This, Madame Secretary [Hilary Clinton], is positive reinforcement: when the IDF, exceptionally, schedules over 200 truckloads of what they call “humanitarian aid” — really, the most basic goods — to enter Gaza, it is worth writing about.
This is the third time in the past two weeks that we’ve had such an astonishing development. It is the third time since 19 September 2007 that over 200 truckloads worth of goods have been permitted to enter Gaza from Israel. Since the IDF’s Operation Cast Lead last winter, nearly a year ago (27 December – 18 January), anything approaching 100 truckloads a day has been good news.
We previously posted about this (so far publicly unexplained) new development on 16 November here and again on 19 November here. Usually, there is a temporary liberalisation of the draconian sanctions regime when there is strong international pressure from the right quarters. This time, there may also be other (so far unclear) reasons…
However, before the Hamas rout of Fatah/Palestinian Preventive Security Forces in mid-June 2007, the daily average was 400 to 600 truckloads per day…
This is not, however, “humanitarian aid” from Israel — it is, perhaps, partly including aid from international organizations and non-governmental organizations. But it is also normal consumer goods purchased by the Palestinians themselves (some from the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, and quite a lot purchased by Gaza merchants themselves, through orders corrodinated with the PA in Ramallah.
But it is designed to prevent a “humanitarian crisis” in Gaza — which some have said has been in place for the past two years or more, and what is now being prevented is a “humanitarian catastrophe”.
The important thing here is that the Israeli Supreme Court told the IDF, in its final ruling on the matter after a lengthy court battle led by a grouping of Israeli and Palestinian human rights organizations — that preventing a “humanitarian crisis” is a requirement for maintaining the policy of sanctions or blockade that the IDF has been authorized by the Israeli government to impose on Gaza… and the IDF has been doing so without any other effective Israeli government oversight.
The 1.5 million inhabitants of Gaza have been basically locked into the Gaza Strip since Israel’s unilateral “disengagement” that removed some 8,000 Israeli settlers and the Israeli soldiers protecting them, which was completed by September 2005.
The policy of tightened sanctions was imposed by the Israeli Military in October 2007, and has been in effect, by what looks like not much more than whim, since then, including during and after the three-week IDF military offensive last winter.
And, of course, there is another side to this policy of allowing “humanitarian aid” into Gaza: Haaretz reported yesterday that “Israel Air Force planes struck targets in Gaza early Sunday, wounding seven Palestinians, medical workers said, a few hours after Hamas said militant groups in the coastal strip had agreed to halt cross-border rocket fire. An Israel Defense Forces spokesman said the strikes were in response to a rocket attack Saturday by militants in the Hamas-ruled Strip. He said they had targeted two factories in the central and northern Gaza used to make weapons and a smuggling tunnel under the border with Egypt”… This Haaretz article can be read in full here.
For, we should remember that we are talking about 1.5 million people, at least three-quarters of whom are refugees, who are not where they are by choice, and who are locked into one of the most densely populated places on earth…
The Israeli military and the IDF are just lucky that there has not been a full-blown catastrophe so far… the line is fine, and human lives are fragile…