One year after two separate cease-fires (Israel’s, and Hamas’) ended 22 terrible days of an IDF military operation supposedly directed against Hamas, where are things? How is the situation?
Worse than ever.
Reconstruction materials have not been allowed in.
The politics of the situation involve a cat-and-mouse game between Israel and Hamas: if Hamas can exert its authoritiy over all factions and military sub-groups in the Gaza Strip, and prove itself a more effective “address” to which Israel can address any grievances, then Israel would be inclined to deal with Hamas on a government-to…. well, authority basis.
If this cuts out the Palestinian Authority based in Ramallah, so what? Only a few officials in Israel care about sustaining that structure, which resulted from an agreement between the State of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization. If Hamas can assert effective rule in Gaza, Israel will go along with it — despite the fact that it is Israeli pressure on the U.S. that keeps the rest of the world from dealing with Gaza at the moment.
There must also, of course, be a solution to the continuing captivity in Gaza of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit. Hamas says that negotiations through mediators with Israel are continuing.
A year ago, the then-Israeli government, led by then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said that it would keep Gaza’s border shut tight until Shalit comes home. This policy is continuing.
The Israeli military keeps Gaza on a short lease — and allows in only a few dozen items which it deems “essential”.
What is really essential is coming in — at great risk to the lives of a number of young desperados — through tunnels dug under the Egyptian-Gaza border, mostly near Rafah. But this channel risks imminent cut-off by an “Iron Wall” that Egypt is installing, at a depth of 20 to 30 meters underground, with American assistance, and to Israel’s great satisfaction.
Egypt is also constructing a wall out into the sea from its border with Gaza. This zone, according to a map that was delineated under the Oslo Accords, says that 1 km from that point and going south is not under Palestinian control. It is not really under Egyptian control either — except to the extent that Israel allows.
Israel has declared — and is enforcing — a kind of “sterile zone” that starts at the Israel-Gaza perimeter and now intrudes some 300 meters inside Gaza on all three sides, cutting off some of Gaza’s prime agricultural lands.
Israel is unilaterally imposing Kerem Shalom as one of the major transit points for all goods going into and out of Gaza. This is what Israel has wanted for years. But the Palestinian Authority opposed it before the Hamas rout of Fatah/Palestinian Preventive Security Forces in mid-June 2007, and has intermittently opposed it since.
Israel has unilaterally shut down the expensive and extensive Nahal Oz installation built to transfer fuel (diesel, industrial diesel, and gas) from Israel into Gaza from Israeli trucks to a pipeline and tank installation under ground inside Gaza. The private Israeli company Dor Alon paid for the construction of this installation on the Israeli side, while the Palestinian Authority paid for the construction of this installation on the Gaza side. It cost many millions, if not more. For this reason, I was told in Ramallah two years ago, the Palestinian Authority could not easily terminate the contract that it had concluded with Dor Alon for exclusive rights to provide fuel to Gaza — it would simply cost too much to buy Dor Alon out, including providing reimbursement for the Nahal Oz installation. Now, this is all shut down. And all fuel must go in through Kerem Shalom, which cannot handle the capacity that Nahal Oz could provide — not enough fuel, not fast enough.
There have been only three days since October 2007 — when a deliberately-tightened Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip began, administered on an exclusive basis and without any oversight by the Israeli military, in a policy that was eventually approved by the Israeli Supreme Court with the sole proviso that it must not e allowed to bresult in a “humanitarian crisis” — that more than 200 truckloads a day of “essential humanitarian supplies” have been allowed into Gaza from Israel.
There are regular electricity brown-outs and black-outs in various areas of Gaza.
Tens of thousands of people are living in tents beside the rubble of their former homes.
Perhaps as many have unreliable water supplies.
The sewage system is in catastrophic collapse – and many millions of liters of untreated, or partially-treated sewage water is simply flowing into the Mediterranean Sea every day.
Gaza’s fishermen are being confined closer and closer to shore, limiting their catch — which is itself limited because of the pollution in the water, and the fact that the larger fish are further out from shore, where the Israeli Navy does not allow the Palestinian fishermen to operate.
Amnesty International has issued a new report today saying, according to a press release, that “An estimated 280 of the 641 schools in Gaza were damaged and 18 were destroyed. More than half of Gaza’s population is under the age of 18 and the disruption to their education, due to the damage caused during Operation ‘Cast Lead’ and as a result of the continuing Israeli boycott, is having a devastating impact. Hospitals have also been badly affected by the military offensive and the blockade. Trucks of medical aid provided by the World Health Organization have been repeatedly refused entry to Gaza without explanation by Israeli officials. Patients with serious medical conditions that cannot be treated in Gaza continue to be prevented or delayed from leaving Gaza by the Israeli authorities – since the closure of crossings leading into and out of Gaza, patients have been made to apply for permits, but these permits are frequently denied. On 1 November 2009, Samir al-Nadim, a father of three children, died after his exit from Gaza for a heart operation was delayed by 22 days”. Amnesty International added that “Unemployment in Gaza is spiralling as those businesses that remain struggle to survive under the blockade. In December 2009, the UN reported that unemployment in Gaza was over 40 per cent”. And the Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Program, Malcolm Smart, said that “The blockade is strangling virtually every aspect of life for Gaza’s population, more than half of whom are children. The increasing isolation and suffering of the people of Gaza cannot be allowed to continue. The Israeli government must comply with binding legal obligation, as the occupying power, to lift the blockade without further delay.” This press release is posted on the organization’s website, here.
UPDATE: The Jerusalem Post noted that “The release of the report comes only days after the Defense Ministry presented figures showing improvements in Gaza’s humanitarian situation, noting that even during Cast Lead some 1,400 trucks carrying supplies were allowed to enter. The Defense Ministry cited an overall 28% rise in humanitarian goods entering the Gaza Strip in 2009 over the previous year, and an increase of 125% in the number of foreign nationals allowed entry to the Strip. The findings were presented at a conference held last Thursday by the Gaza Coordination and Liaison Administration, which brought together representatives from major international organizations operating in Gaza … When contacted by The Jerusalem Post Sunday, Amnesty did not deny the figures presented by the Defense Ministry. Instead, it cited a report they released last month that stated that since the end of Cast Lead, only 41 truckloads of construction materials have been let in”. This JPost report can be read in full here.
On Wednesday, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator, Maxwell Gaylard, has announced that he will hold a press conference outside the dialysis unit at Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital. The announcement of this press conference, sent out by email, cited one example of the break-down in health care in Gaza: “19 year old Fidaa Talal Hijjy, suffering from Hodgkin’s disease, received a referral to an Israeli hospital for a potentially life saving bone marrow transplant in 2009. Fidaa applied for a permit to cross into Israel for her scheduled transplant, and waited. Fidaa died waiting. Thousands more are still waiting”.
In a fascinating report released yesterday, the Israeli security agency known as GSS or Shabak — which is responsible for interrogating those in Gaza who apply for entry into Israel for medical treatment — released a report on what happened during 2009 (a marked decrease in Palestinian “terror” against Israel), in which Shabak also stated that “It should be noted, that Palestinians who enter Israel with false documentation for allegedly personal needs, also constitute a risk potential since they are illegal aliens, and might be taken advantage of by terrorist organizations in order to execute attacks. The meticulous screening performed by Israel makes possible the spotting of these individuals using false medical documentation and preventing their entry”. This is posted here.
And, Akiva Eldar, in today’s edition of Haaretz, has written: “Who said we are shut up inside our Tel Aviv bubble? How many small nations surrounded by enemies set up field hospitals on the other side of the world? Give us an earthquake in Haiti, a tsunami in Thailand or a terror attack in Kenya, and the IDF Spokesman’s Office will triumph. A cargo plane can always be found to fly in military journalists to report on our fine young men from the Home Front Command. Everyone is truly doing a wonderful job: the rescuers, searching for survivors; the physicians, saving lives; and the reporters, too, who are rightfully patting them all on the back. After Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon became the face we show the world, the entire international community can now see Israel’s good side. But the remarkable identification with the victims of the terrible tragedy in distant Haiti only underscores the indifference to the ongoing suffering of the people of Gaza. Only a little more than an hour’s drive from the offices of Israel’s major newspapers, 1.5 million people have been besieged on a desert island for two and a half years. Who cares that 80 percent of the men, women and children living in such proximity to us have fallen under the poverty line? How many Israelis know that half of all Gazans are dependent on charity, that Operation Cast Lead created hundreds of amputees, that raw sewage flows from the streets into the sea?
The Israeli newspaper reader knows about the baby pulled from the wreckage in Port-au-Prince. Few have heard about the infants who sleep in the ruins of their families’ homes in Gaza … The disaster in Haiti is a natural one; the one in Gaza is the unproud handiwork of man. Our handiwork. The IDF does not send cargo planes stuffed with medicines and medical equipment to Gaza … A few days before Israeli physicians rushed to save the lives of injured Haitians, the authorities at the Erez checkpoint prevented 17 people from passing through in order to get to a Ramallah hospital for urgent corneal transplant surgery. Perhaps they voted for Hamas. At the same time that Israeli psychologists are treating Haiti’s orphans with devotion, Israeli inspectors are making sure no one is attempting to plant a doll, a notebook or a bar of chocolate in a container bringing essential goods into Gaza … True, Haiti’s militias are not firing rockets at Israel. But the siege on Gaza has not stopped the Qassams from coming. The prohibition of cilantro, vinegar and ginger [n.b. please note: a very big irony alert here] being brought into the Strip since June 2007 was intended to expedite the release of Gilad Shalit and facilitate the fall of the Hamas regime. As everyone knows, even though neither mission has been particularly successful, and despite international criticism, Israel continues to keep the gates of Gaza locked. Even the images of our excellent doctors in Haiti cannot blur our ugly face in the Strip” … This Akiva Eldar article can be read in full here.
Michael Sfard, an Israeli attorney who represents human rights organizations and serves as legal advisor to the Yesh Din and Breaking the Silence organizations, wrote at the end of 2009, during the first anniversary of the IDF’s Operation Cast Lead, that: “Looking back, Operation Cast Lead was a turning point in the way Israeli society expresses its values. There, in besieged Gaza Strip, we exposed ourselves to a crystal-clear, shameless, and unmasked truth that we had thus far avoided by using repression and self-deceit methods that became more complex and clever with every war and operation we waged … we came out of the closet. We are who we are and we are proud of it! … For three weeks, during Operation Cast Lead, we sent fighter jets to drop bombs on one of the world’s most densely populated areas. We aimed our guns at clearly civilian targets. We used [white?] phosphorous bombs. We deliberately and systematically demolished thousands of private houses and public buildings, and all the while we maintained a tight siege on the Gaza Strip, preventing civilians who wanted to from fleeing the war zone. We did not erect a temporary refugee camp for them. We did not create a humanitarian no-mans’-land corridor for them. We did not spare hospitals, food repositories, or even UN aid agencies’ buildings. At the same time, we did not express fake regret. We did not argue we made tragic mistakes. We did not even take wounded children to Israeli hospitals … Now, we decided that enough is enough. No more playacting and lying to ourselves and the world. As of today, we shall speak the truth: The Jewish State believes that the rules of war should be altered so that the threats that soldiers face are diminished, even at the expense of increasing threats to civilians. The Jewish state believes that in modern warfare, civilian targets are sometimes legit; that it is fine and even required that we bomb power stations that supply electricity to thousands of civilians, to destroy the food infrastructures, to eliminate schools and mosques. What is more, the state of the Jews will no longer tolerate criticism, domestic or foreign. These new liberties were immediately implemented against the Israeli opposition. In unprecedented moves, the Israel Police arrested hundreds of anti-war demonstrators. The IDF spokesman, an officer in uniform, launched a smear and delegitimization campaign against organizations that criticized the army’s policies and actions, while the foreign minister made efforts to cut them off their financial resources. Everything became rotten:
the officers who issued orders, the soldiers who carried them out, the lawyers who approved them, the judges who sent protesters to prison, the academics who kept silent, and the media that fanned the flames of war and surrendered to the IDF spokesman until it turned into a unit under his command”. This commentary by Israeli lawyer Michael Sfard can be read in full here.