February, 2008 | UN-Truth

Jose (Ramos Horta) is hanging in there

The President of East Timor is down — but not out. He is hanging in there, after taking three apparently high-speed bullets.

The Agence France Press (AFP) news agency reported that “Ramos-Horta was in a serious but stable condition after emergency overnight surgery for bullet wounds, according to his doctors in the Australian city of Darwin where he was airlifted Monday. ‘I believe he is extremely lucky to be alive’, Royal Darwin Hospital general manager Len Notaras said. Ramos-Horta, 58, underwent two-and-a-half hours of surgery late Monday and was in intensive care after his second operation in 24 hours, the doctor told AFP. He said the doctors were treating three bullet wounds and Ramos-Horta would need a further operation within 36 hours. The president was sedated and on a ventilator but not on life support, and would remain unconscious until at least Thursday, Notaras said, adding that he expected him to make a full recovery barring any unforeseen complications”.

Interestingly, the AFP story added that “East Timor’s military chief demanded an explanation Tuesday as to how the renegade soldiers were able to reach the homes of the nation’s two top leaders. ‘Given the big number of international forces present in Timor-Leste, in particular in Dili, how is it possible that vehicles transporting armed people have entered the city and executed an approach to the residences of the president and prime minister without having been detected?’ Brigadier General Taur Matan Ruak asked in a statement he read out at the military headquarters. He called for a ‘complete international investigation’ into the events. This AFP report is posted strong>here.

The NY Times reported yesterday that some very knowledgable observers were mystified by the motivation of the purported attacker, Alfredo Reinado, leader of mutinous soldiers, who was supposedly killed during his attempt to assassinate Ramos Horta.

The Associated Press reported from the United Nations that “The Security Council in a statement Monday called on the nation’s people to remain calm and for its government ‘to bring those responsible for this heinous act’ to justice. South Africa’s UN Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo, who led a council mission to East Timor, told reporters at U.N. headquarters in New York that the president was shot as he took his regular morning walk. ‘One report is that they went to the house looking for him and discovered that he was on his walk and that’s where they attacked him’, Kumalo said. ‘He’s a very simple man … a man of the people and sometimes you pay a price for that’.”

The same AP report added these medical details from Dili and Australia: “Ramos-Horta, 58, first underwent surgery at an Australian army hospital in East Timor before being sedated, attached to a ventilator and airlifted to the hospital in the northern Australian city of Darwin. Notaros said Ramos-Horta’s wounds indicated he had been shot two or three times. The most serious wound was to his the lower part of his right lung near his liver, and would likely require more surgery. There was also a risk of sepsis infection, Notaros said. The fragments will be handed to Australia Federal Police for the investigation into the shooting, Notaros said. At least one fragment was being left in his body, and was not thought to be threatening, he said…” This AP report can be found here.

Jose Ramos Horta shot

Shock. Jose Ramos Horta is not the kind of guy who gets shot — even if he was a member of a liberation movement in exile, and is now the second elected President of recently-independent but still troubled East Timor. He is gentle, conciliatory (mostly), and determinedly non-violent.

Reuters photo in The Age of Ramos Horta being taken into Royal Darwin Hospital in Australia

But apparently about 12 hours ago, he was shot, three times, in an attack in which, it now appears, one of his body guards and at least one of the attackers were killed.

Jill Jolliffe, a journalist who has long specialized in East Timorese affairs, and who had just returned from a trip there, said in an audio report for The Age of Australia that Jose Ramos Horta was shot during a “heavy exchange of fire” that she said she had been told had lasted about 20 minutes. The area is now under the control of Portuguese UN troops, Jolliffe said.

Yes, he was my friend, too. Or, perhaps I should rather say that I am his friend … and I, too, am praying for him now, as I have in the past. He got more or less introduced himself, either in late 1979 or early 1980, in the corridor between the Security Council chambers and the Delegate’s Lounge at UNHQ/New York, where he spent many years in exile, rather sucessfully lobbying (from a position of real initial weakness) and representing his people’s cause at the United Nations with the support of Mozambique, then China, then Portugal, and some American and NGO sympathizers. He said he loved Japanese food and sushi. And he made a delicious chicken-and-celery stew that he served with rice.

But, all the journalists knew him.

He had many friends — and very few enemies. He even worked hard to distinguish between the Indonesian (Muslim) military personnel who persecuted his people (mostly Catholics), and other Indonesian political figures, who he sought out over the years, as he tried to build alliances and find a political resolution to his people’s oppression.

But, religious allegiances were important to him, not least because of their political significance …

He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996, jointly with the Roman Catholic Bishop Belo of Dili.

As CNN wrote today, “East Timor, a former Portuguese colony, gained independence in 2002 after voting to break free from more than two decades of brutal Indonesian occupation in a U.N.-sponsored ballot”.

They won, while other liberation movements have languished and floundered. They gained their independence –both by luck and by the political skill of the Fretilin and associated Timorese liberation leaders, not least among them Jose Ramos Horta.

The BBC reported that “The attack on Mr Ramos-Horta happened at around 0700 local time on Monday morning (2200 GMT Sunday). Two cars drove past the president’s house on the outskirts of the capital, Dili, shooting him on the road outside”. The BBC headline reads: “East Timor President shot by rebels” — a line in tone with comments on the attack by Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who said, according to the BBC report, that the “attempt to assassinate the democratically elected leadership of a close friend and neighbour of Australia’s is a deeply disturbing development … It’s obviously a destabilizing time, with rogue elements at play. Therefore an appropriate show of force is necessary.”

Ramos Horta’s condition is described as critical, but stable. He underwent initial surgery at an Australian military hospital in East Timor, and has been flown to Darwin, Australia for further treatment. A medical update says he has been put in an induced coma and is on a ventilator, in intensive care.

The attacker who was killed, reportedly, is the notorious / legendary Rebel leader Alfredo Reinado. That is simply amazing. Why would he come out of hiding to carry out such a high-profile attack? Does it make any sense? He would know that there would be some sort of security around the country’s president. Unless, of course,it was an attempt to get very personal revenge … Or, unless the whole thing is a horrible set-up in a very dark drama …

IF this report is true — IF it is confirmed, Australian reporter Jolliffe said — then she said that she fears violence from both his young supporters, and also from the supporters of Ramos Horta as well.

The Age reports elsewhere that “Police in Dili have shown reporters photos of Reinado’s body, confirming his death in the shootout”. This report can be viewed here.

The Associated Press writes that “Analysts predicted Reinado’s supporters may riot in the coming days, but said his death had removed one of the major obstacles to peace in the country”. This AP report is here.

So some people are happy that Reinado is out of the way…

The BBC says that East Timorese “Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao, who was also attacked in a second and apparently drive-by shooting, said it was an attempted coup and called for calm….Shots were also fired at the prime minister’s car shortly afterwards, but he was not hurt. Mr Gusmao told a press briefing that the situation was under control. “I consider this incident a coup attempt against the state by Reinado and it failed,” he said. “This government will guarantee security and development will continue.”

Gusmao, Alkatiri and Ramos Horta were all active in the FRETILIN movement for East Timor’s independence. Gusmao stayed inside the country, and led the resistance. He was captured and jailed by Indonesia. Alkatiri (of distant Yemeni origin, therefore distantly Muslim), was the “Foreign Minister”, who otherwise lived in a farm offered as a means of support and self-sufficiency by the Mozambican government down by the border with South Africa. And Ramos Horta was mostly in New York.

In 2002, Gusmao became the country’s first president. Ramos Horta was the Foreign Minister, and Alkatiri became Prime Minister.

Post-“peace” divisions ensued: Ramos Horta and Gusmao were increasingly favor of a close alliance with Australia to “develop” East Timor (having realistically forgiven Australia’s attempt to exploit East Timor’s offshore oilfileds, during the height of the Indonesian military repression and the years that the FRETILIN independence movement was considered hopeless and irrelevant).

Alkatiri was considered more “leftist”. He was forced to resign, and disgraced, after the 2006 riots which he is judged to have mishandled, and was replaced as Prime Minister by Ramos Horta.

In 2007 Ramos Horta and Gusmao changed positions: then-PM Ramos Horta replaced Gusmao as President, and in subsequent elections Gusmao became Prime Minister.

This deepening drama is very strange indeed.

Lack of diesel fuel may force UN pullout — from Eritrea

Another case in the world of diesel fuel deliberately withheld — this time, not in Gaza, but in Eritrea.

And it’s the Eritreans who are withholding it from the UN Peacekeeping mission in their country.

This is another good example, if more were needed (see South Lebanon-Israel now, and the Iraq-Kuwaiti boundary in the future) of why the UN should not be involved in border demarcation, especially when the UN is responding to what it judges are the positions of major powers in the UN Security Council.

In response, the UN is saying it may have to withdraw from Eritrea (of course, this is a move to exert pressure, and the UN would really much prefer to stay…)

The Associated Press is reporting from UNHQ/NY that “In an unusual move, the United Nations is being forced to prepare an imminent pullout from Eritrea and plans to relocate all its peacekeeping troops there across the border in Ethiopia, senior UN officials and diplomats told The Associated Press on Friday. Because of restrictions imposed by the Eritrean government, UN personnel are down to their last remaining emergency reserves of diesel fuel to power generators, vehicles and other equipment for the 7 1/2-year-old peacekeeping operation. At last count, that operation had about 1,500 troops and 200 military observers, along with several hundred civilians and dozens of volunteers based out of Asmara, Eritrea and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. ‘We’re basically going to have to move our troops out at some point, because we’re not getting any more fuel’, a UN diplomat said. ‘We would relocate to Ethiopia. It would not be the end of the mission, we would just not be present in Eritrea’. Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopia in 1993 after a 30-year guerrilla war, but the border between the two was never formally drawn up. Tens of thousands were killed in a [another] border war that erupted in 1998. Most of the UN personnel have been used to patrol territory on the Eritrean side. ‘They are making plans to evacuate because they are down to their emergency reserves of fuel, and if they don’t get the fuel and they have no way of getting the fuel in, that would endangers the lives of troops there’, said a senior official within Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s office. All the officials and diplomats spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity, because they said Ban hadn’t yet announced his final decision … The secretary-general said in a recent report to the council that with generators used at camps and some field checkpoints for only two hours a day, peacekeeping patrols have been cut back and field staff have struggled to stay in touch. Ban had set Wednesday as a deadline for making a decision, since he said there were only a few days of diesel supplies left and the reserves were intended for emergency evacuations … Under a 2000 peace deal, both sides agreed to accept an international boundary commission’s ruling on the border dispute — and the UN formally began trying to keep the peace in July 2000. The commission proposed a border in 2002, but Ethiopia has refused to accept it because the proposal awarded the key town of Badme to Eritrea. Now, Eritrea appears to be trying to use the diesel supplies to force the UN to resolve its dispute with Ethiopia”. This AP report is posted here.

An informal poll on Gaza sanctions

An informal poll on Rosner’s Domain in Haaretz (Shmuel Rosner is chief U.S. correspondent for Haaretz) asking about Israeli military-ordered sanctions on Gaza shows the following results:

Poll Question: Is it legitimate for Israel to cut electricity to the Gaza Strip?

No way, people live there – 45%

Maybe as a temporary tool – 10%

Yes, Gaza is not Israel’s problem – 13%

Sure, and water too – 32%

Votes: 420

This poll can be viewed on Haaretz’s website here.

Another Haaretz story reports that “Late Thursday, Israel cut back around one percent of the power it supplies to Gaza, Defense Ministry spokesman Shlomo Dror said. Israel will continue gradually scaling back electricity until the territory’s Hamas rulers end the rocket fire, he said Friday. ‘It’s their choice. They need to choose if they want to keep investing in
rockets and in attacking Israel or if they want electricity from Israel’, Dror said. Hamas said Friday it would not be deterred by Israel’s cutback of the power supply to the Gaza Strip, as militants continued to bombard southern Israel with Qassam rocket fire. ‘The Zionist enemy must understand that the policy of assassinations, of attacks, of embargo, of cutting electricity and fuel will not halt the resistance and will not break the back of the Palestinians’, said a senior Hamas official, Ismail Radwan. ‘We warn them of a large volcano that will erupt if their aggression increases’. The electricity cut, in which the flow on one of the 10 high-tension wires into the territory was cut by five percent, was the first since the Supreme Court approved cuts in the supply of electricity to the Gaza Strip as a legitimate means of economic pressure – a move sharply criticized by human rights groups. Thursday’s reduction in the supply of electricity marks the beginning of an incremental process aimed at gradually deepening those cuts and reducing Gaza’s dependence on Israel, Israeli officials said. They said the decision to step up cuts in electricity supplies will depend on security assessments and the humanitarian needs of the population there, and may include more power lines. During the first week, the supply will drop by one megawatt of the total of 124 MW Israel supplies the Strip. Israel aims to eventually lower the amount of electricity it supplies the Gaza Strip to a mere five percent of the original total. Human Rights Watch said Israel’s electricity cuts ‘amount to collective punishment of the civilian population, and violate Israel’s obligations under the laws of war’. It said the cuts are affecting civilian infrastructure such as hospitals, water-pumping stations and sewage-treatment facilities. Infrastructures Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer said Friday that the human rights groups should be out protecting the children of the Negev who are being targeted by Qassam rockets. Israeli security sources described Thursday’s move as gradual and proportional, stressing that the defense establishment would keep its commitment to the Supreme Court not to undertake actions that would result in a humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip. ‘We need to diminish the dependency of the Gaza Strip on Israel in a variety of areas’, Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai said Thursday during a visit to Sderot and Ashkelon. ‘The Supreme Court ruled that on the matter of the electricity we are acting properly. Our intention is to begin to lower the electricity supply in moderate amounts, while the residents of Gaza build the infrastructure for an independent supply of electricity’, he added. The Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem criticized Vilnai’s remarks Thursday, saying that his ‘statements that the aim of the cuts is to assist the Strip to free itself from dependence on Israel is a new peak of cynicism and contradicts the arguments made by the state before the Supreme Court. At this stage Israel prevents the Gaza Strip from developing its independent energy supply – which has caused a deficit of 20 percent in the electricity supply in the Strip, compared to the needs of the population’.” This Haaretz article is posted here.

Israel’s YNet reported that U.S. State Department spokesman Tom Casey told journalists: “We understand Israel‘s right to defend itself but we do not think that action should be taken that would infringe upon or worsen the humanitarian situation for the civilian population in Gaza … I am sure we will continue to convey that position to them.” This YNet report is posted here.

Israeli military-ordered electricity cuts to start in Gaza

New and deeper Israeli military-imposed sanctions are to start to affect Gaza now – apparently, according to the Israeli media, starting from Thursday.

Israel’s High Court of Justice (Supreme Court) has upheld the Israeli military’s decision to tighten fuel cuts from 7 February — and to inaugurate graduated electricity cuts — against the Gaza strip.

Some kinds of food will also be restricted, according to press reports, but the details are not clear.

The electricity that Israel‘s Electric Company sells to Gaza will be reduced by 5% on each of three direct-feed lines, one by one, that have been specially fitted with a sort of dimmer that allows controlled reductions in supply coming from Israel.

According to the Israeli human rights organization Gisha, one of the organizations trying to block the cuts since 28 October through a petition and appeals to the Israeli Supreme Court, “the power supplied by the first line will be cut by 5%. The electricity supplied by the two other lines will be reduced by 5% each over the next two weeks. In total, Gaza will suffer a 1.5 megawatt reduction in electricity sold via the Israeli electric grid”.

The petitioners argued that the fuel and electricity cuts were illegal collective punishment, because they target and indiscriminately punish Gaza’s civilian population for acts committed by fighters, while international law prohibits punishing individuals for acts that they did not personally commit, and forbids targeting civilians.

After the Supreme Court rejected the petition to block the fuel and electricity cuts, Gisha and Adalah said in a joint statement that: “This decision sets a dangerous legal precedent that allows Israel to continue to violate the rights of Palestinians in Gaza and deprive them of basic humanitarian needs, in violation of international law.”

In a plan presented a few months ago, the military suggested it would continue reducing the electricity on these lines at periodic intervals, until there is a stop to attacks by Qassam rockets and other projectiles from Gaza on Israeli territory. The basis for the military actions is a 19 September declaration by the Israeli cabinet that Gaza is a “hostile territory” or “enemy entity”:

The Palestinian Authority has a contract to buy 120 MW of electricity daily from the Israel Electric Company, but in recent months the supply has often been somewhat less. This electricity is paid by the PA – and the Israeli Ministry of Finance takes the money directly from Israeli-controlled accounts holding customs and tax monies collected by Israel on behalf of the PA.

The military had originally proposed cutting supply on four out of the ten Israel Electric Company lines that cross between Israel and Gaza.

In statements to the Court, the military has admitted factual errors, mistakes and “local error” which resulted in cuts of directly-supplied Israeli electricity despite the Courts previous request to hold off until it reached a decision. There have also been recent “technical problems” on some of the lines.

The military also told the Court on 27 January that it believes 2.2 million liters of industrial diesel fuel per week is enough for Gaza’s power plant.

However, with that amount, the power plant can only operate two turbines at partial loads, generating only between 45-55 MW of electricity per day. And, without replenishment of the plants reserves, a shortfall on any one day could mean that the power plant would again have to shut down, as it did on 20 January for two days.

Meanwhile, because of the electricity shortfall, and the lack of ordinary diesel fuel to operate back-up and stand-by generators, 40 million liters of sewage a day have been emptied directly into the Mediterranean Sea, to avoid catastrophic flooding that could endanger human lives in Gaza.

Sari Bashi of GISHA said that the court had been informed that Gaza currently has an electricity deficit of 24%, and rolling blackouts across the Strip are as long as 12 hours per day in some areas. The electricity shortage has increased the dependence on diesel-powered generators – but Israel has also cut the amount of diesel delivered to Gaza. The clean water supply has fallen by 30% to some areas in Gaza, and hospitals have reduced services and denied care to non-urgent cases.

Gisha said yesterday (Wednesday 6 February) that “Israel has already cut Gaza‘ s electricity supply by 25 megawatts – by preventing Gaza‘s power plant from purchasing sufficient quantities of industrial diesel to operate at capacity”.

That fuel is ordered by the Palestinian Authority, and delivered by the private Israeli company Dor Alon, but paid for by the European Union. Before the military-ordered cuts at the end of October, the EU was paying some $10 million dollars a month to keep Gaza’s Power Plant operating at partial capacity.

Gisha says that the state attorney, representing the military, “argued that the fuel cuts are economic sanctions taken against Gaza as part of ‘economic warfare’, which was described as a life-saving alternative to a large-scale ground operation. They argued that Gaza is no longer occupied, but that even if it were, only minimal obligations are owed to its civilian population, obligations which they characterized as the duty to avoid a humanitarian crisis or to permit the fulfillment of minimal humanitarian needs. They argued that they were permitting enough fuel and electricity to provide for humanitarian needs, and that it was up to the leadership in Gaza to prioritize its distribution to give preference to humanitarian needs. They argued that they were monitoring the humanitarian situation in Gaza to make sure that basic needs were being met, and that the Defense Minister had broad discretion to wage a battle against militants in the way he saw fit”.

IDF Colonel Nir Press, the head at Erez crossing of the Office of (Israeli) Coordination of Government Affairs, testified to the Court that Qassams, being fired day after day from Gaza at the Israeli city of Sderot, and missiles fired recently at Ashkelon, justified the military policy. Colonel Press told the court that “the Palestinian media and Hamas leadership were distorting the facts in order to create an impression of crisis”.

Gisha believes that the Israeli Supreme Court ducked the points of law at issue when it rejected the petition.

Gisha also expressed “extremely serious concerns … about the court’s factual and legal inquiry and conclusions”.

In an interview with the Jerusalem Post published on 6 February, Gisha’s Sari Bashi said “We are not talking about closing a border to prevent militants from entering Israel…We are talking about applying pressure on a civilian population… because the army doesn’t have a better response”.

Bashi told the Jerusalem Post that “the decision authorizes Israel to punish civilians for the acts of militants – in violation of international law. The decision fails to address the central argument at issue – whether the fuel and electricity cuts constitute collective punishment, as the petitioners claimed, or economic sanctions, as the state claimed – but rather adopts, without explanation, the state’s claim that it may cut fuel and electricity supplies, so long as it does not push Gaza residents below an undefined “humanitarian minimum,” a minimum not recognized in international law. The court was unable to articulate a legally coherent justification for what the state is doing to civilians in Gaza, yet was unwilling to intervene in the state’s actions, so it remained silent on the law, restricting itself to asking whether the fuel and electricity cuts have pushed Gaza residents below an undefined humanitarian “minimum,” and then ignoring well-documented evidence of severe harm to humanitarian needs…Economic sanctions against a party you don’t control could be legal, but Israel controls Gaza’s borders. In any case, sanctions don’t allow you to prevent the passage of humanitarian goods”.

Bashi said to this journalist after the 27 January Supreme Court hearing that “We let the judges know that the state violated the request” for the appearance at the hearing of two Gaza professionals who are co-petitioners in the case, and who could have explained the technical details concerning the Gaza power plant and Gaza’s electricity-distributing company.

Dr. Rafiq Maliha, project manager of the Gaza Power Plant, and Engineer Nedal Toman, project manager of GEDCO, were informed that they would be given permits to participate in the Supreme Court hearing on Sunday 27 January. They arrived at the Erez terminal at 7 am. But, they said, they were not actually given the permits until the court session started at 10 am.

Despite their best efforts, and a frantic taxi ride from the Gaza border to the Supreme Court in Jerusalem, the two Gazans arrived about 20 minutes after the hearing was concluded by the judges, who decided not to wait for their arrival.

Toman has explained in several sworn affidavits presented to the Court that it is impossible to redirect electricity in Gaza. But, in Sunday’s hearing, the state attorney told the Court – without the benefit of Toman’s presence for any questioning on this precise point – that some unnamed “Palestinians” had told the military that it could in fact be done, and humanitarian damage avoided.

So, the Court has decided to be convinced by the state and military assurances that it is not the intention to cause humanitarian damage in Gaza. If there is damage anyway, it would be accidental and unintended – and therefore, apparently, would not be illegal.

The judge’s ruling noted the assurances given by Colonel Peres that the humanitarian situation in Gaza was being monitored – apparently through the military’s “regular contact with Palestinian officials and international organizations who maintain humanitarian needs in Gaza”. And, the judges suggested, any future concerns should be addressed directly “to the military officials in charge of monitoring the humanitarian situation in Gaza”.

The judges also accepted the argument, expressed by Israeli Prime Minister Olmert and other officials, that Israel is in a state of war with Gaza – a territory which, at the very least that can be said, has uncertain legal status.

Indeed, while maintaining that its 2005 unilateral “disengagement” from Gaza means that Israel has no further responsibility there, Israel continues to apply provisions of the Oslo Accords – including the 1994 Paris Protocol – and uses this as the basis for its decision to institute the fuel and electricity cuts, as well as severe import and export restrictions.

But, in an excerpt from the Supreme Court ruling translated from Hebrew by Gisha, the judges wrote: “we note that since September 2005 Israel no longer has effective control over what takes place within the territory of the Gaza Strip. The military government that previously existed in that territory was abolished by decision of the government, and Israeli soldiers are not present in that area on an ongoing basis and do not direct what goes on there. Under these circumstances, the State of Israel bears no general obligation to concern itself with the welfare of the residents of the Strip or to maintain public order within the Gaza Strip, according to the international law of occupation. Israel also has no effective ability, in its current status, to instill order and manage civilian life in Gaza. Under the current circumstances, the primary obligations borne by the State of Israel with regards to the residents of the Gaza Strip are derived from the state of armed conflict that prevails between it and the Hamas organization which controls the Gaza Strip; its obligations also stem from the degree of control that the State of Israel has over the border crossings between it and the Gaza Strip; and also from the situation that was created between the State of Israel and the Gaza Strip territory due to years of Israeli military control in the area, as a result of which the Gaza Strip is at this time almost totally dependent on Israel for its supply of electricity”.

This Supreme Court’s decision, Gisha said at the end of January, “is a dramatic departure from the court’s precedent applying the laws of occupation to Gaza and the West Bank”.

In the Jerusalem Post interview, Sari Bashi argued that “An economic sanction is the withholding of something that is your sovereign right, such as your choice to trade or not to trade with another country. States are allowed to do that, subject to certain restrictions. Israel is not choosing whether or not to trade with Gaza. Israel is saying that Gaza may not receive fuel and electricity from anywhere else in the world, and restricting what is received through its borders. The European Union is buying 100% of the industrial diesel fuel for Gaza‘s power plant. This is a humanitarian donation project. But, if the EU were to bring canisters of industrial diesel on a ship and try to dock it in Gaza, Israel‘s navy would sink the ship. If the EU were to fly it in by plane, the Israeli air force would shoot down the plane. Israel requires the EU to bring the industrial diesel through the Nahal Oz border crossing. This is not trade. This is a blockade in which Israel decides the terms under which people may bring humanitarian goods through the blockade. This is unprecedented. Furthermore, between Israel and Gaza there are specific obligations. Gaza is occupied territory under international law. This means that Israel owes positive obligations to actively facilitate the provision of humanitarian services and the functioning of normal life in Gaza. The reason for this is control. Israel controls the funding of public services in Gaza, through its control of the tax moneys collected on behalf of the Palestinian Authority. These are the tax moneys that pay public servants in Gaza. Israel also controls the Palestinian population registry, determining who is a resident of Gaza, who may live there, who may enter. And Israel controls Gaza‘s borders: land, air and sea. That control creates responsibility”.

The effect of sanctions and closure in Gaza

This little personal note was posted as a testimonial on the FOFOGNET group list (on Palestinian refugees) today:

“I’m writing from Gaza, but it’s not the Gaza I knew and loved. People today have lost the sparkle in their eyes because they’ve lost their faith in life. Men, women and children are walking around with pale faces, lacklustre smiles and no joie de vivre. People everywhere look tusnned as if their minds and souls are far away.

We’re stranded here in Gaza with our fears, losses and disappointments. Together we face an uncertain future. Everywhere you go people are complaining and mourning, especially the young generation which has lost all hope of a better life. Their motivation has been replaced by a total sense of helplessness and desperation.

For me, as a mother, it’s very painful to see this young generation – the driving force in building a strong society for the future – living so aimlessly. I’ve never felt as scared as I feel today when I imagine the future that awaits my children and others their age.

For the first time, I’m afraid that the Palestinian society for all its innate pride and dignity is walking towards its end – the end of the Palestinian life. I say this simply because when a person loses his faith and hope, he loses everything. The tragedy this time is that we’re not only talking about one individual, we’re talking about an entire society, a generation, a history and a nation“.

Najwa Sheikh – Gaza, February 2008

Winograd Report gingerly nibbles at Israel's cluster bomb use in Lebanon

Haaretz reported that the Winograd Report (the full report was published only in Hebrew) recommended that “Israel must consider whether it wants to consider using cluster bombs in the future, because its current manner of employing them does not conform to international law. The Winograd Committee made this recommendation in the chapter of its report dealing with Israel’s conduct in the Second Lebanon War as it relates to international law … The committee ruled that Israel generally complied with war directives laws, which are part of international law, both with regard to the justification for initiating the war and with regard to combat operations themselves. [But] The committee decided not to examine in depth individual complaints about violations of international law committed by Israel in the course of the war, which included claims about the selection of illegitimate targets, the use of cluster bombs, the disproportionate harming of civilians and infrastructure in Lebanon and the use of civilians as ‘human shields’. Instead, the committee made do with general conclusions, in part because, ‘We did not find it appropriate to deal with issues that are part of a political and propaganda war against the state’ … In a special appendix dedicated to the use of cluster bombs, the committee determined that, ‘The cluster bomb is inaccurate, it consists of bomblets that are dispersed over a large area, and some of the bomblets do not explode [on impact] and can cause damage for a long period afterward’. The committee thus recommended that non-military elements be involved in assessing their future use in light of international law”… This Haaretz article can be read in full here.

In December 2006, a few months after the end of what Israel has decided to call “The Second Lebanon War”, Meron Rappaport reported in Haaretz that an IDF commander said Israel fired more than a million cluster bombs in Lebanon:
” ‘What we did was insane and monstrous, we covered entire towns in cluster bombs’, the head of an IDF rocket unit in Lebanon said regarding the use of cluster bombs and phosphorous shells during the war. Quoting his battalion commander, the rocket unit head stated that the IDF fired around 1,800 cluster bombs, containing over 1.2 million cluster bomblets. In addition, soldiers in IDF artillery units testified that the army used phosphorous shells during the war, widely forbidden by international law. [n.b., the Israeli government spokesman latermargued that the way these weapons was used was legal…] According to their claims, the vast majority of said explosive ordinance was fired in the final 10 days of the war. The rocket unit commander stated that Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) platforms were heavily used in spite of the fact that they were known to be highly inaccurate. MLRS is a track or tire carried mobile rocket launching platform, capable of firing a very high volume of mostly unguided munitions. The basic rocket fired by the platform is unguided and imprecise, with a range of about 32 kilometers. The rockets are designed to burst into sub-munitions at a planned altitude in order to blanket enemy army and personnel on the ground with smaller explosive rounds. The use of such weaponry is controversial mainly due to its inaccuracy and ability to wreak great havoc against indeterminate targets over large areas of territory, with a margin of error of as much as 1,200 meters from the intended target to the area hit. The cluster rounds which don’t detonate on impact, believed by the United Nations to be around 40% of those fired by the IDF in Lebanon, remain on the ground as unexploded munitions, effectively littering the landscape with thousands of land mines which will continue to claim victims long after the war has ended.
Because of their high level of failure to detonate, it is believed that there are around 500,000 unexploded munitions on the ground in Lebanon. To date 12 Lebanese civilians have been killed by these mines since the end of the war. According to the commander, in order to compensate for the inaccuracy of the rockets and the inability to strike individual targets precisely, units would ‘flood’ the battlefield with munitions, accounting for the littered and explosive landscape of post-war Lebanon. When his reserve duty came to a close, the commander in question sent a letter to Defense Minister Amir Peretz outlining the use of cluster munitions, a letter which has remained unanswered … The Defense Minister’s office said it had not received messages regarding cluster bomb fire … It has come to light that IDF soldiers fired phosphorous rounds in order to cause fires in Lebanon. An artillery commander has admitted to seeing trucks loaded with phosphorous rounds on their way to artillery crews in the north of Israel. A direct hit from a phosphorous shell typically causes severe burns and a slow, painful death. International law forbids the use of weapons that cause ‘excessive injury and unnecessary suffering’, and many experts are of the opinion that phosphorous rounds fall directly in that category. The International Red Cross has determined that international law forbids the use of phosphorous and other types of flammable rounds against personnel, both civilian and military. In response, the IDF Spokesman’s Office stated that ‘International law does not include a sweeping prohibition of the use of cluster bombs. The convention on conventional weaponry does not declare a prohibition on [phosphorous weapons], rather, on principles regulating the use of such weapons. For understandable operational reasons, the IDF does not respond to [accounts of] details of weaponry in its possession. The IDF makes use only of methods and weaponry which are permissible under international law. Artillery fire in general, including MLRS fire, were used in response solely to firing on the state of Israel’.” here.

Too cold to think

Normally, I wouldn’t have to think of these things. But here, in the far northern wilds of Jerusalem, central heating is a luxury that few are willing to pay for. It is, apparently, nearly unaffordable.

For those privileged few who have “central” heating, the standard rule of thumb is to turn on the heat for 1-2 hours a day. Those families with one or more bread-winners might go up to 4-5 hours a day of heat. The cold is painful. The remedy is to llive in a small room, with portable electric or gas heaters.

The building where I live is not yet completed — and I am the only one who asked for heat. No, please don’t give me individual gas cannisters, I said, both out of fear of gas explosions, and out of some stupid idea of communal solidarity. No, please put the gas in the underground storage container (I thought my neighbors might join in after I made the initial contribution — but I was wrong.)

So, this is the gas meter for the whole building, but I am the only one using it — and so it is my gas meter.

Before I moved in, I said I must have heat. I cannot live through a cold Jerusalem winter without heat.

Gas is cheaper than diesel, cheaper than electricity, I was told. This is the best system available, the top of the top.

But, nobody really knew.

I was the first one to use this system — and it has to be said that it has not really worked very well.

From the 1st of November, what would be start of the traditional heating season here (if people heated their homes), until the present — a period of about 93 days — I have been 22 days without heat (1 to 10 November; 22 to 30 December; 30 January to the present). In December and in January, that also meant having NO HOT WATER, as it was normally supplied though the gas heating system (and nobody understood very well how to make the optional boiler heater work).

And what did it cost? To date, some 8,500 N.I.S. (new Israeli shekels) I am told (about $2420.00 at the present rate of exchange), for 72 days of heat…

To be perfectly honest, the gas delivery man failed to vaccum out the air from the tank before he made the first delivery into the outdoor underground tank. So, the system did not work (1-10 November). Then, when the landlord and his deputy, my neighbor, opened the tank to take out the air, a lot of gas escaped. So, the first delivery of 1.2 tons of gas was pretty much a loss.

After the second delivery (on 30 December, after 8 days without heat), I put the heat on so low that the windows in my bedroom were dripping with condensed moisture, and mold grew all along the outer walls.

When that gas ran out*, during a snowstorm on 30 January, during the coldest spell here in 100 years, it took seven days to get the landlord to get a truck to deliver a little more gas. [*It apparently didn’t run out. One amateur theory was that the gas froze, but experts say that gas does not freeze…It seems that there was indeed a quarter of a tank of gas left, but that did not provide enough pressure to make the system work…]

“She uses the heat from morning to night”, the neighbors and the landloard say disapprovingly…even if that is not exactly true… The disapproval is so thick it could be cut with a knife.

What happens in a snowball fight…

… if you’re Palestinian, and the others are Jewish settlers in Hebron?

Photo captions: “An Israeli soldier detains Palestinian youths who had a playful snow fight with Jewish settlers in the West Bank city of Hebron January 31, 2008”.
MaanImages photo by Mamoun Wazwaz Another photo from Hebron by Mamoun Wazwaz for MaanImages

Ma’an Images adds that “the boys were released after less than an hour”.