh and Hamas refused to recognize Salam Fayyad’s new role, they did continue to regard Mahmoud Abbas as President –at least until the four-year term of office for which Abbas had been elected expired in January 2009.

[Some in the West Bank argued that Abbas's term could be considered legitimate until January 2010, for the reason of holding simultaneous presidential and legislative elections at the same time at that point. Hamas seemed, to a greater or lesser degree, to go along with this. In October 2009, Abbas did proclaim an election date of 24 January 2010 -- but he cancelled it a month later, some two months before the polls were scheduled to open...]

Meanwhile, by July 2007, just after the open Hamas-Fatah + Gaza/West Bank split, donor aid was cut off to Gaza [except for the industrial diesel fuel subsidies for the Gaza Power Plant, which continued, and some limited other social welfare contributions].

But in July 2007, donor aid resumed to the West Bank, and in fact flowed lavishly — leading to the deceptive development of what has been called the “Ramallah bubble”.

Then, in September 2007 [six months after the Hamas rout of Palestinian security, and with Gilad Shalit in captivity], the Israeli Cabinet declared Hamas-ruled Gaza a “hostile territory”, or “enemy entity”. And, the government left it to the Israeli military to carry out this decision.

The Israeli Ministry of Defense came up with a plan of tightening sanctions — permitting only the most essential humanitarian goods to enter Gaza [for months, only 13 items were on the permitted list], and nothing to leave the sealed coastal strip. The Israeli military also decided, as a further punitive + coercive measure [to induce "regime change"] to reduce, by 15% each month starting in late October, the quantities of fuel + gas + electricity it supplied [of course, for payment] that would be allowed into Gaza.

A coalition of 9-10 Israeli + Palestinian human rights organizations went to Israel’s Supreme Court to petition against these sanctions, which they said amounted to collective punishment which was illegal under international law.

After months of hearings, the Israeli Supreme Court in late January 2008 decided against the petition, and permitted the military-devised sanctions against Gaza to continue — as long as the Israeli military made sure that there would not be a “humanitarian crisis” [this was not defined] in Gaza.

In August 2008, the Free Gaza movement sent the first boats from Cyprus to Gaza with activists and journalists on board and a limited quantity of supplies, with the stated intention of “breaking the [Israeli] siege” on the Gaza Strip. Several expeditions managed to get though, but by the end of the year, Israel began using force against the activist-chartered ships.

Meanwhile, a rather perilous but highly-profitable Hamas-backed tunnel industry developed, which eventually eased the severe shortages by permitting risky large-scale import of consumer goods — and fuel — from Egypt via the tunnels dug out under the Philadelphi corrider [formerly patrolled by Israel soldiers until the unilateral "disengagement" ordered by Ariel Sharon in September 2005]…

In last December 2008, the Israeli military launched Operation Cast Lead against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
As the ground operation was launched on the night of 3-4 January, Israel declared a formal naval blockade of Gaza’s maritime space [which had been defined by Israeli-Palestinian agreement in maps attached to the early Oslo-era agreements in 1994 + 1995].

Some 22 days later, on 18 January 2009, just hours before the inauguration of Barack Obama as the then-newly-elected U.S. President, both Israel and Hamas each implemented their own separate cease-fires. But the Israeli formal naval blockade continued. Some 1300 Palestinians, including some 800 or so clearly identified as civilians, about half of whom were children, were killed. Thousands were wounded; tens of thousands of homes and offices and factories were destroyed or badly damaged; and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were traumatized. The Israeli military operation was widely criticized around the world.

At the end of May 2010, the largest Free Gaza expedition set sail from various ports, bolstered by a very large presence sponsored by a Turkish Islamist humanitarian aid organization, IHH. Israeli analysts began to call this NGO a terrorist organization. The Israeli Navy was ordered to stop this expedition, and did so on the high seas, and dropped commandos from helicopters on the largest Turkish ship, the Mavi Marmara. Nine Turkish men, including a 19-year-old Turkish-American high school student, were shot and killed by the Israeli soldiers who said they feared for their lives during the operation. The public outcry world-wide was again significant.

At this point, the Israeli military changed its sanctions regime against Gaza, permitting some loosening, and a new system was devised, which basically made broad lists of only those items that were prohibited [supposedly, mainly weapons and dual-use items, as opposed to the previous system of lists that narrowly defined + restricted what was allowed].

The change has been slow and difficult, and is not complete. But, this is what UN Secretary-General BAN Ki-Moon nonetheless thanked Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak for, during BAN’s speech at the Herzliya Conference in early February, thanks that were scornfully criticized by journalists and analysts as well as activists…

***********

Meanwhile, by November 2009, almost a year after Operation Cast Lead, the European Union stopped subsidizing payments for the industrial diesal fuel used by the Gaza Power Plant — and instead gave an equivalent amount of money to the Ramallah-based PA to pay for its salaries [as well as for the salaries of those PA employees in Gaza who the PA in Ramallah subsidizes as long as they stay at home and do not work, which would be a help to Hamas].

In exchange, the Ramallah-based PA was supposed to pay the fuel costs. But, the PA in Ramallah instead withheld payments — saying that collection of electricity bills in Gaza was not 100%, and did not cover thed costs of the fuel.

Thus, critical shortages were created that led to several short-term shut-downs of the Gaza Power Plant.

A few months later, the Gaza Power Plant engineer Dirar Abu Sisi developed a way to modify more cheap regular diesel fuel imported from Egypt via the tunnels so that this modified fuel could be used to operate the Gaza Power Plant, at a great savings in cost, with the added benefit of breaking both the Israeli monopoly of supply and the Israeli ability to limit fuel supplies in Gaza. [Abu Sisi, meanwhile, is now in Israeli jail after being kidnapped last year while in Ukraine where he was seeking to immigrate with his Ukrainian wife and their kids...]

***********

This brings us to where we are today.

So, coming to the PCHR’s concise explanation [avoiding most direct unpleasantness, either with regard to Hamas or to the PA in Ramallah] of today’s forced shut-down of the Gaza Power Plant says this:

“According to PCHR’s follow up of the ongoing power crisis in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Energy Authority in Gaza announced that the operation of the Gaza Power plant was totally stopped this morning, 14 February 2012, due to the lack of fuel. The Energy Authority alleged that the lack of fuel is due to the intentional measures taken to prevent the delivery of fuel to Gaza. In a press release published today on its website, the Energy Authority in Gaza noted that the main power resource in Gaza shut down, explaining that this power resource already suffers from serious deficit and covers only 35% of Gaza needs’ of electrical power. The Energy Authority held the Israeli occupation accountable for the ongoing crisis.For over a week, the Gaza power plant has been suffering from a decrease in fuel coming from Egypt through tunnels under the Egypt-Gaza border. Since last Friday, 340,000 liters of fuel were delivered to Gaza via tunnels. This quantity of fuel can operate Gaza power plant only for half a day as the Plant consumes 600,000 liters of fuel daily. The Energy Authority in Gaza used the fuel in its stock to cover the deficit in the fuel supplies. Fuel ran out from the stocks and the Energy Authority announced the total shutdown of the Power plant.PCHR has concerns that the new crisis may result in serious consequences. This crisis will increase electrical shortage to 62%. Mr. Jamal al-Dardasawi, Director of Public Relations in the Gaza Electricity Distribution Company (GEDCO) in Gaza, stated that currently 137 megawatts of electricity is provided to the Gaza Strip as follows: 120 megawatts from Israel and 17 megawatts supplied by Egypt. The Gaza Strip needs approximately 360 megawatts of electricity daily. Al-Dardasawi noted that the GEDCO will apply a schedule based on which power will be distributed for six hours and then cut off for 12 hours every day.

Eng. Walid Saad Sayel, Executive Manager of the Gaza Power plant accused, in press statements, GEDCO and the Energy Authority of serious failure to play the role assigned to them. He noted that the plant can technically provide between 130 and 140 megawatts of electricity but the limited quantities of fuel supplied to the plant affects its capacity. Sayel said that the power crisis has been seriously affected the Gaza Strip since the start of the internal fragmentation. He called upon all the parties concerned to neutralize the power sector and not to involve it in the political crisis.

It should be noted that before November 2009, the European Union (EU) used to pay 50 million NIS monthly for the cost of the industrial fuel supplied from Israel to the Gaza power plant. In November 2009, the EU announced its suspension of the direct funds used to pay the cost of the industrial fuel. The EU started to pay those funds to the PNA which in turn pledged to pay for the cost of the industrial fuel needed for the operation of the power plant. The Palestinian Energy Authority in Ramallah used funds from its budget to pay for the cost of the needed industrial fuel while, on its part, GEDCO transferred the money it collected from power consumers in the Gaza Strip to the Energy Authority in Ramallah.

However, the Energy Authority in Ramallah reduced the financial coverage for the industrial fuel, claiming that the money sent by GEDCO was not sufficient to cover the cost of the industrial fuel needed for Gaza power plant.

Over the two past years, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip suffered power outages between 6 and 12 hours a day. In [April 2010?...] the Energy Authority in Gaza and the Energy Authority in Ramallah reached an agreement that GEDCO would transfer $4 million to the Energy Authority in Ramallah to be used to cover the cost of the industrial power.

[BUT] In January 2011, the Energy Authority in Gaza stopped importing industrial fuel from Israel, and imported fuel from Egypt through the funnels as technicians in the Energy Authority managed to utilize the Egyptian fuel to operate Gaza Power plant.

The suffering of the Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip has aggravated, especially in light of the cold weather, due to the ongoing power crisis and Palestinians have suffered repeated power outages. The people expressed their utmost dissatisfaction because the power sector is put in the midst of the political conflict. The new crisis coincides with the beginning of the second school semester”.

***********

Meanwhile, Ma’an News Agency reported today, here, that:

“Gaza’s Energy Authority said ‘measures taken’ on the Egyptian side of the border meant not enough fuel was entering the territory. It did not provide further details. Some local experts said Hamas had mismanaged Gaza’s power needs by failing to provide a viable alternative to the precarious tunnels under Gaza’s border with Egypt. The Gaza power plant needs 600,000 liters of fuel a day to keep running, but the Palestinian Center for Human Rights said only 340,000 litres had arrived from Egypt since Friday, with no reserve stocks left in Gaza to cover the shortfall. ‘We are sorry to announce that we are unable to provide hospitals, education premises, water pumps and waste water facilities and all other fields of life with the enough quantities of electricity’, said Ahmad Abu Al-Amreen, information director at the Energy Authority. He urged Egypt to allow more fuel into Gaza, but did not explain what had caused the sudden drop in the flows. Locals said in normal circumstances a fleet of trucks arrived at the Egyptian side of the border and pumped fuel through pipes in the tunnels that lead into Gaza … Abu Al-Amreen said Israel bore overall responsibility for the ongoing crisis, but Mustafa Ibrahim, a human rights researcher and writer, said Hamas’s administration had failed to provide the territory with an energy safety net. ‘(The Energy Authority) made everything depend on fuel smuggled through the tunnels, without having any guarantees that this flow could continue. The current severe crisis is evidence that this was the wrong approach’, he said”.

This is a dreary and shameful episode in intra-Palestinian rivalry, and does not bode well…

AMY GOODMAN: Alaa, you, in court, refused to answer questions of the military court. Can you explain why, and also who you think should be on trial now? You’re among more than 12,000 people since Mubarak fell, civilians, who have been imprisoned and are being brought before these military courts.

ALAA ABD EL FATTAH: Yeah. These are more like military tribunals, right? They’re not proper courts at all. And in fact, in the early days of the revolution, there wasn’t even a pretense of being a proper court, like there were hundreds who were tried in the kitchens of the military prison. Their trials would take five minutes. They wouldn’t be told what are their—what the charges are. They wouldn’t be allowed defense, and so on.

Since then, we started quite a successful campaign against military tribunals, against military trials for civilians. And so they had to, instead of, you know, heeding our demand and stopping the practice, they had to improve the show. You know, so then they started pretending that it’s a proper court, have three judges present—they are not judges, or they are army officers—allow a defense, you know, let the case take its time, talk about evidence, and so on. But in most cases, there will be no acquittal, you know, and there’s no proper appeals process. There’s an appeals process that—in which some military officer decides, based on their own whims, whether they accept the appeal or not. It’s not a legal process, and so on. So, basically, it’s not a proper court. There’s no due process. They are no guarantees that it’s a fair trial. And so, it is the natural and obvious thing to do, actually, to refuse to appear before the court.

I couldn’t refuse to appear before it, because I was abroad. I was in San Francisco, actually, when my summons arrived, when they sent my summons to my place. So I had to go—I had to go back to Egypt and hand myself in. Otherwise, they would have, you know, treated me or painted me as a fugitive. But I had to refuse to, you know, cooperate at all in the investigation because it is not a fair trial. But there is also another reason. You know, the military are the guilty party in that incident, and they, the military, the military rulers, you know, the members of the Supreme Council of Armed Forces, should be the ones who are being investigated and should be the ones who are being put to trial. And so, these military officers, who will be acting like judges, are under their command, so they cannot be neutral, they cannot be impartial.

And so, basically, we refused to cooperate, and we demanded that the case be transferred to a civilian judge and that—we mentioned specific generals, General Hamdi Badin, who is the head of the military police, General Rouini, who is the head of the—I don’t know what you call it—the sector of the army that covers Cairo, as the people directly responsible for the killings on the 9th of October. And in fact, the campaign, my refusal to talk, the efforts of our human rights lawyers and the return of the protesters in Tahrir, in Tahrir Square, were effective enough so that the case was transferred to a civilian prosecutor. They initially moved it to the state security prosecutor, which is still extraordinary justice. There’s no appeals process. But with further pressure, it was moved to a proper judge. And it was that judge who released me, who ordered my release.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Alaa, the first anniversary—

ALAA ABD EL FATTAH: I am still pending investigation, so I am still accused.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: The first anniversary of the January 25th revolution is coming up next month. And one of your cellmates in prison said to you that — and this is a quote — “I swear by God if this revolution doesn’t do something radical about injustice, it will sink without a trace.” Do you think there’s a chance that this revolution will sink without a trace?

ALAA ABD EL FATTAH: No, I’m very optimistic about our chances. But it’s very difficult to predict when—you know, when we’re going to make more wins, and so on. I think it’s going to be a lengthy process. I think the price is going to be very high. I mean, the recent—the recent crackdowns that happened like in the past few weeks, there’s a sense that they’re now targeting people, that the killings are not random anymore, that they’re picking who to kill. The intensity of the torture is much higher. I think the whole world have seen how they try to use sexual violence, and specifically against women and in public, to, you know, strike some fear into us. So, what comes next might be even tougher and even more difficult, but I don’t think that this revolution is going to end without—without really completely renegotiating the order of power in Egypt and across the Arab world.

AMY GOODMAN: Let’s talk about one of the—what I think you’ve just alluded to. Yesterday, an Egyptian civilian court ruled forced virginity tests on female detainees in military prisons were illegal. Samira Ibrahim, the woman who brought the case against these tests after being subjected to one earlier this year, was cheered by hundreds of activists inside the courtroom yesterday after the ruling was read out.

EGYPTIAN ACTIVIST: [translated] Today we stand in solidarity with our sister Samira against the various and continuous military abuses, whether they’re against Egypt’s women or revolutionary youth, with the goal of removing our revolution from squares and streets. But we will never let go of our rights. Whether youth or women, we will always participate. We will not quiet down until we see our country on the right path.

AMY GOODMAN: Alaa, the significance of this ruling on the illegality of forced virginity tests?

ALAA ABD EL FATTAH: I think the significance is not actually legal, because they—I mean, what the court ruled is that the action was always illegal, and I think the people who practiced it knew that it was always illegal. So the significance is on a much more symbolic, but much more profound levels. In one way, Samira was—you know, Samira talked about her ordeal very early on, at a moment when the military was very popular in Egypt, at a moment when everybody believed that the revolution is over, it has achieved its goals by toppling Mubarak. And also—so, just talking about military injustice was breaking a taboo. But also, you know, talking about sexual violence, that she was personally subjected to, and the framing of it as a virginity test—you know, so it’s not even framed as rape, which is what it is, but it’s framed as a virginity test, which brings in question whether she’s a virgin or not, and so on—that also took a lot of courage and was breaking another taboo. And for a very long time, for weeks and weeks and weeks, she was subjected to a lot of criticism and a lot of pressure, sometimes from people who appeared to be supporters of the revolution, sometimes from people who are among the political elite, and even from, you know, from people who pretend to be feminists and so on. And so, that ruling is—represents a wide recognition in Egyptian society, and even within the Egyptian state, you know, through its judicial branch, of that injustice, of the truth behind Samira’s words and of the injustice in her ordeal—

AMY GOODMAN: Alaa—

ALAA ABD EL FATTAH: —and of, you know—

AMY GOODMAN: We just have a minute, and I wanted to ask a quick—

ALAA ABD EL FATTAH: —her honor, in a way.

And his father, Alaa, a prisoner of conscience in Egypt, has today been released from detention [while investigations continue]…

The Egyptian blogger, Alaa [Abd El Fattah], has been jailed for weeks [54 days, as it happens] by the Egyptian Supreme Council of Armed Forces [SCAF], for refusing to appear before a military court and in connection with accusations about his role in protests against the military government.

Alaa has now just reportedly been freed today, just weeks after his son, Khaled, was born [within hours of a court appearance by Alaa's heavily pregnant wife, Manal, to plead for Alaa's freedom].

Alaa and Manal named their son Khaled after Khaled al-Said [see our earlier posts, here], an Egyptian blogger whose beating to death by Egyptian policemen in Alexandria in June 2010 eventually mobilized the big protest in Tahrir Square on #25Jan this year]…

[For further information on the Khaled Said story, our earlier posts are here, here, and here.]

UPDATE: Tonight, Alaa Tweeted: “watching my wife feed my son for the first time, bliss”

The Egyptian military council SCAF took over direct rule of the country as long-time President Husni Mubarak left Cairo on 11 February. Mubarak is now ill, but also on trial with his two sons on charges of corruption and violence.

Alaa wrote a piece which contains a lovely description of his holding his baby son Khaled for the first time, for a half-hour, in jail. The article was smuggled out of jail, and published in the Egyptian newspaper Shorouk [Sun rays] on 19 December. An English-language translation was published the next day on the No Military Trials for Civilians blog, here.

Here are some excerpts from Alaa’s article that was smuggled out our jail:

“I was imprisoned in 2006 with fifty comrades from Kefaya [Enough!] movement and untold hundreds of the Muslim Brotherhood because of our solidarity with the intifada of the judiciary against Mubarak and his regime. We protested for the independence of the judiciary and their complete supervision of the elections, and so were imprisoned by the State Security Prosecutor for a month and a half.

And now, in the era of the revolution I was imprisoned by the military prosecutor as a punishment for insisting on appearing before a civil judge. And perhaps also as a punishment for my role in the events of Maspero [a demonstration outside the Egyptian state television building known as Maspero], which was also connected to the civil judiciary: our stand in the Coptic Hospital to ensure a serious investigation by the pubic prosecutor and our insistence on genuine autopsies by the coroner. This stand was the reason my name was listed in the files of the police and military intelligence.
…
In the era of the deposed we used to refuse being tried by state security prosecution because it is an exceptional judiciary. But in the era of Ganzouri [Egypt's current interim military-appointed Prime Minister Kamal al-Ganzouri] we agreed to it on the basis that the exceptional civil is better than the exceptional military. And because it was a Ganzouri victory I did not rejoice. In fact I came back from the prosecutor in a miserable state. I spent my most difficult week in jail because what had gone before had been a struggle and a stand against military trials, and struggle inspires patience and makes resilience easy. But what was the meaning of my continued imprisonment after the case was referred? What’s the aim of my resilience?

The lawyers assured me that the appeal against the imprisonment on remand would be in front of a civil judge: at last I would appear in front of the judge for whose dignity, stature and independence we were tortured and jailed for.

I was thinking of nothing then except getting out to be there at the birth of my first child, Khaled. Our doctor had advised an early Cesarean for the sake of Manal’s health, and with every renewal of my imprisonment we took a risk in postponing the birth in the hope that we would win and I would be there.

Khaled was in solidarity with us; he would not come out despite the passage of his nine months and waited for our last hope: the appeal in front of a civil judge. Our hopes were high, for there was no reason to jail me. I am innocent until proved guilty, and my return from abroad specially to appear in front of the prosecutor was evidence that I would not flee. And in any case the charges against me were clearly fabricated, the investigation not serious, the testimonies of false witnesses conflicting. We put forward our evidence and asked to hear witnesses who would prove that I was not in Maspero at the time of the massacre. It seemed that the truth was clear.

Khaled did his bit and waited for the judge. The lawyers presented their defence. Manal stood in front of the judge and asked that I should be released to be with her at the birth. But my civil judge looked at her strangely. I think I knew when I saw that look that he would not do right by me.

My morale collapsed completely. I drowned in fear and worry for Khaled and his mother. For the first time I was sorry for myself. My imprisonment had become a kind of absurdity, and my mind and my heart could not bear absurdity. I understand why a state security prosecutor would jail me, but why would the civil judge jail me? What’s the enmity between me and him? And what’s to become of me now? Will I turn into one of the thousands of miserable creatures in Tora Investigation Jail? We wait for months, sometimes years for a judgement that never comes, from the hands of judges whom the law tells that we are innocent until proven guilty, and whom the constitution tells that our freedom and our rights cannot be constrained except by court order. But they do not hear. Our imprisonment continues, our cases never end, and we are forgotten by the world that stretches out beyond the prison walls. Everyone in the jail is faded and miserable, even the cats are pale; their movements slow, their eyes spent and broken.

I went to sleep convinced that this was my fate: I had six months at least before my case was brought before a court

And then came Khaled! Next day, in the afternoon, I got a message telling me he and Manal were well, and a photo. Love at first sight. Love at first photograph. The prison disappeared with its walls and its cats; everything disappeared except my love for Khaled and my joy at his arrival. I slept content.

On his third day Khaled visited me. It was a surprise. I’d expected that the doctor wouldn’t allow a visit until at least a week. Khaled visited me for half an hour. I held him for ten minutes.

My God! How come he’s so beautiful? Love at first touch! In half an hour he gave me joy to fill the jail for a whole week. In half an hour I gave him love I wished would surround him for a whole week. In half an hour I changed and the universe changed around me.

Now I understand why my imprisonment continues: they wanted to deprive me of joy. Now I understand why I will resist: my imprisonment will not stop my love. My happiness is resistance. Holding Khalid for a few moments is carrying on the fight.
…
Half an hour in which I did nothing except look at him. What about half an hour in which I changed him? Or half an hour in which I fed him? Or half an hour in which I played with him? What about half an hour for him to tell me about his school? Half an hour for him and I to talk about his dreams? Half an hour to argue about whether he should go down to a protest? Half an hour for him to give me an impassioned speech about the revolution and how it will free us all? About bread and freedom and dignity and justice? Half an hour for me to feel proud that my son is a brave man carrying the responsibility of a country before he’s of age to carry the responsibility of himself?

* * * *

How much happiness in half an hour like that? In that last half hour the father of the shaheed [a killed protester, referred to as a martyr] spent with this son?

Prison deprives me of Khaled except for half an hour. I’m patient because we shall spend the rest of our half hours together.

Why is the father of the shaheed patient?

The shaheed is immortal, in our hearts immortal, in our minds immortal, in history immortal and in paradise immortal. But does his immortality bring happiness to his father? His heart will burst with love for the remaining half hours of his life. Will he empty what’s in his heart in the arms of history? I wait for my release and I’m resilient. What does the father of the shaheed wait for? That he follows the immortal to heaven?

We thought the judge would do right by us; in 2006 we chanted, ‘Judges, free us of the tyrants’, then my natural judge jailed me to deprive me of Khaled. The father of the shaheed thought that the solider would do right by him, and in February we chanted the Army, the People, One Hand, then the soldier killed us to deprive us of the immortal.

Looking for the reasons for my imprisonment is absurd. My imprisonment will not restore their state. Similarly, the death of most of the shuhada [plural form of shaheed, martyr = martyrs] is absurd; perhaps at the beginning they killed the shuhada to stop the revolution, but why did they carry on killing after it was proved time and time again after it was proved that the revolution would continue? The killing even increases as they draw closer to defeat. I remember the snipers appearing on the day of the camel [one remarkable demonstration in Tahrir Square earlier this year], they came late, after it had become clear that the square would hold. It was killing for the sake of killing: killing simply to deprive us of the immortal. Absurd; for killing us will not restore their state.

We need to be vigilant: they do not kill us to restore their state; they kill us because killing and jailing are normal behaviours in their state. Yes, normal behaviours.
…
I did not imagine that my heart carried the love that burst forth with the birth of Khaled; how can I understand the sorrow that is in the heart of the father of the shaheed? My God, how can it be so cruel? That you should bury your son rather than he bury you? Is there a worse injustice? Is there a worse imbalance? We kid ourselves and pretend it’s an exceptional event and that it is possible to reform that state, but all the evidence shows that it is a normal event and there is no hope except in the fall of that state.

Yes, their state should fall. We fear facing this truth, we fear for the country if the state should fall; if the Midan [Tahrir Square] should cause the state to fall what remains for us? Egypt is not the Midan.

It’s true that Egypt is not the Midan. But we have not understood the Midan. What do we do in the Midan? Well, we meet, we eat, we sleep, we discuss, we pray, we chant, we sing, we spend effort and imagination to sustain ourselves, we rejoice and cheer at a wedding, we sorrow and weep in a funeral, we express our ideas, our dreams, our identities, we quarrel sometimes, sometimes we’re at a loss and confused, searching for the future, we spend each day as it comes, not knowing what the future hides for us.

Is this not what we do outside the Midan? Nothing is exceptional in the Midan except our togetherness. Outside the Midan we think that we rejoice at a wedding because we know the bride and groom, in the Midan we rejoiced and celebrated at the wedding of strangers. Outside the Midan we think that we grieve at a funeral because we know the deceased, in the Midan we grieved for strangers and prayed for them.

Nothing is new in the Midan except that we surround ourselves with the love of strangers. But the love of strangers is not a monopoly of the Midan: hundreds sent me messages of love for Khaled from outside the Midan, some describe themselves as belonging to the sofa party. Millions grieved for the shaheed in every home in Egypt.

We rejoice at a wedding because it is a wedding. We grieve at a funeral because it is death. We love the newborn because he’s human and because he’s Egyptian. Our hearts break for the shaheed because he’s human and because he’s Egyptian. We go to the Midan to discover that we love life outside it, and to discover that our love for life is resistance. We race towards the bullets because we love life, and we go into prison because we love freedom.

If the state falls it is not just the Midan that will remain; what will remain is the love of strangers and everything that impelled us towards the Midan and everything that we learned in the Midan.

Love is immortal and sorrow is immortal and the Midan is immortal and the shaheed is immortal and the country is immortal. As for their state it is for an hour. Just for an hour.

[Alaa] Abu Khaled [Father of Khaled]
The morning of Friday, 9 December 2011
Cell 6/1
Ward 4
Tora Investigation Jail”

This post, on the Egyptian blog, No Military Trials for Civilians, administered by{River Dry Films} Omar Robert Hamilton, is entitled: “Half an hour with Khaled”

UPDATE: Nabil Shaath told journalists at a pre-Christmas in Bethlehem tonight [Thursday] that “I heard good news, basically, from Cairo … Hamas is willing to accept non-violence, basically, a long-term ‘hudna’, but they do not want us to talk about it very much … What these people in Gaza are really saying is that our right to armed struggle should not be abandoned, and we agree, but we choose not to exercise it”

The real question at stake in today’s meeting in Cairo was: will arrangements finally be made for Hamas to join the PLO, as previously agreed in Cairo in 2005 — and as suggested in a “reconciliation” agreement between Fatah and Hamas in late April, then encoded in a document signed in Cairo in early May?

Apparently, agreement on that has not yet been reached, but a small step has been taken to keep things moving — or to appear to keep things moving — in the right direction.

Today’s meeting of Palestinian political movements and “factions” in Cairo was chaired by Mahmoud Abbas, who is, simultaneously:
(1) Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization [PLO], recognized by the UN as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people;
(2) head of the largest Palestinian political movement Fatah, and
(3) … um … well … despite the fact that the mandate ran out either in January 2009 or January 2010, depending on one’s legal view … is still President of the Palestinian Authority set up by agreement under terms of the Oslo Accords [+ subsequent practice] between the PLO and Israel.

Last night, in Cairo, there was a previously-unannounced meeting of Abbas and Hamas’ Politburo Chief Khaled Meshaal.

Until now, the major obstacle to Hamas joining the PLO has been the objection of Fatah.

The problem existed even prior to the mid-June 2007 Hamas military rout [in Ramallah, it was called a "military coup"] of Fatah/PA Preventive Security Forces from Gaza, but that sealed the present division. PA President Mahmoud Abbas immediately responded to this “military coup” with his own “political coup”, dissolving a short-lived [3 months, to be precise] “National Unity” government [negotiated in Mecca by Saudi Arabia] — which was, like the two prior governments formed in the wake of the 2006 elections, led by Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas. Hamas reportedly feared an imminent American backed military attack led by Fatah’s Mohammed Dahlan [then a star, now in disgrace].

In the aftermath, Abbas then set up an “Emergency Government”, and named Salam Fayyad as PA Prime Minister. The U.S. and other major donors celebrated with a major “love-in”, praising Fayyad, the American-trained Security Services, and showering Ramallah with donor funding.

Apart from that major rift, the core issue of contention about Hamas joining the PLO: Hamas wanted to have a proportion of seats in the PLO’s Palestine National Council [PNC] similiar to the proportion it won in the 2006 Palestine Legislative Council [PLC] elections = over 60%.

For Fatah, furious that it lost a great deal of ground to Fatah in those 2006 elections, that was, and is, unthinkable.

The most Fatah could agree that Hamas deserves was about 25% maximum.

This is where the new elections come in. Not only has the term expired for the PA President + the PA’s PLC… Fatah is somehow hoping that Hamas will lose any new elections it participates in. This would have the felicitous effect of confirming the correctness of Fatah’s stand [which has prevented Hamas from joining the PLO so far, even if Hamas wanted to]: Fatah firmly believes that Hamas deserves less [preferably, much less] than a majority stake in the PNC.

Basically, the position still is: if Hamas joins the PLO, it will have be on Fatah’s terms, already explained by PLO Chairman [and Fatah leader] Abbas.

As Nabil Shaath said in his remarks to journalists in Bethlehem on Thursday night, if I understood him correctly: Hamas “has to go back to where it was in 2006, apologize to the Palestinian people [for the events of 2007], and abandon all pretense to representing the Palestinian people”…

Does anybody seriously think Hamas is going to apologize for what happened in 2007?

The incremental step announced so far in Cairo — Hamas joining a PLO committee on elections — appears to suggest that some progress in Palestinian reconciliation is being made. [After all, it is something demanded by most Palestinians].

At the same time, the step announced does not yet trespass over the limit suggested by the US, which has said that Hamas must not join any new Palestinian government until it has acceeded to all three conditions set by the Quartet [and by Israel]:
(1) recognition of Israel [Netanyahu has officially set the barrier even higher, at recognition of Israel as a Jewish state];
(2) an end to “terrorism”;
(3) acceptance of all prior PLO agreements and positions.

If there is Hamas participation in a new Palestinian government prior to fulfilling those conditions, the U.S. has threatened a cut off of humanitarian funding to the PA…

Slowing down the arrival of day that decision may have to be taken, while keeping up the appearance of movement and progress towards reconciliation, is one of the main goals shared by the Fatah + Hamas, the two largest Palestinian movements participating in the current exercise.

Meanwhile, there will be a lot of gymnastically-contortionist statements involving circuitous positions of logic that will be advanced to explain all this…

But, while there may be outstanding differences between the two largest Palestinian political factions, the real delay may be an attempt to avoid various threatened punishments, until something changes…

Khaled Abu Toameh, Arab affairs correspondent for the Jerusalem Post, writes today, here, that he has been told “that differences between the two parties remained almost the same as they were before the summit. In addition to the ongoing dispute over the make-up of the proposed unity government, Fatah and Hamas have failed to solve their differences over the reconstruction of the security forces and the release of detainees in the West Bank and Gaza Strip being held by both sides. ‘The 45-minute meeting between President Abbas and Khaled Mashaal was not as successful as it is being portrayed’, a senior Fatah official in Ramallah told The Jerusalem Post. ‘The most important thing was that the two leaders met and agreed to continue talking about reconciliation and unity. It will take a long time before we ever see real changes on the ground’.”

Punishment for Palestinian Unity

Well, that will be reassuring to American officials who have been worried that they might have to punish the Palestinians, if they actually achieve unity”, by withholding large sums of money that have been the opium of the people in Ramallah.

Jordan-based Palestinian Journalist Daoud Kuttab had earlier reported “rumors” following the flying visit to see Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas in the Ramallah presidential headquarters [the Muqata'a] by Jordan’s King Abdallah II on Monday, that there were rumors that Palestinian officials told the Jordanian delegation they would not accept security aid if the U.S. withheld other forms of aid.

Kuttab developed this into two articles: one an opinion piece for the Washington Post, published here, and the second was published by the Huffington Post, here.

[See below for more...]

Punishment if Salam Fayyad is replaced as PM {?}

In his Jerusalem Post article, Abu Toameh reported punishment-related issues were a priority matter in the discussion, writing that “a senior Fatah official” told him “that Hamas’s refusal to accept current PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad as head of any future government remained a major obstacle to the implementation of the reconciliation deal … Abbas had initially considered dumping Fayyad in favor of the establishment of a unity government with Hamas. However, immense pressure from the US and some EU countries, as well as a strong warning from Jordan’s King Abdullah, who flew to Ramallah last week for emergency talks with Abbas, persuaded the PA president to hold on to Fayyad … [But] Abbas explained to Mashaal [in Cairo on Friday] that without Fayyad the Palestinians would be punished by the Americans and Europeans, the official said. ‘But this did not change Mashaal’s position. Hamas believes that in wake of the Arab Spring, Arab governments would compensate the Palestinians for any loss of Western financial aid’. On Saturday, Mahmoud Zahar, a top Hamas official in the Gaza Strip, reiterated his movement’s strong opposition to the appointment of Fayyad as prime minister of a unity government”.

Abu Toameh added that “Abbas also made it clear during the summit with Mashaal that he would not be able to incorporate Hamas militiamen in the PA security forces, another Fatah official said. The official quoted Abbas as saying that merging Hamas militiamen into the PA security forces would give Israel an excuse to launch attacks on these forces under the pretext of fighting terrorism. Abbas also expressed deep concern that Israel and Fatah would vehemently oppose any attempt to bring Hamas policemen to the West Bank, the official added”.

He also wrote in the JPost that “On the issue of ‘political detainees’ who are being held in PA and Hamas prisons in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the two parties continued over the weekend to blame each other for failing to release their supporters. Abbas and Mashaal have announced twice this year that they would end the arrests of Hamas and Fatah supporters. Despite the announcements, PA security forces continue to arrest Hamas supporters and activists in the West Bank. Hamas, on the other hand, has also been accused of cracking down on Fatah activists in the Gaza Strip by arresting them and preventing them from travelling outside the strip. PA officials denied on Saturday that the PA was holding people in detention for ‘political reasons’. They said all the Hamas detainees in West Bank prisons were being held for allegedly violating the law, but did not give further details … [n.b. Elections are supposed to be held around May 2012, according to a reconciliation agreement initialed in Cairo this past May. But...] According to Zahar, there is no way elections would be held while Hamas supporters remain in PA-run prisons”.

Meanwhile, the two Daoud Kuttab pieces are actually the same article [which appeared first in the Washington Post, then was picked up in the Huffington Post].

Punishment for the Palestinian “UNbid”

Kuttab wrote that “Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has been telling aides that he plans to reject some $150 million in federal money earmarked for Palestinian security. Abbas’s opposition is principled. The funds are part of an $800 million grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development that Congress appropriated in June 2009. Shortly before the funds were disbursed this summer, however, the larger grant was held up by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. A Republican from Florida, Ros-Lehtinen, now chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, placed an informational hold on this budgetary line item in August. It is her prerogative to do so as a member of Congress. But rather than delay the funds to investigate a concern, the hold was meant as punishment — a warning to the Palestinian Authority not to seek recognition as an independent state at the United Nations General Assembly meeting the following month … To Palestinians, their efforts for recognition fall within the Wilsonian doctrine of self-determination. But others don’t see it that way. Ros-Lehtinen’s hold put a freeze on many education, health and democratic governance projects aimed at defusing tensions in the Middle East and building transparent Palestinian public institutions. In addition to funds for security services that were to be spent directly by the Palestinian Authority, which Abbas controls, the USAID grant included money for the U.S. consulate to use to support democratic initiatives. Intermediary organizations that were to oversee this spending included such U.S. groups as Sesame Workshop, World Vision, Internews, Save the Children and Amideast. Friends of the Earth, an Israeli-Palestinian-Jordanian organization, also was to participate. After U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak intervened last month, $200 million for the Palestinian Authority was unfrozen. Fifty million of those funds was to go toward ongoing projects, and $150 million was pegged for Palestinian security services”.

Kuttab added that: “The millions earmarked for Palestinian security have become a hot potato. Criticism of the Abbas administration has appeared in social media platforms and newspaper editorials. Palestinian Authority leaders have been accused of being security agents for Israel. Palestinian-Israeli security cooperation has become taboo in Ramallah. Meanwhile, even though Palestinians have provided unprecedented cooperation on security, Israeli provocations continue. The Israelis have not stopped building settlements or expropriating Palestinian lands. It would be a political misstep to accept funds earmarked for security services while schools and nurseries are not completed. Palestinians would see the aid as analogous to the 30 pieces of silver that were accepted by Judas Iscariot when he delivered Jesus — a position Abbas does not want to be in. Beyond the trouble caused by this hold, Congress is doing little to move other budget issues forward. Not only have U.S. lawmakers been holding up approved and obligated funds for Palestinians, but the 2012 budget also has not yet been discussed”.

Both articles began this way: “Few in Washington may realize that the issue of U.S. funding for Palestine is the talk of the town in Ramallah and other Palestinian cities. And the talk is not pleasant”.

How long does anyone think that punishment can be threatened for seeking full membership for Palestine in the UNt, or for seeking to unite its people [don't forget, Abbas still wants a return to the status quo ante,  in which he -- and not Hamas -- is in charge ... and the resolve he showed in sticking, so far, with his "UN bid" has made it far more appealing for Hamas to make the concessions necessary for national unity under Abbas' leadership...]

In an almost-surreal — though all too real — backdrop to this meeting, the widely-detested use of tear gas continued against groups of people identified as protestors around the country, as in Cairo, around the Ministry of Interior and Tahrir Square, the military er”}began the construction of a concrete Wall ["Security Barrider"] topped with coils of barbed wire to cordon off the demonstrators.  Some have vowed to mount the barriers on Friday, however…  And members of the currently-ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces [SCAF] announced they would go ahead with the first phase of parliamentary elections that have been scheduled to begin on Monday 28 November.

In the Palestinian reconciliation summit, however, there were few concrete results announced — how could there be, with big economic sanctions ready to drop if there had been any announced agreement? — but it was packaged as a general overall success, the launch of a new era of cooperation.

Photo provided by the Office of Khaled Meshaal and published in The Daily Star [Lebanon] here: Palestinian Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, left, and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas
are seen together during their meeting in Cairo.
(AP Photo/Office of Khaled Meshaal) EDITORIAL USE ONLY, NO SALES

An analysis of the outcome

The Associated Press reported, hours after the meeting, that “Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal talked for two hours in Cairo but did not reach agreement on touchy matters like the composition of an interim unity government and a date for elections. The meeting raised new questions about whether the rivals are serious about sharing power, or just going through the motions”. This report was published on the CBS news site, here. This is probably way too superficial, and simplistic.

The Daily Star published excerpts from an AFP interview with Meshaal afterwards. According to The Daily Star, Meshaal told AFP that “We believe in armed resistance but popular resistance is a programme which is common to all the factions … Every people has the right to fight against occupation in every way, with weapons or otherwise. But at the moment, we want to cooperate with the popular resistance”.

OK.

Reigning in the rocket fire from Gaza

According to the story in The Daily Star, “the two leaders approved a two-page document reiterating their commitment to the main elements of the original deal, which was signed in May, and hailed a new era of ‘partnership’ between their two factions. The document, a copy of which was seen by AFP, outlines an agreement to observe a truce in the West Bank and Gaza Strip along with ‘the adoption of popular resistance which is to be to be strengthened … This resistance will be increased and organised and there is to be an agreement on its style, on greater efficiency and the formation of a framework to direct it’, it said”.

This language seems to apply to Gaza as much as to the West Bank — though Popular Resistance is the strategy that evolved recently in the West Bank in opposition to The Wall and to expanded Israeli settlement activity, and was endorsed by Abbas in the lead-up to the Palestinian “UN bid”, filed on 23 September in New York, for full membership in the international organization.

At the end of October, UNESCO members voted in Paris to admit Palestine as a full member state — and Israel immediately imposed economic sanctions including withholding of the transfer of VAT + customs tax it collects for the Palestinian Authority under the 1994 Paris Protocol, part of the Oslo Accords. Though the US Congress also voted for sanctions, including a withholding of funding to UNESCO, the Obama Administration is trying to hold off on measures that would negatively impact the Palestinian Authority.

Palestinian firing of rockets from Gaza in response to every Israeli attack is claimed as a “natural response”, but the IDF Chief of Staff has recently said that he believes an major military operation may be required to stop this. Now, smaller armed groups claim credit for these sporadic actions, but the Israeli military + government say they hold Hamas ultimately responsible, because it is in control in the Gaza Strip.

Abbas has in the past called this sporadic projectile firing “stupid”, but hasn’t spoken out too much recently, at least publicly.

The Daily Star added that “Meshaal did not go into detail about the focus on popular resistance but said he had instructed the movement’s leadership in Gaza and Damascus, to ‘adopt a political line and one with the press that doesn’t upset the conciliatory spirit and that truly reflects the atmosphere of reconciliation … I asked them to take practical and positive measures to flesh out this agreement’.”   This report is posted here.

So, one effect of this meeting appears to be that the Hamas political leadership will be able to use the highly-valued doctrine of national unity to back up a decision to stop projectile firing by smaller separate militant groups.

Palestinian political prisoners

AP also reported that “In a show of good intentions, the two leaders decided that activists of the two movements would be released from detention, said Azzam al-Ahmed, an Abbas envoy”.  This was one of  the main demands of the Palestinian “youth” protesters,  and has been announced several times this year, before and after the reconciliation agreement initialled in May.

Like the Egyptian military leadership,  the Palestinian leadership has claimed that the prisoners each side holds are held on charges of criminal activity, not their political beliefs…

The pending “UN bid”

Meanwhile, the Palestinian “UN bid” is still pending, and the Hamas leadership has not opposed it. There is no indication from the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah, at least for now, of what decision they will make in light of a likely failure to get enough votes to pass n the UN Security Council, which would trigger a threatened U.S. veto.

Either way, the lack of support within the UN Security Council is a “come back later” decision.

The Palestinians could simply leave their request pending — or they could withdraw it, which would make this leadership look bad in front of their own Palestinian constituency, which was galvanized by the decision to stand up to the negative pressure by filing, as their right, the request for full UN membership. The third option, which seemed to be the most favored by mid-November, when the report of situation inside the UN Security Council by its membership committee was made public, would be to force a public vote, and failing for one or the other reason to get a positive decision now. The advantage of this third option would be, as angry and annoyed Palestinians explained, to make major states take responsibility in full view of the world for their positions.

Some disposition of the Palestinian “UN bid” has to be made if the Palestinian leadership wants to take an alternative route, going to the UN General Assembly for an upgrade in status from observer organization to observer, but non-member, state.

This is an option that could have — and some analysts, including this one, think should have — been exercised prior to filing the “UN bid” in the Security Council, where they knew it would be blocked.

Only the leadership in Ramallah has the standing to make the “UN bid”. Mahmoud Abbas holds all three reins of Palestinian power at the moment — he is head of the PLO [Palestine Liberation Organization] and Chairman of its Executive Committee, which is functioning, nominally at least, as the provisional government of the State of Palestine declared in November 1988.

Abbas is also the leader by acclamation of Fatah, the largest Palestinian political movement. And he still functions as President of the Palestinian Authority set up under the Oslo Accords by agreement between the PLO + Israel.

There appears to be a tacit agreement not to proceed with the formation of a new Palestinian government, even one composed of non-politically-affiliated “technocrats”, because that would complicate the dynamics of  “UN bid” and trigger massive international sanctions against the new government on a scale even greater and with more impact on a new credit-and-consumer addicted West Bank population than those imposed after Hamas won a majority of seats in the Palestine Legislative Council [PLC] in January 2006 elections.

While the Fatah membership base was badly affected, the leadership was largely insulated from mostly all impact but the largely-silent backlash in public opinion.  As a result, Fatah — which was furious about their 2006 electoral loss –  basically had an attitudinal duality toward these 2006 economic sanctions.  They could not stop themselves from feeling vengefully pleased with the more punitive effects against the Hamas organization in Gaza.

Palestinian political power-sharing + new Palestinian elections

What is at stake in the current reconciliation talks between Abbas + Meshaal is the integration of Hamas into the PLO — which was agreed in a previous Cairo reconciliation negotiation in 2005. But, there was no agreement in the ensuing years about what proportion, or percentage, of seats Hamas would get in the PLO’s National Council [PNC].

Hamas wanted to have the same percentage as the number of seats they won in 2006 elections to the PA Legislative Council [PLC], which was over 60 percent. Fatah has been adamant: no way. Fatah officials have said in interviews with this journalist that they would not accept any more than 25 percent Hamas participation. Their argument is that, even in Gaza, which has been controlled by Hamas since their rout of Fatah/Palestinian Preventive Security Forces, there is political opposition [currently, prudently dormant] to Hamas, who they would not be able win 100 percent of the vote in the Gaza Strip where some 1.5 million Palestinians are currently trapped.

The Palestinian population of the West Bank is believed to be around 2.6 million people. And, there are believed to some 5 million Palestinians living in the diaspora outside the occupied Palestinian territory — not counting the 1.25 million or so who are citizens of Israel.

Just for the sake of “demographic” comparison — [though the word sounds so similar to "democratic", demographic arguments are essentially anti-democratic in nature, resting as they do a concept of the imperative security need for majority supremacy which has animated much anxious Israeli nationalist political platforms since the outbreak of the Second Palestinian Intifada in 2000] — these estimates brings the total global Palestinian population to about 10 million people. The comparison: there are now over 7 million citizens of Israel, including the 1.25 million Palestinians, meaning that there are some 6 million Jews currently living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Most analysts who get involved in this touchy subject posit a theoretical Jewish-Palestinian equality in this territorial area — which is also viewed as dangerous. But, numerical equality seems to be achievable only by lopping of some part or other of the total Palestinian population.

In any case, the Ramallah leadership is now committed — in response to Palestinian “youth” protests that started in support of the Egyptian demonstration centered in Tahrir Square on January 25 — to organize elections:
(a) not only for the new PA President but also
(b) for a new PA Legislative Council [PLC], which would reveal the current electoral strength of Hamas vs. Fatah, at least in the occupied West Bank [theoretically including East Jerusalem] and Gaza [the oPt.  It should be noted that Hamas participated as a political concession  in those 2006 elections for the PLC, an organ of the PA created by the Oslo Accords which they don't like at all];
(c) as well as for municipalities in the oPt;
(d) AND for the first time for the PNC [which could theoretically result in a quite different gauge of the current electoral strength of Hamas vs. Fatah in the global Palestinian population].

Next steps?

It has been announced that there will be another reconciliation meeting in early December.  Probably it will be a “summit”.  Maybe it will be in Cairo.

Whatever, it will still come after the 29 November anniversary of the UN General Assembly adoption, in 1947, of the “partition” resolution 181, which recommended diving up the British-administered Palestine Mandate into two states, one Jewish and one Arab.

This iconic date — marked in the UN as the Day of International Solidarity with the Palestinian People — is a date to be watched for a possible Palestinian move to deal with their “UN bid”.

Strategic Palestinian interests, particularly the need to avoid harsh economic retaliation,  may continue to necessitate a prolonged waiting game, however.

The AP reported after the Cairo reconciliation summit that “Participants would only say the formation of the government was discussed, and that lower-level talks would continue. Abbas avoided specifics in the meeting, including on the government issue, leaving Hamas wondering whether he is playing for time, said a Hamas official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss details of the meeting.  Abbas would face a Western backlash — possibly including political isolation and the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in international aid — for striking up a political partnership with Hamas and allowing activists of the widely shunned movement into the Palestinian security forces.  Both sides reiterated that elections should go ahead, as planned, in May, but did not set a date.  Voting plans could easily be derailed because Hamas has demanded assurances that Israel will not target or arrest its candidates, as it did after the 2006 parliament vote.  Abbas’ Fatah movement, meanwhile, remains in disarray and seems unprepared for elections”.

In the meantime, other developments in the region and internationally could bring other surprises that might have a major impact on the Palestinian situation — either for better or for worse…

Abbas meeting Tantawi – photo via PalTelegraph here – presumably taken today

Apparently, Abbas arrived in Egypt Tuesday night.  He had to have travelled via Jordan — he certainly didn’t fly from Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport, and he didn’t drive through Gaza.

In the midst of chaos in [some, main] Egyptian streets, Abbas is supposed be on a four-day visit to Cairo, despite the chaos in the streets, and will meet Khaled Meshaal of Hamas tomorrow, after years of Egyptian negotiations to effect a “reconciliation” between Hamas and Fatah…

To go ahead with the reconciliation in the coming days, Abbas and Meshaal will have to ignore the sheer mayhem and brutality in the streets of Cairo and several other Egyptian cities, where vast quantities of what is reported to be an enhanced variety of tear gas has been mercilessly fired upon protesting citizens who are demanding a transition to civilian rule. and on uninvolved bystanders alike.

Egyptian military leaders are saying that “hidden forces” are behind the worst violence and the many civilian deaths — and not the military, which says it is responsible only for the tear gas…

One thing Abbas’ arrival in Cairo does mean is that Abbas was in Jordan on Tuesday, a day after receiving King Abdallah II in Ramallah on Monday.  [Did they meet again?]

King Abdallah’s “historical” visit was announced late on Sunday, and the whole thing is still a big mystery — more to come in a separate post.  The King flew by helicopter to Ramallah, and landed in the grounds of the Muqata’a Presidential palace.   When the King flew back to Amman, he met almost immediately with U.S. Undersecretary of State William Burns — who himself had met Abbas on Sunday,  and then with Israel’s Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu on Monday morning, perhaps just before Abdallah arrived in Ramallah…  And, there is no way that the Jordanian monarch could have flown across the West Bank without full Israeli approval.

The link between these events is: elections.

The proposed Fatah-Hamas reconciliation is supposed to involve agreement on new Palestinian elections — perhaps by next May — to overcome the split that followed the Hamas rout of Fatah/Palestinian Preventive Security Forces, which an infuriated Mahmoud Abbas called a “military coup”, just before carrying out his own retaliatory political coup by dissolving a very short-lived National Unity government headed by Hamas’ Ismail Haniyeh.  Abbas then appointed Salam Fayyad as Prime Minister of an “Emergency Government” which has basically remained in power until today [despite permutations].

Now, Hamas is reportedly still opposed to Fayyad continuing as Prime Minister, after the reconciliation — and there has been speculation that a replacement may soon be named [the most recent speculation involved Dr. Mohammed Mustafa, Economic Adviser to Abbas + head of the, um, non-governmental Palestine Investment Fund]. A new Palestinian Authority/PLO government would be composed only of “technocrats” [meaning, no one associated with Hamas, which would mean the re-imposition of strong new financial and other sanctions -- that is, unless Hamas meets the "Quartet conditions: recognition of Israel, or its "right to exist"; renunciation of violence, and allegience to all previous agreements made by the PLO.

A new technocratic government would be charged with overseeing a transition to new elections.

UPDATE: It was reported from Cairo on Thursday morning, just before the Abbas-Meshaal reconciliation talks began, that the naming of a new Prime Minister would not be on the immediate agenda...]

Since the violent Hamas-Fatah break-up in June 2007, Mahmoud Abbas has, insisted on a return to the status quo ante as a prerequisite for any reconciliation with Hamas, meaning that Hamas must know its place, and not rule as a rival regime in Gaza.

By the terms of a previous reconciliation — the Cairo 2005 agreement — Hamas was supposed to be integrated into the PLO [Palestine Liberation Organization], in which Mahmoud Abbas has been Chairman of the Executive Committee since the death of Yasser Arafat in a hospital in Paris in November 2004.

[Abbas, like Arafat before him, has consolidated his hold on all three reins of Palestinian political power.  Abbas is also the head, by acclamation, of Fatah, which is the largest Palestinian political movement.   And he is the elected head of the Palestinian Authority, established by agreement bween the PLO + Israel under the Oslo Accords, which Hamas opposes -- but Abbas' term of office expired either in January 2009 or in January 2010, depending on which legalistic argument one backs. So, when there are new reports of Abbas resigning, the question has to be asked: from what, exactly?  The PLO, Fatah, or just the PA? In any case, Abbas has also said, previously, that he will remain in office until there are new elections.]

Hamas agreed to join the PLO — but has argued that it should have a percentage of seats in the PLO’s Palestine National Council [PNC] that would be proportional to the number of seats it won in 2006 elections for the PA’s Legislative Council [PLC] — in other words, over 60 percent.

Fatah was outraged — and Fatah officials maintained in recent years that they would never agree to Hamas having anything more than 25% of seats in the PNC.

The mandate for the 2006 PLO has also expired, without ever having many meetings, both because Israel arrested so many Hamas-affiliated parliamentarians that a quorum could not be met, but also because of the huge rift between Hamas and Fatah…

And Abbas has ruled by Presidential decree — which some fastidious Palestinian libertarians have quietly criticized.

Meanwhile, Abbas has cancelled Palestinian presidential and parliamentary elections that he called for 24 January 2010, and he has also twice scheduled, and cancelled, local or municipality elections.

One of the major demands of the Palestinian “youth demonstrations”, whicht began in honor of the January 25 movement that filled Cairo’s Tahrir Square in Egypt [until Mubarak resigned in February], was an end to the Fatah-Hamas split.

Another of the demands was to hold elections — for the first time, ever — among Palestinians everywhere [and not just in the West Bank + Gaza] for the PLO’s National Council.

The reconciliation agreement signed in Cairo in May, and today’s follow-up “summit” [more than 6 months later] between Abbas + Meshall in Cairo was initially viewed as a response to the Palestinian “youth demonstrations” and to the “Arab Spring” developments in the region.  [One reason the reconciliation summit was delayed was to protect, or insulate, the "UN bid" from reprisals -- which have since been imposed anyway, after the UNESCO vote to admit Palestine as a full member state nearly one month ago...]

In other, separate developments, Egyptians were supposed to begin voting on Monday 28 November in the first round of their new Parliamentary elections… though the preparations process has been rather back-room and secretive.

And tonight, Egypt’s Interior Minister called for a postponement due to the situation in the country.

UPDATE: On Thursday, a group of Egyptian political parties also called for a postponement of elections.

But, in reaction to the terrible violence over the last couple of days, the call in Tahrir Square has been, again: “Irhal” –  Go.  Just go.  Get out.

There is not a unified position on cancelling elections now.

So now, here are a few thoughts: is it just possible that a Fatah-Hamas reconciliation in Cairo tomorrow might have enough overwhelming popular appeal and regional magic to distract, and stop the bloodshed in Egypt?

By the same time tomorrow night, after all the violence and suffering and human loss in this region, will everything seem better [and not worse]?

Reality check: The U.S. is lobbying strongly against any reconciliation Palestinian government, which would mean a move toward new Palestinian elections [the visit of Burns to the region on Sunday + Monday was reportedly about that, and about the "UN bid" that Mahmoud Abbas filed in New York on 23 September for full UN membership]. At stake is another full-scale imposition of economic sanctions that will have a devastating impact on the situation in the West Bank, despite defiant Palestinian statements.

There is, of course, a major contradiction, at least in democracies, between supporting elections [as U.S. President George W. Bush did, prior to the 2006 Palestinian elections in which Hamas won a majority of seats in the PLC, dismissing some worry about the lack of Fatah popularity, and the possibility of Hamas gains], and then imposing sanctions because of who wins.

But, the U.S. is still calling for Egyptian elections.

Mark Toner, a U.S. State Dept spox, did so in an exchange with journalists at the daily briefing in Washington:

“QUESTION: And you remain confident that this election will go on on time?

MR. TONER: We continue to believe that it can go on, yeah.

QUESTION: Are you still –

QUESTION: (Inaudible) boycott the vote given the amount of violence and their distrust of the military?

MR. TONER: Again, as Field Marshal Tantawi said yesterday, this is – he provided a path that talked about these elections, talked about a newly appointed civilian government, as well as a full transition to – or presidential elections by next summer. And this is the way that Egyptians can create the kind of democracy for which they’re protesting in Tahrir Square. It’s extremely important that they exercise their right to vote … He [Tantawi] did pledge to appoint a new cabinet and to hold presidential elections, as I talked – as I said, and proceed with parliamentary elections as planned. We believe that’s important. We also believe that it’s important that the SCAF ensure that free and fair elections proceed expeditiously, and that their security of these elections is ensured, and that – in an environment that’s free from any intimidation, and that

this newly appointed civilian government be able to exercise real executive power immediately … What’s important, as I said, is that these elections be seen by the Egyptian people as credible and transparent. That’s the responsibility of the SCAF, to create that kind of atmosphere and that kind of environment, so that they’re – that these elections can be taken seriously by the Egyptian people, and again, building towards eventual presidential elections, a new constitution, et cetera, that will result in a true democracy for Egypt … And so we’re engaged with the Egyptian authorities. Again, our goal here is to provide whatever support we can so that credible, transparent elections can take place. But ultimately, this is something that the

Egyptian people need to see done”.

The briefing transcript can be read in full here.

But, what about the Palestinian people?

Egyptian riot police are reportedly responsible for the worst violence, but .

A “million man” march was called for 4pm to protest police and military brutality against the demonstrators. At least 100,000 people were reported in Cairo’s Tahrir Square.

Field Marshall Hussein Tantawi was expected to speak at about the same time.

But, he began a meeting with Egyptian political parties…

His remarks were finally aired on Egyptian State TV three hours later, after 7pm.

Despite all evidence to the contrary, Tantawi maintained that the Armed Forces “never killed a single Egyptian”, and he insisted that the Armed Forces are the main protectors of the people. But, he added, “the ability of the Ministry of Interior is improving”…

He said that although they never took a political position, and had no political ambitions, and treated all political parties equally, the Armed Forces had an important role to play, because the “interim situation is not safe … and the Egyptian economy is receding. The Armed Forces would therefore continue to maintain the state and ensure security while “we know that differences are there, and different positions”.

He said that he ["I"] had decided to accept the resignation of the present Prime Minister and his cabinet — but had asked them to stay on in their posts until a new government could be formed…

Tantawi observed that “the closer we come to elections, the more tensions are increasing — this we cannot understand”.

Only “at the end of this process will we hand over power to an elected civilian authority”, Tantawi said in his televised address.

A first round of parliamentary elections is due to be held in less than a week — on November 28, and Tantawi said that this schedule would be maintained.

While doubts have been expressed, the political parties are almost all agreed that elections should go ahead in six days, and U.S. government statements have supported that position.

In his statement today, Tantawi indicated for the first time that Presidential elections would be held by June 2012. That had been a main demand of demonstrators on Friday — but, as analysts noted, by today it seemed too late.

And, as the New York Times reported from Egypt, here, this “would also leave the civilian government reporting to the military — effectively a continuation of what amounts to martial law in civilian clothes — until next June”.

Tantawi said: “We are the Armed forces of Egypt who protect the people” — though, he said, “hidden powers are trying to cause a rift between the Armed Forces and the people, and between the people and the political factions”.

The 100,000 or so people in Tahrir Square listened intently. But, by the end of the speech, there were chants of “Irhal, Irhal, Irhal” — Get out! Go!

Afterwards, “there was no rush to the exits”, as Al-Jazeera English’s correspondent Sherine Tadrus reported from Tahrir Square. The crowd mainly stayed put, and there were hours of unprecedentedly intense barrages of tear gas.

But, in Alexandria — Egypt’s second largest city — the riot police were clashing with protesters even during Tantawi’s speech, and the clashes continued for hours.

The U.S. State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland strongly urged the Egyptian government to “exercise maximum restraint and discipline its forces, and protect the universial rights of all Egyptians to peacefully express themselves”. She said the U.S. was “looking forward to the naming of a new Egyptian government” whose “first responsibility will obviously be to organize and ensure free and fair elections” to ensure a transfer to democracy — does that mean within the next few days?

Meanwhile, three Americans who were identified as students at the American University in Cairo [AUC] were detained by the Ministry of Interior, which accused them of attacking Egyptian security forces from the roof of one of the AUC buildings near Tahrir Square.

Egyptian editor and journalist Mona Anis of Al-Ahram tweeted a link to a Facebook page maintained by Egypt’s Ministry of Interior here, which published a photo of the three looking scared. Two of them were holding plastic bottles, and two of those bottles containing a clear yellowish liquid [that looked like kerosene or gasoline, as if they were molotov cocktails]:

According to the Washington Post, the three “were accused on state-controlled television of participating in the violent demonstrations that are posing the greatest threat to Egypt’s military leaders since the ouster of Mubarak. A university [AUC] spokeswoman identified the three as Derrik Sweeney, 19, a student at Georgetown University who is from Jefferson City, Mo.; Luke Gates, 21, an exchange student from Bloomington, Ind., who attends Indiana University; and Gregory Porter, 19, of Glenside, Pa., and Drexel University”. This is posted here.

There have been so many deaths and injuries — including a shocking number of protesters injured by rubber bullets in eyes, many of whom have reportedly lost their eyes as a result — that the figures are unreliable, and the tallies by various volunteers and news organizations keep mounting. One observer Tweeted that the soldiers/police were blinded themselves by the fast quantities of strong tear gas that was shot around, and as a result they fired wildly [hitting so many protesters exactly in the eyes???]. A group of three Egyptian men — one photojournalist [Ahmed Fatah, in the middle/background], + 2 well-known activists [Malek Mostafa and on the left, Ahmad Hararah] — with almost identical injuries are shown in this photo here.

At a certain point, the Muslim Brotherhood turned out. Then left. A few politicians showed up, then left.

A new terminology had to be learned: who are the ULTRAs? [It seems they are the almost-mythical "football fans" who have been on both sides of this revolution, but who now appear to be against the present military rule and therefore now on the side of the Tahrir activists...]

The situation is still evolving, three days later.

UPDATE: Al-Jazeera Arabic reported Monday night that the entire Egyptian Cabinet tendered its resignation — but the Supreme Military Council has not yet accepted the resignation.

Mark Lynch [@Abuaardvark] wrote today on FP that “Genuinely shocking brutality by Egyptian security forces has left at least 22 dead and many hundreds wounded. The chaos, still ongoing a week before the scheduled beginning of Parliamentary elections [n.b.- the first round is still scheduled to begin on 28 November, but Presidential elections have not yet been fixed], has thrown Egypt’s already extremely shaky political transition into doubt … [And] it shows with painful clarity the costs of the incompetence of Egypt’s military leadership and the urgency of a rapid transition to civilian rule. The violence began at a moment when there were rare reasons for guarded optimism. On Friday, Islamist forces including the Muslim Brotherhood had organized a massive, well-disciplined demonstration against the document on constitutional principles released in the late days of the Parliamentary election campaign and seemed designed to maintain the military’s hold on effective state power long into the future. The Islamists and a range of other political forces had focused their protest on clear, political demands to speed the transition to civilian rule. All three elements which have generally pushed the SCAF [n.b. - the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces] to make necessary political concessions seemed to have fallen into place: masses in the streets, an elite political consensus, and American pressure. But then things went wrong astonishingly quickly. The Islamists and most other participants in the demonstration left Tahrir at the end of the rally. A few hundred people, mostly (it seems) families of the martyrs of the January 25 revolution and veterans of past Tahrir occupations, decided to launch a new sit-in. This does not seem to have been coordinated with the political strategy of the day’s demonstration. The move risked going down the same path as the July 8 demonstration, an originally successful rally which squandered its gains with a wildly unpopular occupation of Tahrir. But then Egyptian security forces, acting on authority which remains murky, moved in with extreme force to drive out the small group attempting to occupy Tahrir. Their over the top violence, including massive tear gas and highly abusive police behavior, seems to have then attracted the attention of the core of Egyptian activists who came running to join the fight. Instead of rapidly clearing the square, the security forces found themselves locked in an epic running battle with thousands of protestors. The momentum shifted repeatedly, with protestors holding the square and then being driven out and then returning. The security forces used massive amounts of tear gas, brute force, and weapons. That battle rages on”. This commentary or analysis can be read in full here.

Amnesty International is due to release a report — still under embargo for another six or seven hours — entitled “Broken Promises: Egypt’s Military Rulers Erode Human Rights“, which, according to the website of Amnesty USA here, is being “Released ahead of the start of elections on 28 November … [and which] analyses how official rhetoric has obscured the increasing suppression of people who dare to defy, question or criticize Egypt’s military rulers”.

Meanwhile, the statement on the Amnesty USA website says about the hell of the past few days: “Egypt’s Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) must urgently bring an end to the excessive use of force that has led to numerous deaths and injuries amid protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square since Saturday, Amnesty International said today. Some two dozen people have reportedly been killed in violent clashes that erupted in Cairo and Alexandria since Saturday. Hundreds have also been injured in the clashes as security forces appeared to fire buckshot and rubber bullets into crowds … Protesters gathered in Tahrir Square over the weekend after riot police used force to disperse a sit-in organized by a group of people injured in the January uprising. The protesters had camped in the square last week to call for the SCAF to hand over power to civilian rule and to provide them with adequate reparations for their injuries. In their attempt to regain control of Tahrir Square and surrounding streets, security forces beat protesters with sticks and used tear gas recklessly to disperse the crowds. Some protesters retaliated by hurling stones and, in some instances, Molotov cocktails. Some 120 people were arrested and referred to the public prosecution for investigation. Bodies in the Cairo morgue reportedly showed head and chest wounds from live ammunition, including shotgun wounds. The public prosecution has ordered a forensic examination of the bodies”.

The Amnesty USA website reports that Philip Luther, Acting Middle East and North Africa Director of Amnesty International, said “the violence yet again calls into question the orders given to security forces … We hold the SCAF responsible for the lives and the safety of demonstrators and voters in next week’s elections”.

21:15 pm: At least one of the Palestinian prisoners released today, a woman who is now in Gaza, was on the hunger strike that began on 27 September — Wafa al-Bis was hospitalized in Gaza tonight, according to a report by WAFA picked up and posted here. It seems that she was one of the women prisoners who initially refused to be released into Gaza, if I correctly understood earlier Tweet by @dimaeleiwa.

19:05 pm: Just realized, listening to replay of Noam Shalit’s remarks to public in Mitzpe Hila, he said his son Gilad suffers from lack of sunlight [that was kind of obvious today], from after-effects of shrapnel wounds [how did he get these shrapnel wounds?] , and from isolation — including because he did not speak the language and could not communicate with OTHER PRISONERS. What OTHER PRISONERS was Gilad Shalit held with?

18:15 pm:: Live event in Gaza, address by Hamas’ Ismail Haniyah shouting angrily — apparently in answer to criticism that Hamas has benefitted — by saying that all factions were consulted and involved, Palestinians are one people. Al Jazeera [+ some other TV channels] break away from Haniyeh speech just after he says Chris Bandak, a Palestinian Christian [from Bethlehem] who had been serving three [3] life sentences “is now here with us”. Al Jazeera International goes directly to public remarks being made in Mitzpe Hila in northern Israel by Noam Shalit, Gilad’s father, who mentioned that his son still suffers from shrapnel injuries [shrapnel? Couldn't have been from the operation when he was captured, could it? Was it, instead, from IDF's Operation Cast Lead? -- there were reports he had been injured] and from having been in near-total isolation…

16:30 pm: IDF says Gilad Shalit has completed medical exams and will fly to family home in Mizpe Hila soon. Arrived after 17h00 — holding up well, greeted by crowd waving lots of large Israeli flags. Meanwhile, Turkish Foreign Minister said that 10 released Palestinian prisoners are being flown from Cairo to Turkey — for 5-year stay! UPDATE: Palestinian TV reports on night news that the Turkish FM had a phone conversation today with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

13:30 pm: Wrote too soon: Israeli PM Netanyahu speaking now, somewhere, though I’m sorry I have no idea what he’s saying [in Hebrew] … Glad to learn that Shalit and his family didn’t have to stay to listen!

12:46 pm: I must say, in every appearance, Gilad Shalit looks like a lovely and very likeable person.

This photo is posted by the IDF on their Flickr page, here.

12:30 pm: Thank God, after speeches, etc.. most of it is now over, and release was achieved, at least for some…

11:50 am: Palestinian TV shows Mahmoud Abbas standing in receiving line individually greeting released prisoners who then go in small groups to Arafat’s tomb to pray. Recorded music playing inside Muqata’a grounds, crowd waving flags, clapping or moving with music, but restrained, have not yet seen prisoners…

11:44 am: Released Palestinian prisoners reportedly arrive in Rafah and in Ramallah’s Muqata’a

11:30 am: Apparently, Palestinian prisoners released to West Bank were not seen at Ofer Prison, where friends and families were waiting, but instead taken to the terrible, awful, disgraceful Qalandia checkpoint. Those disappointed at Ofer reacted angrily, were then teargassed [via Twitter sources]

11:15 am: Palestinian TV now showing Egyptian TV interview w/ Gilad Shalit, in civilian clothes. Egyptian woman with British overlay on accent puts questions in English, Shalit answers in Hebrew… When she asks him why he was only allowed to communicate once with his family, he almost loses composure. She says ok, tries to move on… He reportedly says he missed his family and speaking with his friends, and also that in the future he hopes to work for Israeli-Palestinian peace. Then, Palestinian TV again showing split screens of Rafah and the Muqata’a field in Ramallah, Palestinians still waiting for arrival of released Palestinians.

11:09 am: Israeli air activity overhead now, again [heard in north Jerusalem]… not too far from Tel Nof air base…

11:05 am: An IDF soldier now Tweets that Shalit is in Israel — now confirmed by @SachaDratwa.

11:00 am: IDF French-lang. spox @SachaDratwa denies on Twitter that Shalit is on Israeli territory, yet [despite BBC Breaking News report a few minutes earlier...]

10:47 am: Palestinian TV still shows people waiting for arrival of released prisoners. PA President Mahmoud Abbas, who is also head of the PLO, was scheduled to greet the prisoners being released into the West Bank at 10:00 — journalists were asked to be in the Muqata’a by 8:30 am, of course – though the notice anticipated that there could be some delay. The NYTimes has just reported here that five empty busses were waiting at Rafah crossing to receive the incoming prisoners [only about half of whom are actually from Gaza], and added that “Atallah Abu al-Sebah, Hamas’s minister of prisoners’ affairs, said the prisoners released in Gaza would first be greeted inside the Rafah crossing by 200 officials and up to four members of each prisoner’s family. There would be a ‘short official reception’, including the Palestinian national anthem. Mr. Sebah said that any prisoners who needed accommodation, including those who did not have families in the strip, would be put up in hotels for one month, irrespective of whether they were associated with Hamas, Fatah or other factions. They would then be moved to apartments being prepared for them around Gaza”…
The press release from Amnesty International mentioned below also says that “While the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip are internationally recognised as a single territorial unit under the Oslo Accords and international humanitarian law, the Israeli authorities do not allow Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip access to the West Bank or vice versa. These Palestinians will thus be entirely cut off from their family members with no possibility of visits. Finally, 41 prisoners, including one woman, will be exiled abroad. Most of them are serving life sentences. It is unclear whether they are being exiled permanently or will be allowed to return to their homes in the OPT at some point in the future. Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits an occupying power from forcibly transferring or deporting people from an occupied territory. In the event that those prisoners being exiled abroad or transferred to Gaza from the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, have not given their consent, Israel would be violating its obligations under international humanitarian law”…

10:34 am: – Palestinian TV still shows crowds waiting for prisoner release. A few minutes ago, IDF spox officially confirmed that “Sgt 1st Class” Shalit has been identified, prisoner exchange to begin. [Shalit was promoted three times by the IDF during his years in captivity, recently to Sgt Major, which must be what Sgt 1st Class means...] A Haaretz photo picked up from Egyptian TV video shows a stressed [understandably] Shalit. In addition to all the other sources of stress, most people involved in today’s events have probably been awake and up all night, perhaps for several days…

10:20 am: The BBC is live-blogging today’s events here, as “Mid-East Prisoner Exchange”. Via Twitter sources: Egypt has reportedly agreed to accept one or both of the Palestinian female prisoners who refused to be sent to Gaza.

10:00 am: A press release from Amnesty International says today’s events cast a “harsh light” on detention practices of all sides involved: “The prisoner exchange involving Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit and 477 Palestinian prisoners highlights the need for the humane treatment of all detainees in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), Amnesty International said today … Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Director, said that “more needs to be done to protect the rights of thousands of others who remain in detention. The Israeli authorities, the Hamas de facto administration in Gaza, and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank must seize this opportunity to ensure respect for the rights of all prisoners and detainees in their custody … International human rights standards and international humanitarian law guarantee every person deprived of liberty the right to humane and dignified conditions of detention, adequate medical care, and regular family visits … Israel, the Hamas de facto administration, and the Palestinian Authority must ensure that all detainees receive fair and prompt trials meeting international standards, and that judicial rulings on the release of detainees are implemented” … Amnesty International has repeatedly called on the Hamas authorities not to treat Gilad Shalit as a hostage and a bargaining chip, in violation of their obligations under international humanitarian law. It has also consistently raised concerns with the Israeli authorities about the prison conditions of Palestinian detainees, and the fact that Israel continues to imprison Palestinians from the OPT inside Israel, in violation of its obligations under the Fourth Geneva Convention. Over 5,200 Palestinians from the West Bank – including East Jerusalem – and the Gaza Strip, which together comprise the OPT [occupied Palestinian territory, the term standardized by the International Court of Justice in its 2004 Advisory Opinion on the Legality of Israel's Construction of The Wall], are currently detained in facilities run by the Israel Prison Service. The vast majority are detaiined inside Israel”. [Addameer Director Sahar Francis said at a PLO press conference in Ramallah last week that all Palestinian prisoners are held in Israeli jails under Israeli jurisdiction -- she specifically noted that although Ofer military prison is in the West Bank, it is in an area that Israel considers to be part of the Greater Jerusalem Municipality.]

9:50 am: Shalit reportedly spoke fluent Arabic to Egyptian officials during transfer — good for him! This is reported in various places, including on +972 Magazine’s live blog of today’s events, here … BBC reports that Shalit has also just spoken to his parents [in Hebrew, for sure] on the phone…

9:34 am: Air activity overhead for past half-hour or so, heard one helicopter, several heavier planes. Palestinian TV showing split screen with live shots of people waiting at Rafah [Gaza] and Beitunia [West Bank].

9:29 am: Israeli TV reportedly informs its viewers that 2 female Palestinian prisoners are refusing to enter Gaza from the Kerem Shalom crossing. [[But three female names were given: Mariam al-Tarabeen [al-Arabiya] and “amna el saadi and qahera el saadat” [via Twitter sources] … later updated by @dimaeleiwa as follows: “Only wafaa el bis will come to #Gaza and mariam el tarabini will go to the #WB”… the fog of transfer…]] Also reported by Haaretz, here — the ICRC, as part of its role — and all sides have been using the ICRC this morning — must ask those slated for deportation/exile if they agree to this. If the Palestinian prisoners refuse to agree, it’s not clear what will happen…

9:10 am: Everything has gone silent for about 30 minutes. Latest message says Shalit reportedly now in Israeli Army uniform. Richard Silverstein writes here on his blog, Tikkun Olam: “what’s missing from this picture? The fact that Israel, thanks to its superior military power, can apprehend those who kill its soldiers and civilians, throw them in jail and then release them if it chooses. Palestine has no such power to arrest Israeli settlers and soldiers who’ve killed Palestinian civilians. And until now, no international tribunal has been willing to do this either. There are as many or more Israelis with Palestinian blood on their hands as there are Palestinians with Israeli blood. The former, however, are not held accountable … The obsession with two Israeli prisoners to the exclusion of all else further displays the ethnocentrism of the world media. We care about Israelis facing such predicaments. Arabs, not so much. We care about Israeli victims of Palestinian terror. Palestinian victims of Israeli terror, not so much. If we care about terror and its victims, as we should, we must care about victims on both sides”. [But, ethnocentrism? Is that what it is?]

8:31 am: Shalit is still in Kerem Shalom undergoing Israeli evaluation, despite IDF spox email sent 15 minutes earlier in error saying he had left Kerem Shalom for reunion with his family at Tel Nof Airbase near Jerusalem.

7:59 am: “Now that Shalit is in Egypt, Israel releases Palestinian prisoners to ICRC custody”.

7:42: 16 Palestinian prisoners who will be released to East Jerusalem are on their way in heavily guarded convoy from Ofer Prison — “to Metzudat Adumim, for release at that point” — apparently this is “a police station near Maale Adumim, according to the Haaretz live blog of the swap, here, which also reports that “with this, the role of the Israel Prisons Service has ended”. But, has it? The Haaretz live blog also notes that “One prisoner will be moved taken to the Katzrin police [n.b. - this is in the Golan Heights, will someone be transferred by the ICRC through Israel-Syrian lines here, perhaps on the way to Jordan? If so, why not across the Allenby Bridge? No, someone must be going to Syria or some other place, perhaps Turkey?]; two prisoners will arrive at Ayalon Prison and will be released in Lod, and three prisoners that were moved to Megido Prison are residents of Wadi Ara” … The Haaretz live blog adds that “Female Palestinian terrorist Amna Muna, who was supposed to be deported abroad as part of prisoner exchange deal, will instead be deported to Gaza” — perhaps she told the ICRC that she did not agree to leave the oPt???

7:33 am: After many conflicting reports from various media and Hamas + Egyptian officials, Israel Radio confirms that Gilad Shalit is at Kerem Shalom “in Egyptian hands – out of Hamas captivity”.

6:44 am: report that International Committee of the Red Cross has confirmed that identification process for all prisoners slated for release has been completed.

A photo from Orten Zvi of Activestills is posted on Flickr, here. A Tweet says that an Israeli soldier inside Ofer Prison is telling the waiting Palestinian family and friends of prisoners being released that if they don’t take down the Palestinian flag they have put on the prison fence, the busses with prisoners will not leave the prison…

6:20 am: one or more busses of Palestinian prisoners waiting at Kerem Shalom crossing [at the Israeli-Egyptian Sinai border just south of Gaza, near where IDF soldier Gilad Shalit was captured in June 2006]. Others are at Ofer Prison + Army base near Beitunia, just south-west of Ramallah [this is clearly in the West Bank, but it is right on Israel's Road 443, and Israel considers it to be in the Greater Jerusalem Municipal area...]

At 4:15 am, the first message arrived: Palestinian prisoners heading to West Bank release, other prisoners preparing.