The International Committee of the Red Cross has reportedly made arrangements to bring her family — from the West Bank, a significant Israeli concession — to say a brief goodbye as Hana is sent through the frightful Erez locked gates and long corridors devoid of any human presence except through remote Israeli security cameras.

Reuters reported in the evening that “Shalabi arrived in Gaza before nightfall in an ambulance, after a tearful farewell with family members who saw her at Gaza’s Erez crossing with Israel before she was deported, medics who escorted her said”.   This report was posted here.

Her crossing apparently took place just before sunset, sometime between 17h00 and 18h00.

This Reuters photo is now posted on the Ma’an News Agency website:
.

Ma’an reported here that officials said Shalabi’s “Relatives were allowed to meet with her for an hour”.

Hana Shalabi — who Israeli government spokespersons say is a member of Islamic Jihad — was already jailed for about three years under Israeli Administrative Detention rules.   She was released in October in the recent prisoner swap that returned captured IDF soldier Gilad Shalit from Gaza after five years.  Then, she was suddenly re-arrested by the IDF and taken in a pre-dawn raid at her father’s home in the West Bank in early February.

In Israeli Administrative Detention, a military judge issues an order for periods that are usually six months long and renewable.  The only evidence is discussed in private between the Israeli military judge and Israeli security personnel, who provide supposedly secret evidence that neither the person under arrest nor his or her attorney will see.  Without knowing the evidence,  no defense is possible.  The only charges that are made public are “posing a threat to the security and peace of the region”.

Highlighting another aspect to this story, Ali Abunimah wrote here, on his Electronic Intifada website that “I have already noted that while Hana was being held without charge or trial, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s official spokesman Ofir Gendelman was using Twitter to defame and smear her – while she is denied any right to respond to these or any other accusations”. Something similar happened earlier, with Khader Adnan. But Ofir Gendelman has taken a lead on the Hana Shalabi case. Just today, Gendelman [@ofirgendelman], who works for the Prime Minister of Israel, Benyamin Netanyahu, and has identified his Twitter account as “official”, wrote the following Tweets: “#HanaShalabi is a terrorist who planned to kill innocent people” … “#HanaShalabi, an Islamic Jihad terrorist, was arrested because she planned terrorist attacks against Israelis. This is a war crime” … “Israel will not compromise on the security of its citizens. This is why Islamic Jihad terrorist #HanaShalabi was deported to Hamas in Gaza“. In his enthusiam for the task, Gendelman also Tweeted that “After she relocates to Gaza, she will not endanger any Israelis anymore” … “#HanaShalabi has committed to relinquish violence. If she does resume her terrorist activities w/ the Islamic Jihad, she will be re-arrested“. And, in a handly little description of Israeli Administrative Detention, Gendelman Tweeted that “evidence against #HanaShalabi came from intel, hence admin detention: a tool against terror when evidence is intel“. All of this is based on “intel”, Gendelman writes — suggesting that he has had privileged access to it. And, though none of this information has been made public, and Hana Shalabi therefore has no way to answer these accusations, Gendelman is using his official position to make accusations based on information that he implies is privileged, and that cannot be refuted because it is secret.

If Gendelman has had priviliged access to “intel” presented to an Israeli military court in the West Bank, this would appear to be a serious misuse of official position. Or, is there no separation of powers in the Israeli system of government?

If Gendelman is merely repeating what he has been told, without any checking to see if it might be accurate or not, then he is indulging in propaganda in a way that is unworthy of an official working in the office of the Prime Minister of a democratic country that runs by rule of law.

And, there is a serious logical [and propagandistic] flaw in his argumentation: seriously, how can @OfirGendelman, adviser to PM Netanyahu, use his Twitter “official account” to claim secret “intel” proves someone plots war crimes? And then, at the same time, after #HanaShalabi enters Gaza, @Ofirgendelman writes: “After she relocates to Gaza, she will not endanger any Israelis anymore”…

The agreement that requires Hana Shalabi to go to Gaza for three years was previously proposed and rejected by her weeks ago.

The sudden announcement that she had reconsidered and accepted going to Gaza was made on 28 March — after several days when neither her lawyers nor the independent medical doctor

This morning, Addameer said that that it learned Shalabi would be sent to Gaza today.

In a joint statement in the afternoon, Addameer and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-Israel) said they were

“alarmed at the announcement that Hana Shalabi will be expelled to the Gaza Strip today, only three days after purportedly ending her 43-day hunger strike. Addameer and PHR-Israel condemn the Israeli Prison Service (IPS)’s denial of access to both parties to visit Ms. Shalabi in the days leading up to the deal for her release and expulsion to the Gaza Strip and since the deal was reportedly finalized on 29 March…

“Addameer and PHR-Israel fear that, given her grave medical condition, the restriction of access of Ms. Shalabi’s physician and lawyers, in addition to the prevention of family visits, were used as methods of coercion. Furthermore, serious concerns exist regarding the availability and arrangement of adequate medical care matching Ms. Shalabi’s urgent needs in light of her swift transfer … Ms. Shalabi’s release is contingent upon her expulsion for a period of three years to the Gaza Strip, which, although part of the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), has been hermetically sealed off from the rest of the oPt by Israel. Therefore, with no guarantees that she or her family will be permitted to travel, her expulsion could essentially become an extension of her previous isolation from her home and family while in prison. There are numerous examples of similar agreements made by Israel regarding the forced transfer or deportation of Palestinian political prisoners or ‘wanted’ persons. Most recently, in the October 2011 prisoner exchange deal, 18 West Bank prisoners, including those from East Jerusalem, were expelled to the Gaza Strip for a period of three years while an additional 146 were forcibly relocated there on a permanent basis as conditions of their release. An additional 41 prisoners were deported outside of the oPt. In past deals, individuals who were expelled to the Gaza Strip for short-term periods were not necessarily allowed to return home after completing the agreed upon period. The terms of these expulsions violate Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits forcible transfers and deportations of protected persons, a proscription that is part of customary international humanitarian law. Unlawful deportation or transfer also constitutes a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention (GC IV) and qualifies as one of the most serious war crimes. Given the stark asymmetry in power, resulting from the belligerent occupation, between the Palestinian and Israeli parties involved, neither the potential ‘consent’ of the prisoners nor the fact that these deals have been negotiated by a Palestinian authority can serve as justification for the deportations as this contravenes the spirit of articles 7, 8 and 47 of the GC IV concerning the inviolability of the protections afforded by the Convention.  In Ms. Shalabi’s case, further concerns are raised when considering her fragile medical condition after such a protracted hunger strike. The transfer of Ms. Shalabi from Meir Hospital to the medical center of the IPS in Ramleh Prison on 28 March throws into doubt whether considerations of her medical care were given appropriate weight. A 43-day hunger strike causes a clear threat to the life of the hunger striker, and requires close and professional medical observation, which is not provided by the IPS medical center. The attentive follow-up to such a long hunger strike is also essential to the sustained health of the individual. The fact that Ms. Shalabi was transferred to the IPS medical center while still on hunger strike, without informing her independent physician, and that she began eating without being under observation by a hospital casts additional doubts on the decision-making process of the IPS and the non-medical considerations that might have influenced the decision to discharge her from the hospital. Moreover, the IPS has created obstacles that have made it nearly impossible to adhere to the instructions provided by the Malta Declaration regarding medical care of hunger strikers, mainly by denying access of an independent physician to the hunger strikers. In the cases of both Khader Adnan and Ms. Shalabi, the first visit by an independent physician was enabled only after court intervention”.

It was, this year, a combination of the Global March to Jerusalem + Land Day.

The day started out slowly — but with prior Israeli preparation that had some of the trappings of the pre-Mavi Marmara “naval incident” during which an Israeli naval boarding on the high seas in the eastern Mediterranean resulted in the deaths of nine Turkish men, including a Turkish-American high school students.

There were. also reminiscent of the pre-Mavi Marmara build-up, even prior alerts about Iranian involvement in sending and training “terrorists” to “infiltrate” the Israeli “borders” from neighboring countries…

As the day went on, it became clear that (1) the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority in the West Bank was ineptly and covertly trying to keep a lid on things there while allowing a low-level flame to burn; that (2) Hamas was making attempts at preventing protesters from actually succeeding in entering the Erez Terminal between Israel and northern Gaza [DEBKAfile reported, sensationally as always, that Hamas took on Islamic Jihad "snipers" to do so]; that (3) Lebanese authorities kept their rumored word not to allow protests south of the Litani River; that (4) the current Syrian Government had no interest in seeing a repeat of last year’s Nakba + Naksa Day fatalities across the UN-monitored demilitarized zone on the Golan Heights; and that government was able to allow some 15,000 Palestinian refugees and their supporters to meet and gather within a few kilometers of the border with Israel without any cross-border clashes. UN Blue Helmet truce monitors kept watch with binoculars all day where last year over 20 people died as they defined warning shots and ran through minefields — this year, the UN observers saw, maybe, a couple of butterflies.

Map showing main Land Day protests via @fadiquran on Twitter

Israel’s YNet website confidently reported here that “the security forces in the Palestinian cities did not allow the demonstrations to spread”…

A report from CNN’s Ben Wedeman on a rally at Beaufort Castle in Lebanon can be viewed here.

Photos of part of the gathering not far from the Jordanian border were Tweeted by @tighebarry

In preparation for the demonstrations, the IDF ordered a complete closure of the West Bank until midnight.

Around Jerusalem itself, the activities [and clashes] were in the Old City of East Jerusalem [Damascus Gate in particular], at Qalandia Checkpoint between Jerusalem and Ramallah, and at the main Israeli checkpoint into Bethlehem.

The New York Times story by Ethan Bronner, published here, used this photo of horse-mounted policemen ploughing through demonstrators in front of Damascus Gate to the Old City of East Jerusalem:

Bronner noted in his NYTimes piece that “While the events on Friday were less violent and smaller than many anticipated, the tenor of the discourse offered Israel little comfort”.

Another photo from the East Jerusalem protests shows a visibly-outnumbered protester apparently being subjected to close-range pepper spraying to his temple, quite near his eye:

Photo Tweeted by @DidiRemez and also published by Ma’an News Agency, in an album posted here.

There were many injuries – including a young man hit in the head by a tear gas cannister at the Bethlehem checkpoint; an 8-year-old boy hit in the face by a tear gas cannister at the weekly protest in Nabi Saleh; one young man, 20-year-old Mahmoud Zaqout, was shot in the chest and killed on the Gaza side of Erez checkpoint –  his death reportedly brings to 5o the number of Palestinians who have died during Land Day protests since the original event it commemorates, in which six died, in 1976…

At Qalandiya, where there are thousands of civilians living in homes in close proximity to the checkpoint and to the action, tires were burned, the IDF moved 100 meters or so out of the checkpoint fanning north, west, and east, and there were enormous quantities of tear gas used [which fills the rooms of the neighboring houses and shops], as well as rubber bullets, skunk spray, and something used during the boarding of the Mavi Marmara [a projectile which emits smoke when fired and which causes painful welts on the skin].

There was also a problem at Qalandiya during which Mubadara Leader Mustafa Barghouthi was injured — apparently in the midst of a tear gas volley — by fighting about tactics and timing, involving his supporters and those of other Palestinian factions.  Barghouthi, an elected representative to the dormant Palestinian Legislative Council who has run as an independent candidate for President of the PA, also runs the Palestinian Medical Relief Committee whose ambulances were in constant service during the day.

On Friday, @jstthtgood sent these Tweets: “Mustafa Barghouti Attacked in #Qalandia while in an Ambulance because he started the ‘March to Jerusalem’ without other factions present” … and “They were suppose to wait till after prayers, and also for other ‘leaders’ to arrive” as well as “Barghouti started early and alone”.

UPDATE: Ma’an News Agency is reporting on Saturday here that “Palestinian Authority investigators have visited the lawmaker in a Ramallah hospital to check up on the circumstances surrounding the injury, a police report said”. This report also notes that “The police investigation is centered on reports that Barghouti was attacked by political adversaries following a dispute about how to carry out the demonstration, which was attended by several factions”.

The NYTimes piece by Bronner reported earlier that “At the Qalandiya checkpoint between the West Bank and Jerusalem, masked youths threw stones at Israeli troops and set tires on fire. The troops responded with rubber bullets and tear gas. Mustafa Barghouti, a doctor and Palestinian politician, said one of the tear-gas canisters hit him, sending him to the hospital. ‘I was hit with a tear-gas bomb on the side of my head and my back’, Dr. Barghouti said in a telephone interview from his hospital bed. ‘My scalp is injured, my right ear has problems, and they are checking to see if I have any spinal injury’.  The Israeli military spokesman’s office, in a set of Twitter messages and later over the telephone, said Dr. Barghouti had not been hit by an Israeli canister but had been attacked by other Palestinians.  A few Palestinian witnesses offered a similar account.  The Palestinian minister of social welfare, Majida al-Masri, was treated after collapsing from tear-gas inhalation“.

Photo of the action at the Bethlehem 300 checkpoint via @GazaYBO [Gaza Youth Breaks Out] on Twitter:

UPDATE: A collection of wonderfully graphic photos of the day’s activities was posted later by the Denver Post here.

Bethlehem activist Mazin Qumsiyeh, who has an email list of some 50,000 names, sent out an email summary at the end of the day which concluded with the words: “Action is the best antidote to despair”.

His remarkable remarks — which appear to have been made in an interview with Ma’an Television, but it is not clear from the article — are reported by Ma’an News Agency, here.

The general reaction has been, “ho hum” [a big yawn].

In the article about the interview, Abbas also reportedly said: “We agreed on the vision and objectives and conditions in full…I confirm that Mashaal was honest and we were ready (to proceed)”.

The Israel News Network report, here, tells us that ” ‘some Hamas leaders rejected the agreements reached in Doha’, he [Abbas] said in a clear reference to Ismail Haniyeh and other Hamas leaders in Gaza who blocked the deal”. This innuendo is left out of the Ma’an report…

Earlier this week, the Palestinian Supreme Court dismissed a legal challenge to the proposal that arose out of long “unity” negotiations that Mahmoud Abbas would replace Salam Fayyad [whose appointment in 2007 irritated Hamas] and would serve as interim Prime Minister in an interim unity governments of technocrats [though Abbas could hardly be called a technocrat] that would prepare for new elections [in which Fatah hopes Hamas will be trounced, just to show them] that should have been held in May 2012.

A Presidential Decree must be issued three months before elections, so the May date has already slipped.

Oh, and Palestinian leader [there is almost no other] Mahmoud Abbas now reportedly has agreed to drop [or perhaps to postpone?] a threat to dismantle the Palestinian Authority…

This news of a not-yet-happened development is attributed to unnamed “foreign diplomats” [American?], and published in Haaretz here.

The Haaretz report tells us that:

“The diplomats who provided the letter said Abbas scrapped the threat at the urging of President Barack Obama. The diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity because the letter has not yet been sent. The letter was leaked more than ten days after, Saeb Erekat asked for a meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu, but his request was denied. During the meeting, Erekat was to submit the letter to Netanyahu. The letter was originally supposed to include an ultimatum on the part of the Palestinians, saying that if their demands were not met, they intended to turn to the international community, urge that Israel uphold international law, and demand that Israel take direct responsibility for the situation in the West Bank. However, beacause of the heavy pressure exerted by U.S., the ultimatum was dropped. The current draft includes only the Palestinians core demands: 1967 borders as a framework for negotiations, a settlement freeze, the release of prisoners, and a section that was added later to the letter: a demand to end IDF operations in West Bank Area A.”

Obama spoke to Abbas recently for the first time since September [when Obama was warning Abbas not to make the "UN bid" for full membership of the state of Palestine in the United Nations. Obama's phone call was followed by one from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton...

Maybe they told Abbas that Obama can't do anything until after the elections -- but then [when Obama is re-elected, the presumption is], just wait, there will be big moves…

Meanwhile, Marwan Barghouthi [a Fatah "Youth" leader in his time] now in his 50s and just marking ten years in Israeli jail, where he is serving five life sentences ordered by an Israeli court at the start of the second Palestinian intifada, has reportedly called for “a renewal of efforts” in the “UN bid” to gain UN membership for the state of Palestine. This “UN bid” is why Israel and the U.S. withheld money to the PA earlier this year — prompting one of Mahmoud Abbas’ periodic thoughts of quitting or of dissolving the PA.

Marwan Barghouthi’s message, transmitted via his lawyer, urged Palestinian leaders to “Stop marketing the illusion that there is a possibility of ending the occupation and achieving a state through negotiations after this vision has failed miserably”. He also called for “stopping all forms of security and economic coordination [with Israel] in all areas immediately”… And, most interestingly, Barghouthi called for “a renewal of efforts” concerning the “UN bid”. According to a wire service report, published here, “Barghouti said that the Palestinians should take their statehood case to the General Assembly or other agencies as an alternative, alluding to forums in which the Palestians have wider support”.

In his weekly article, veteran Israeli activist Uri Avnery wrote about this statement by Marwan Barghouthi, and said:

“I FIRST met Marwan in the heyday of post-Oslo optimism. He was emerging as a leader of the new Palestinian generation, the home-grown young activists, men and women, who had matured in the first Intifada. He is a man of small physical stature and large personality. When I met him, he was already the leader of Tanzim (‘organization’), the youth group of the Fatah movement. The topic of our conversations then was the organization of demonstrations and other non-violent actions, based on close cooperation between the Palestinians and Israeli peace groups. The aim was peace between Israel and a new State of Palestine.

When the Oslo process died with the assassinations of Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat, Marwan and his organization became targets. Successive Israeli leaders – Binyamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon – decided to put an end to the two-state agenda. In the brutal ‘Defensive Shield’ operation (launched by Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, the new leader of the Kadima Party) the Palestinian Authority was attacked, its services destroyed and many of its activists arrested.

Marwan Barghouti was put on trial. It was alleged that, as the leader of Tanzim, he was responsible for several ‘terrorist’ attacks in Israel. His trial was a mockery, resembling a Roman gladiatorial arena more than a judicial process. The hall was packed with howling rightists, presenting themselves as ‘victims of terrorism’. Members of Gush Shalom protested against the trial inside the court building but we were not allowed anywhere near the accused. Marwan was sentenced to five life sentences. The picture of him raising his shackled hands above his head has become a Palestinian national icon. When I visited his family in Ramallah, it was hanging in the living room.

IN PRISON, Marwan Barghouti was immediately recognized as the leader of all Fatah prisoners. He is respected by Hamas activists as well. Together, the imprisoned leaders of Fatah and Hamas published several statements calling for Palestinian unity and reconciliation. These were widely distributed outside and received with admiration and respect.
…
[Now, in his latest statement, issued through his lawyer] Marwan advocates an official end to the charade called ‘peace negotiations’. This term, by the way, is never heard anymore in Israel. First it was replaced with ‘peace process’, then ‘political process’, and lately ‘the political matter’. The simple word ‘peace’ has become taboo among rightists and most ‘leftists’ alike. It’s political poison. Marwan proposes to make the absence of peace negotiations official. No more international talk about ‘reviving the peace process’, no more rushing around of ridiculous people like Tony Blair, no more hollow announcements by Hillary Clinton and Catherine Ashton, no more empty declarations of the ‘Quartet’. Since the Israeli government clearly has abandoned the two-state solution – which it never really accepted in the first place – keeping up the pretense just harms the Palestinian struggle.

Instead of this hypocrisy, Marwan proposes to renew the battle in the UN. First, apply again to the Security Council for the acceptance of Palestine as a member state, challenging the US to use its solitary veto openly against practically the whole world. After the expected rejection of the Palestinian request by the Council as a result of the veto, request a decision by the General Assembly, where the vast majority would vote in favor”…

The situation of the people who don’t have any electricity, or any fuel, is terrible, he said.

He asked, “Whose fault do you think it is”?

[He said he is leaning toward blaming Hamas...]

But, there is enough blame to go around…

Where to start?

The European Union was paying for the special industrial diesel fuel used to run the Gaza Power Plant once it was repaired in November 2006 [precision Israeli Air Force bombing took out each of the four generators/turbines, one by one, in late June 2006, in response to the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit, and the EU paid for repairs that were done through Egypt].

The way it worked is important to understanding the situation: Gaza would tell the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah how much fuel it needed. Ramallah would order the fuel from an Israeli fuel company [Dor Alon] with whom Ramallah had concluded a contract. Fuel transfer facilities were constructed at Nahal Oz — Dor Alon paid for the installation on the Israeli side of the facility, and the PA paid for the installation on the Gaza side. Israeli tankers came one by one to offload their fuel cargoes into underground pipes which transferred the fuel into Gaza where it was loaded into Palestinian tanker trucks for delivery around the Gaza Strip.

VAT taxes paid on these fuel purchases by the PA were returned by Israel to the PA in Ramallah.

These arrangements continued after the Hamas rout of Fatah/Palestinian preventive security services in mid-June 2007.

(1) Because Hamas was in power there, Israel’s military was authorized to implement tightening sanctions against Gaza, starting in late October 2007. These military sanctions were designed to cut the fuel deliveries to Gaza by about 15% each month. Gaza’s Power Plant experienced shut-downs from January, due to Israeli-military-mandated cuts in fuel delivered to Gaza.

(2) About four years later [at the end of 2010 and beginning of 2011], there was a switch of responsibilities that was never fully explained, in which the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority took over from the EU the payment for the fuel, in exchange for the EU paying for salaries and pensions… There soon arose disputes over payments. Ramallah said that Gaza was not remitting enough in payments for electric bills, so they cut down on the fuel they ordered and paid for. More shut-downs in Gaza’s Power Plant ensued. VAT

(3) Gaza decided to stop going along with this arrangement, and its dependency on Ramallah’s good will, and turned instead to taking fuel for the Gaza Power Plant smuggled in via the tunnels under the border with Rafah. At around the same time, a clever tweak — invented by Gaza Power Plant Engineer Dirar Abu Sisi [later kidapped in Ukraine, where he was trying to emigrate with his Ukranian wife and their children, and brought to Israel, where he is still in jail] — allowed the Gaza Power Plant to use normal diesel fuel to operate. There were considerable cost savings. Taxes for the import of fuel went to Hamas.

(4) Israel gradually closes all cargo transport into Gaza via all crossings except Kerem Shalom — where Israeli customs officials operate. This move was opposed by the PA. Israel delayed the move, but eventually did it.

(5) Egypt, under pressure, decides to reduce the fuel transfers through the tunnels.

(6) Hamas hopes to persuade Egypt to deliver fuel through Rafah crossing — preferably via tankers crossing into Gaza — though there is no provision for cargo transfer via Rafah in the 2005 Agreement on Movement and Access. Israel prefers fuel to come from Egypt via Kerem Shalom. There are negotiations and talks and more talks. Gaza’s Power Plant shuts down three times in recent weeks due to fuel shortage — including after an exceptional one-time transfer last Friday of 450,000 liters of fuel bought from Israel and paid by the PA. This quantity of fuel lasted for just over a day, and the Gaza Power Plant shut down again on Sunday.

During these talks and negotiations, it was reported here that “The [Gaza] cabinet also blamed the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority, saying it has instructed the European Union to stop funding the power station in Gaza for political reasons. The Gaza government said it had turned to Egypt to relieve the current fuel crisis and thanked Cairo for its efforts, adding that it was also in contact with Qatar, Algeria and Turkey to ease shortages”.

An equivalent or greater amount of energy was put into mutual recriminations. Haaretz reported on 20 March here that Iran paid Hamas to block a reconciliation deal between Fatah and Hamas [which might have eased the fuel crisis]:

Hamas spokesman Ahmed Assaf said: “We have information that Iran paid tens of millions of dollars to Zahar and Haniyeh in their visits to Iran”. [He was referring to Hamas leaders Mahmoud Zahar who visited Tehran last week and Ismail Haniyeh who was there in February. Assaf was responding to a comment by Zahar that Palestinian political reconciliation "is in the freezer now", despite a unity deal signed last month.
"Reconciliation is in the freezer because Zahar was the one who put it there and he got the price from Iran," Assaf told Reuters. "Zahar, Haniyeh and Hamas's Gaza leadership were paid by Iran to freeze reconciliation."
Hamas rejected the charges. "The Fatah government did not implement any of their obligations (under the unity deal) and they prefer American money to nationalist agreements," spokesman Taher al-Nono said.
...
"Iran has an interest in the division continuing. Iran realizes the importance of the Palestinian cause from the religious, political and geographic status and, therefore, it wants to control it," Assaf said.
If unity was restored and the Palestine Liberation Organization or any legitimate leadership ruled Gaza, Iran would lose its influence, he said.

(7) Emergency talks and negotiations ensue on Monday. On Tuesday, there is an announcement in Cairo of a deal with Egypt, made by the Gaza head of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Energy Authority. But, this deal involves the transfer of Egyptian gas through Rafah to Gaza [not fuel]. This deal is reported by Ma’an News Agency, here.

Here are comments I Tweeted [@marianhouk] yesterday on this announced deal:

27 Mar @Marianhouk
Gaza Power Plant, constructed to run either on indust. diesel or gas, will now be converted to use gas [provided initially by Egypt].

27 Mar @Marianhouk
The World Bank recommended in 2007 that the Gaza Power Plant switching to using gas as fuel, ultimately cheaper then indust. diesel

27 Mar @Marianhouk
Gas will come from Egypt [initially] by terms of agreement signed today in Cairo by Gaza rep of PA Energy Authority – http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=471644

27 Mar @Marianhouk
How fast can this happen? “technicians in Gaza will prepare to install a 30-km pipeline from Rafah to the power plant in Gaza City” via Maan

27 Mar @Marianhouk
Gas cld come to Gaza Power Plant from Palestinian Gaza Marine undersea gas fields in Med, if reconciliation [or if offshore island built]

27 Mar @Marianhouk
“Egy technicians have been instructed 2 conduct geograph surveys 2 find best route for pipelines 2 transport gas from Sheikh Zweid 2 Rafah”

27 Mar @Marianhouk
Gaza rep of PA Energy Authority in Ramallah in Cairo: “the new agreement will increase the plant’s capacity from 40 to 180 Megawatts”. When?

27 Mar @Marianhouk
However, vulnerability of Sinai pipelines will be an issue in new decision signed today to supply Egyptian gas to fuel Gaza Power Plant…

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”.

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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…

Then, Ma’an News Agency did a story, saying that “Dozens of people threw shoes and stones at UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s convoy as it entered the Gaza Strip on Thursday, Ma’an’s correspondent said.

Ma’an reported that the SG’s convoy sped away, and the UN Chief later tried to make a joke out of the incident: “I thank the people of Gaza for the warm welcome … I met many people who were waiting for me at the entrance”.

Ma’an added, in its report, that “Many of those who protested as the UN convoy passed were family members of Palestinians being held in Israeli prisons. They hit the vehicles with signs bearing slogans accusing Ban of bias towards Israel and of refusing to meet the relatives of Palestinian prisoners. A spokesman for deportees from the Israeli siege of Bethlehem’s Nativity church in 2002 called on Ban to defend the rights of the Palestinian people, including detainees and deportees. A number of Gazans whose homes were destroyed in Israel’s war on the coastal enclave in 2008 held up signs reading ‘Gaza is living in darkness’, and ‘Save the children of Gaza’, Ma’an’s correspondent said”. The Ma’an report, published here also noted that “Reuters contributed to this report”.

Apparently, UNSG BAN did not say, when in Gaza, what he said a day earlier while meeting Israeli leaders in Jerusalem: according to a report in Haaretz, BAN said after meeting Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu that: “Settlements do not help the peace process … I told the prime minister that he should refrain from future construction. I believe that Israel can have a major positive influence on the entire region” [and Netanyahu told Ban, Haaretz reported, that the settlement issue "is a part of the negotiations, it can't be a precondition"]. BAN also said, in the joint press conference with Netanyahu, that “Rocket fire from the Gaza Strip must stop. It is time for both sides to take confidence building measures. I call on Israel to make certain gestures toward the Palestinians. Middle East peace has a global influence and this is the reason why peace talks must continue.” This was reported here.

So, while BAN says, when with Palestinians, that he agrees Israeli settlements are “illegal” [he later repeats this, but so quickly in passing that it is almost imperceptible, in the Herzliya Conference], he tells Netanyahu that “settlements do not help the peace process”. And, while he says in Israel that “Rocket fire from the Gaza Strip must stop”, he does not repeat this while in in Gaza. This, apparently, is diplomacy.

A subsequent statement issued by a spokesperson for the UNSG said: “Today the Secretary-General travelled to Gaza and visited a United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) housing project and a school where he joined girl students in their classroom. He also met with children who suffered serious injuries during the conflict. He was deeply moved by their stories. Unfortunately representatives of civil society cancelled a scheduled lunch to protest against the situation of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. The Secretary-General regrets this missed opportunity for an important exchange with Gazan civil society representatives. The Secretary-General is concerned about the situation of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. Last night [n.b. -- at the Muqata'a in Ramallah] he met with the Palestinian Minister of Prisoners Affairs, Issa Karake, and received a letter outlining specific concerns. The United Nations continues to call on Israel to abide by its obligations under international law”.

The PLO [in Ramallah, the de facto capital of the Palestinian Authority] later issued a statement of apology for the sign of disrespect in Gaza.

Reconciliation talks between the PA/Fatah in Ramallah + their Hamas rivals in Gaza are proceeding with deliberate slowness.

In the evening, BAN was back in Israel. The contrast could not have been greater. BAN gave one of the keynote addresses to the annual Herzliya Conference [held in the suburb where many diplomats posted to Israel live, just north of Tel Aviv], where he was courteously praised in the introduction, and here are some excerpts from BAN’s remarks:

The UN helped to bring the State of Israel into this world — it did so in the name of peace, not war,
yet the Israeli – Palestinian conflict is in its 7th decade…

The current peace process that began at Madrid Peace Conference more than 20 years ago raised high hopes but delivered 2 decades of delay mistrust and missed opportunities…

A succession of failed peace talks created a climate of mistrust, and many have come to question the basis of the current peace process: land for peace…

A welcome + positive development in recent years has been the emergence of a credible Palestinian leadership serving its people + in some ways challenging Israel to rethink some of its assumptions…

In some ways PA is ahead of the regional curve: In the West Bank it is building the institutions for a functioning democracy and a future Palestinian state. Yesterday I once again visited Ramallah
and was also struck with professionalism of [PA] security forces as well as a broader sense of economic + social progress…

Yet these advances are at risk. Why? Because politics is not keeping pace with developments on the ground…

Negotiations have bogged down…

We see too many pointless provocations. Israel continues to construct settlements — some in the most sensitive places … Meeting with Palestinians in the West Bank yesterday, I heard their frustrations. I repeat, the international community’s position is well known: these settlements are illegal. and I strongly agree …

They can also be expected to bring their case for statehood to the UN + its various funds + programs, as they already did with UNESCO…

We must work together to stop the smuggling of weapons into Gaza … to strengthen the institutions of mutual security in the West Bank and to develop a climate of tolerance + mutual acceptance between Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory…

A negotiated peace must rest on accepted principles of self-determination in their own democratic state …
Israel must think carefully of how to support those who work for peace …

Now is the moment for demonstration of good will by both sides…

Israel can open Gaza for more construction materials I thank [Israel's Defense] Minister [Ehud] Barak for his
flexibility [BAN Ki-Moon was then burned on Twitter for that remark]… [But] what I’m asking you is to do more, to enable all those Palestinian people to live in more comfortable situation, circumstances … And for people to live normal lives they have to have schools, decent jobs, and healthcare, and they have to have jobs … Palestinian poverty is not Israel’s friend…

Our highest priority is to return to negotiations — not just to procedural talks, but genuine + substantive
negotiations to resolve the core issues… Both sides should understand the profound costs if they lead nowhere…

I went to Amman to get their [the Jordanian] assessment + expectations of talks, and I faithfully delivered + discussed / conveyed [what I learned] to both Israeli + Palestinian leaderships … and I told King Abdullah I would do anything possible to advance negotiations…

I told both leaders that this is the moment — to try to rebuild the confidence + momentum that has so sadly and so needlessly been lost … Neogotiations will go nowhere without shared sense of urgency and will: Palestinians must engage seriously on security, and Israel must engage seriously on territory ….

There must be an end to six decades of occupation, a just solution of all core issues, + the creation of a
Palestinian state living side by side … I have spoken seriously because I believe time is running out…

The world is ready to help ensure Israel’s security, just as it is ready to help Palestinians establish a new
nation that is long overdue.

A video of UNSG BAN Ki-Moon’s speech at the Herzliya Conference is posted here.

But, B’Tselem noted, the results of the Israeli military’s investigations into its own actions in that unprecedented operation in Gaza were “meager”.

B’Tselem noted that during Operation Cast Lead:

“damage to the civilian population in Gaza was colossal: Israeli security forces killed 1,391 Palestinians, at least 759 of whom (including 318 minors under age 18) were civilians who had not been taking part in the hostilities. More than 5,300 Palestinians were injured, at least 350 of them seriously. The operation also caused extensive damage to homes, industrial plants and the agricultural sector, in addition to the electricity, sanitation, water, and health infrastructure that had already been on the brink of collapse due to Israel’s siege on Gaza. According to UN estimates, the military destroyed more than 3,500 homes, leaving some 20,000 persons homeless”.

B’Tselem noted that it had just received its third update from the military on 1 January, although:

“After the operation ended, B’Tselem and other human rights organizations wrote to the attorney general, demanding that he establish an independent body for investigating the military’s actions during the operation. The attorney general rejected the demand, stating that the military had acted in accordance with international humanitarian law. In addition, he stated that military units were holding operational inquiries into incidents in which civilians had been harmed, and that the findings would be forwarded to the military advocate general and to the attorney general for a decision whether to pursuer further action in each case … B’Tselem wrote to the MAG Corps demanding that he order criminal investigations into 20 cases in which the organization’s research indicated suspected breaches of international humanitarian law. In total, these cases involved the killing of 92 Palestinians and the use of three Palestinian civilians as human shields.
No substantive reply was received. However, the Military Police Investigation Unit (MPIU) contacted B’Tselem to request assistance in advancing its investigations … At the MPIU’s request, B’Tselem helped arrange the arrival of witnesses for questioning in each of the ten cases. The organization also provided investigators with medical reports and other documents relating to the cases. Only in September 2010, more than a year and a half after the operation, did the MPIU request assistance in arranging the questioning of members of the Samuni family, regarding the incident in which 21 members of their family, including children, had been killed. Since then, B’Tselem has received no requests from the MPIU regarding any of the cases. The MAG Corps recently informed B’Tselem that another investigation had been opened, raising the total number of investigations opened into cases researched by the organization to 11 … It was not until 1 January 2012, almost three years after the end of the operation, that the MAG Corps sent B’Tselem an update regarding hundreds of complaints that that organization had submitted over the past decade and more, including those relating to Operation Cast Lead”.

But, B’Tselem wrote, in an information note published here today, said that the “meager results” of the military investigations were not surprising:

“Three years after the end of the operation, the dozens of MPIU [Military Police Investigation Unit] investigations opened into cases of harm to civilians have yet to yield results. The Military Advocate General Corps has created a haze around them, preventing any possibility of examining their effectiveness. The Corps’ responses to B’Tselem, combined with media reports, indicate that three indictments have been filed against soldiers who took part in the operation: for theft of a credit card from a Palestinian civilian, for use of a nine-year-old Palestinian child as a human shield, and for ‘manslaughter of an anonymous person’.

In three other cases, disciplinary action alone was taken. Two officers were disciplined for firing explosive shells that struck an UNRWA facility; three officers were disciplined for shelling the al-Maqadmeh Mosque, in which 15 Palestinians were killed, nine of them civilians; and one officer was disciplined for the use of Palestinian civilian Majdi ‘Abd Rabo as a human shield, after the Adalah organization wrote to the MAG Corps demanding an investigation into the case.

The investigations were all opened at a very late stage – the first, to B’Tselem knowledge, in October 2009, a full ten months after the operation had ended. At present, three years after the operation, there is hardly a chance that investigations will lead to further indictments. There has never been a serious investigation into the suspicions raised by B’Tselem and additional Israeli, Palestinian and international organizations regarding breaches of international humanitarian law by the military during the operation.

Most of B’Tselem’s demands for investigation were not met. The investigations that were opened did not, to B’Tselem’s knowledge, address the responsibility of high-ranking commanders, but rather focused on the conduct of individual soldiers. Israel’s choice to investigate only isolated incidents, and not the military’s conduct as a whole during the operation, gives cause for concern that persons responsible for extremely grave breaches of law have not been questioned. Among the issues that have not been investigated are the following:
The policy that guided the forces during the offensive;
the legality of the orders given to the soldiers;
the choice of targets for bombing;
the means taken to protect the civilian population.
These questions lie at the very heart core of international humanitarian law. Their resolution is vital to examining the legality of the military’s conduct during Operation Cast Lead”.

Bashi wrote that: “In the six years in which Gisha has been providing legal assistance to Palestinians, the High Court justices have yet to deliver a decision that goes against classified material presented by the Internal Security Agency (Shin Bet)“.

She added that “Experience shows that information about security risks can be based on [1] statements made by collaborators trying to please their handlers, and [2] people can be accused as security risks based on non-violent political activism, [3] a refusal to serve as a collaborator for the ISA [Israeli Security Agency], [4] a relative’s actions against the State of Israel, and [5] even because of the mere fact that a relative was injured or killed by the military, rendering the entire family suspect of wanting to seek revenge. And yes, it’s safe to assume that [6] in some cases the classified material does contain concrete evidence of violent actions.“.

One case taken on by GISHA illustrates how this secret evidence is used: a Palestinian man was arrested in 2010, but then, on the basis of secret evidence, was taken out of prison and sent by the military to Gaza — expelled, exiled, deported — an action that was upheld by the Israeli Supreme Court on the basis of secret evidence:

You can’t sell Bakr Haffi’s case to the mainstream media, and you can’t win it in the Israeli High Court of Justice. The 38-year-old Palestinian man, a bee keeper by trade, has not seen his wife and two daughters for two years. It all began when he was arrested in his home in Tulkarem in the northern West Bank on suspicion of being a Hamas activist. After a month of interrogation that yielded no results, a military judge ordered his release. But instead of releasing him back to his home and family in Tulkarem, the military removed him to the Gaza Strip, which is listed as his place of residence in the Israeli-administered Palestinian population registry. Israel refuses to recognize relocation from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank, even for people like Bakr, who moved to the West Bank back in 1999 and established a family there”.

So, it appears — and, can it be so? — that although an Israeli military judge in an Israeli military court in the West Bank ordered this man’s release, other military officers ordered the man to be taken to Gaza. In the current circumstances, this is a one-way ticket, with no possibility of return to the West Bank [although, under all the important agreements of the Oslo process, signed by Israel and the P.L.O. in the mid-1990s. the West Bank and Gaza were specifically said to constitute a single political unit ... What happened to change that? Ariel Sharon's unilateral "disengagement" which removed 8,000 Israeli settlers, and the military + security forces protecting them, from Gaza in September 2005...]

What is not entirely clear is whether the military judge knew what was about to happen, or maybe even ordered Bakr’s removal to Gaza as part of his ruling to release him from detention? Or, did another branch of the military take it upon itself to, in effect, make its own ruling on Bakr’s fate, regardless of what the military judge decided.

Bashi continued, in her article:

It has been two years since Bakr was removed from his home. He now relies on his brother in Gaza for financial support and hasn’t seen his wife and daughters, now aged 2 and 3.5, for two years. Bakr’s wife and daughters have become dependent on the charity of welfare officials in the West Bank. The girls no longer know who their father is.

Bakr’s case has exhausted every legal procedure that Israel’s occupation bureaucracy has to offer. He requested legal assistance from Gisha, and we contacted the army on his behalf. We demanded and received a hearing at Erez Crossing, where we noted that his release from detention in 2010 was specifically due to lack of evidence. We mentioned a prior arrest, in 2003, for car theft, for which he was charged and convicted, and he served his sentence. We asked that if there is any evidence against him now, let it be presented, so that we can respond. We emphasized that the army apparently recognized Bakr’s residency in the West Bank, because in 2006, after he was previously removed from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip, he was granted a permit to enter Israel in order to return to the West Bank. The permit was valid for a month. We raised questions about the “risk” posed by a man who received a month-long permit to enter Israel, including overnight stay. When the military issued its final refusal, we submitted a petition to the High Court of Justice.

You can’t win Bakr’s case in the High Court of Justice, and there is no chance of getting public support for him through the mainstream media, because the state’s claim – that he is involved in hostile activity against Israel – is backed by secret information that will tip the scales against him … The law allows the army to present the alleged evidence against Bakr and charge him for any alleged crimes. Yet, as in so many other cases, the army prefers to use administrative measures, such as deporting a person and denying his or her return. These measures are based on evidence that never sees the light of day, and as such, cannot be refuted. Bakr’s punishment: the break-up of his family. Bakr’s crime: we’ll never know.”

.

What happened in the most recent effort by GISHA: *Epilogue: On January 4, 2012, the Israeli High Court of Justice heard HCJ 3010/11 Bakr Haffi v. Minister of Defense. After reviewing the classified material, the justices rejected Bakr’s request to return to his family in Tulkarem”.

This man remains exiled in Gaza.

Bashi’s post about this case was translated into English, and published by +972 magazine on 9 January, here.

Thanks to Adam Horowitz of Mondoweiss, who posted this video here.

Here is a summary of some of the significant statements made – about 7 – 8 minutes into the video:

“I came to tell about those people who escaped and did not return to their land … We shot our guns and they fled to Gaza. We surrounded them from all directions Shot in the air or at them and they ran away. They had nothing to defend. They knew they had to go to Gaza. They knew the directions better than we did. We shot our guns and they escaped to Gaza” …

The testimony continued [looser transcript]: The men fled first, the men were running first … and we then expelled the women and children, they went to Gaza … In 1951 Moshe Dayan, IDF Chief of staff, ordered the expulsion of the remaining 2000 Arabs from Ashkelon together with the people of Huj … The people in Gaza wanted to return to their villages some returned at night to tend their grapevines in the dunes north of Gaza … we waited for them and we would shoot at them and kill them … Why did none of your friends not see this? Why only you and a few individuals reached these conclusions, and the others did not? I have no clear answer for that other than that we were praised so highly, so every person who was in the Palmach thought he was a hero, and they got drunk from that. I have no other explanation”.

The 22-day operation was launched at 11:30 am or so, on 27 December 2008. In the first strikes, some 250 Hamas police were mowed down at their police academy graduation ceremony in Gaza City. The debate continues over whether they were legitimate military targets, or not [many international lawyers say no].

Will sirens sound today in the streets of the West Bank, or even of Gaza? Will people stop and get out of their cars, to stand in memory of the lives lost?

And, how will the day be marked in Israel?

Israeli military spokespersons and government officials said that the target of this massive and unprecedented military operation was Hamas.

They say that Hamas was the “address” in the Gaza Strip, the political movement that could be held responsible [following its rout of Fatah/Palestinian Authority Preventive Security Forces in mid-June 2007] for any and all rocket, mortar and missile attacks.

Hamas, it was argued, was in charge of a physical space whose status has been defined [in the wake of Israel's unilateral "disengagement" in September 2005 of some 8,000 settlers and the troops protecting] by leading Israeli experts on international law as a sui generis [of itself / unique to itself] entity — and whose population 0f some 1.5 million people is almost exclusively Palestinian.

More than half of the population of Gaza are children. Some 2/3 to 3/4 of the population are refugees who fled or who were expelled during the fighting that surrounded the creation of the state of Israel in 1948

Operation Cast Lead was carried out on a trapped population with nowhere to flee — all borders were closed.

The dropping of leaflets by Israeli airplanes warning of some of the upcoming strikes did not offer any information about where to seek refuge — they did not even say exactly which areas were about to be attacked. They simply added to the confusion and terror.

In the annals of warfare, the IDF’s Operation Cast Lead was not a war. It was a military operation, with vague aims that were, in the end, not achieved.

In grief and despair at the time, I wrote that it was like shooting fish in a barrel.

Gilad Shalit was not released until negotiations with Hamas– which had started well before Operation Cast Lead — were concluded this year.

The firing of rocket, mortar and missile firing from Gaza on surrounding areas of Israeli population and territory continues until this day, though sporadically and diminished — despite the agreement even at a recent Fatah-Hamas reconciliation summit in Cairo in November, in which Hamas signed on to join the popular non-violent resistance being backed by Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank [though Abbas did not launch the current non-violent strategy.

The IDF's Operation Cast Lead was ordered by Israel's "political echelon", by popular demand, aided and abetted by the Israeli media.

Operation Cast Lead ended with two parallel cease-fires -- one declared by Israel at the request of Barack Obama who was sworn into office just hours after it went into effect at 2am local time on 18 January 2009, the other one declared by Hamas to allow the Israeli ground troops to withdraw.

Maybe it can be said that one lasting "achievement" of Operation Cast Lead was the recognition of the need to turn to human rights instruments and norms to institute a "real" announced and declared naval blockade of the Gaza Strip on the night of 3-4 January 2009, as the ground phase of Operation Cast Lead got underway.

Another achievement, the growing [though not yet universal] recognition that this kind of massive use of force, against an essentially defenseless population, no matter how deep the enmity, should never be authorized again.