Israeli Sanctions

Gazan students may be able to exit for study after all

The Israeli human rights organization Gisha reported late on Sunday that “The U.S. Consulate tonight told Fulbright candidates from Gaza that it is restoring funding for the prestigious scholarship program and is ‘working closely’ with the government of Israel to secure permits for the students to leave Gaza in order to attend visa interviews at the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem and thereafter to leave Gaza for travel to the United States”.

An article published in the New York Times on Thursday apparently brought the matter straight to the attention of the relevant authorities.

Then, it apparently took the intervention of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice to bring about what looks like a reversal.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is due to travel to Washington on Monday for meetings with U.S. Administration officials, including Secretary Rice, Gisha noted..
A U.S. State Department deputy spokesman, Tom Casey, told journalists during a prolonged exchange in Friday’s press briefing that “Certainly, I can tell you that we have been actively speaking to Israeli officials here in Washington as well as in Israel itself about this issue today, and certainly have expressed our concerns about this issue, talked about the importance that we place on it, noted the Secretary’s personal concern about this issue. And we are working to resolve it and certainly believe that we can come to a positive outcome on this with the Israelis … I think the discussions that people have had with the Israelis have indicated that, first and foremost, they heard our concerns about this, that they understand that this is a very important program to us, that it is something that the Secretary has personally asked to be looked into, and something that they had said – they had said in response that they would like to be able to work with us on and would like to be able to resolve. So I think we take their – these conversations as a positive sign that we ultimately will be able to come to an agreeable and positive outcome here”.
It is not clear whether this would affect all eight of the original candidates for the award.
Casey said that “We have eight grants available for Gaza and we initially nominated eight individuals. One of those individuals has subsequently dropped out, so we are currently talking about seven”.

Earlier on Friday, there had been some suggestion that the Fulbright fellowship money that could not be used by Palestinians students from Gaza might instead be re-directed to Palestinian students from the West Bank.

The New York Times article, written from Gaza by Jerusalem bureau chief Ethan Bronner, said that “Israel has isolated this coastal strip, which is run by the militant group Hamas. Given that policy, the United States Consulate in Jerusalem said the grant money had been ‘redirected’ to students elsewhere out of concern that it would go to waste if the Palestinian students were forced to remain in Gaza.”

But, during the course of the day on Friday, that seem to change. Casey said in Friday’s briefing that “while there had been steps taken to technically reprogram some of those funds if we were not able to get exit visas for this group, as far as I know, there have not been other nominees selected or awards made at this point”.

He added that “certainly, we want to do everything we can. The fact that we have a Fulbright program that includes individuals from Gaza is just one small example of our
efforts to ensure that, even despite the takeover, the illegal takeover of Gaza by Hamas and Hamas’ continued misrule of Gaza, that we do intend to continue to reach out and work with the people in the Gaza Strip. And certainly, again, the fact that we have this program, that we’re continuing it, and that we are very much interested in providing these kinds of opportunities for qualified Palestinians is a sign that, contrary to the idea that we’ve somehow looked away from Gaza or neglected it, that we very much are engaged and involved, even despite the fact of, you know, Hamas’ continued takeover or continued control of the area”.
The Jerusalem Post reported on Sunday that “Officials in the Prime Minister’s Office Saturday night expressed ‘surprise’ at State Department criticism of Israel for reportedly not letting seven Gazan students leave the Gaza Strip on Fulbright scholarships, saying that the State Department did not directly contact the PMO about the issue. According to the officials, there is an individual in the PMO whose job it is to facilitate the passage for humanitarian needs of certain individuals from the Gaza Strip … ‘In the past, many countries have approached us, and we have made it possible to facilitate study abroad. In this case they just did not approach us, and assumed it would be impossible’.” The Jerusalem Post added that Israeli officials said on Saturday night that these students “would be allowed to leave for their studies”.
Earlier in the week, the Knesset Education Committee met to discuss a report from Gisha on the difficulties facing students wanting to leave Gaza to pursue their education – and no student has been given permission to leave Gaza since January, Gisha said.
According to Gisha, Education Committee Chairman Michael Melchior said that “ preventing students in Gaza from studying is reminiscent of a painful point in Jewish history. We are a nation that for years was prevented from studying – how can we do the same thing to another people? … Trapping hundreds of students in Gaza is immoral and unwise”.
The Jerusalem Post added that “Melchior also argued that the policy contravened international conventions and the values of the Jewish state”.
At the Education Committee meeting, Gisha later recounted, military officials present said that “exit from Gaza is permitted ‘for exceptional humanitarian and urgent medical cases only’.”
The New York Times article said that “a Defense Ministry official recalled that the cabinet had declared Gaza ‘hostile territory’ and decided that the safety of Israeli soldiers and civilians at or near the border should be risked only to facilitate the movement out of Gaza for humanitarian concerns, like medical treatment. Higher education, he said, was not a humanitarian concern”.
Now, Sari Bashi, executive director of GISHA, said in a press release issued on Sunday night, “According to an e-mail sent Sunday night to Fulbright students by the U.S. Consulate, the Department of State is ‘working to secure exit permits for you to travel to Jerusalem for your visa interview and for final travel to the United States in order to participate in the Fulbright Program this year. We are working closely with the Government of Israel in order to secure its cooperation in this matter’. The e-mail said the scholarship finalization process would now resume”.

At 9 am on Monday morning, Gisha reports, Israel’s Supreme Court will start to hear petitions that Gisha will argue on behalf of two other Gazan students who want to reach their studies, respectively, in the U.K. and in Germany.

NOW they notice!

Haaretz reported Friday, with some surprise, that Gaza sewage has been pumped straight into the Mediterranean since last January, when the Gaza power plant last had to shut down for lack of fuel, and it was feared that sudden electricity outages could cause catastrophic sewage flooding in Gaza that might even threaten human life (as it did just over a year ago).

Akiva Eldar reported in Haaretz that a UN report says that “Millions of liters of sewage have been released over the past three months into the Mediterranean Sea from the Gaza Strip, according to a new United Nations report. According to the report, an estimated 50-60 million liters of waste have been pumped into the sea. This was done in an effort to prevent an overflow of sewage in residential areas. Normally, the sewage is pumped to prearranged sites for treatment, but the shortage of fuel in the Gaza Strip has caused disruptions in the supply of electricity. These shortages, lack of sufficient quantities of chemicals necessary for treating sewage, and spare parts, has led the Gaza officials to pump the waste into the sea. The report prepared by Office of the Coordinator for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) raises concerns that the untreated sewage is carrying Escherichia coli (e. coli) bacteria into the sea which may affect those swimming in its waters … The authors of the report also wrote that in areas where the sewage is pumped into the sea, the color of the water is dark brown and a strong odor emanates. Fishermen in Gaza bay claim the sewage has killed much of the fish in the area … The treatment plant requires constant electrical supply, and the OCHA report calls on Israel to lift its restrictions on fuel supplies to the Gaza Strip. OCHA says that unless electricity can run continuously it is impossible to make regular use of the sanitation equipment in the Strip. The UN is also calling on Israel to allow the transfer of materials and spare parts that are necessary to upgrade the sewage system, and which would allow the construction of three modern sewage treatment stations in the Strip”. This article can be read in full in Haaretz here .

A separate report in the Jerusalem Post says that “Gaza’s water authority has dumped 60 million liters of partially treated and untreated sewage into the Mediterranean Sea since January 24, the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a report released on Wednesday. ‘The sewage discharge is contaminating Gaza seawater and posing health risks for bathers and consumers of seafood. The sewage flows northward to Israeli coasts, including near the Ashkelon desalination plant. Urgent studies are needed to examine the extent of the impact’, the report reads. The report’s authors blamed Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip for the Gazans’ inability to treat the sewage … The UN said Gaza’s water authority, the Coastal Municipalities Water Utility, required 14 days of uninterrupted electricity to treat the sewage. The utility provides more than 130 million cubic meters of water per year, according to the report, 80 percent of which ends up as sewage. Moreover, because of the restrictions on imports and exports into and out of the Strip, spare parts needed to repair the sewage treatment plants had not been allowed in”…

Then, the JPost article contains defensive and misleading information such as: “a security source familiar with the situation told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday that the vast majority of Gaza’s electrical needs were being met by Israel and Egypt. ‘Gaza is receiving 141 megawatts a day out of [its normal requirements of] 200 megawatts at this time from Israel and Egypt’, the source said”. This JPost article can be read in full here .

OK. Let’s take this apart a little bit:
(1) If Gaza is receiving 141 MW a day at this time from Israel and Egypt, that means Israel is providing 124 MW of directly supplied electricity daily from Ashdod or Ashkelon — I think Ashkelon, but both have been reported with great assurance and authority in the Israeli media. And that would mean that Israel has rescinded the electricity cuts that the Israeli military authorized to start on 7 February — and it would only have done so if it realized that any electricity cuts could cause a potentially catastrophic humanitarian crisis that the Israeli military promised it will avoid.

(2) Gaza’s requirements are more than 200 MW a day — they were 240 MW in the winter, and may be just slightly less now, but will rise again as the summer heat sets in. Gaza has been experiencing at least 20% electricity shortfalls, which cause constant brown-outs and black-outs. But, let’s just go along with what this Israeli security source says for a moment: If Gaza normally requires 200 MW per day, and Israel and Egpyt are together supplying 141 MW a day, that means that somewhere, somehow, Gaza must be generating at least 59 MW per day on its own. However, it has not been able to do so, because the Israeli military-ordered fuel cuts affecting Gaza’s only power plant, which operates on Israeli-supplied, European-financed industrial diesel fuel, have restricted production to an average of 45-50 MW per day. Lately, it has only been able to generate 40 MW per day, because fuel deliveries have been short, because the Israeli military says there have been attacks from Gaza on the fuel transfer terminal at Nahal Oz. But, as Sari Bashi, executive director of the Israeli human rights organization GISHA — who has led a fight against these fuel and electricity cuts — says, “if the military can supply some fuel, why can’t it supply enough?”

BUT, we’ve been writing about this for months …

Then, this JPost article also says that Hamas should find a solution.

And, it then goes on to argue, in a hallucinatory fantasy, that sewage has been dumped from Gaza into the sea for years, so this is nothing new, and that the Gazans (now living under tightening Israeli sanctions) should cheerfully recycle this sewage waste water for agriculture, as happy Israelis are doing.

Again, let’s take this apart:
(1) sewage flowed into the sea from Gaza for years, yes, before the Oslo Peace Process started in 1993. After that, donors paid for various sanitation installations to treat this sewage. SOme of these installations have been damaged during IDF attacks. Now, those that were in working order have now been put out of service by the Israeli military-ordered fuel cuts, and by the lack of spare parts — again, banned by the IDF under its sanctions program against Hamas in Gaza — to conduct normal mantanence operations.

The JPost article reports that the spokesman for Israel’s Water Authority, Uri Schor, told its reporter that “The State of Israel assists in various ways to the pumping and water distribution and to the continued operation of the sewage treatment plants. That assistance includes approval to transfer most of equipment the Palestinian Authority has requested – the rest is in the process of being verified – and all the diesel fuel necessary to run the plants“. The JPOst adds, faithfully, that “Schor added: ‘These plants had not been affected by any cutbacks to electricity’ [and] Schor suggested the PA follow Israel’s example and use treated sewage water for agriculture in place of potable water. ‘Right now, 70% of Israel’s sewage is treated and recycled, and the plan is to recycle all of it. In the PA, all of the agriculture uses freshwater, and using recycled sewage water would enable the Palestinians to redirect tens of millions of cubic meters of water for household use’, he said. Responsible management by the PA would add a respectable amount of expensive freshwater to their supply, he said”…

Yes, sure, but the PA includes the West Bank, which is not under these Israeli military-controlled sanctions that affect Gaza, and except that the supposed freshwater in Gaza is brackish because of seawater infusions due to overpumping of the water tables — some of the overpumping was/is being done by Israel …

No fuel delivered to Gaza on Tuesday

Israeli Minister of Defense Ehud Barak announced on Monday that he would authorize resumption of Israeli transfers of the industrial diesel fuel needed to operate Gaza’s power plant – on Wednesday.

In the statement, Barak said that he would only allow the transfer of this type of industrial diesel fuel that is used only for Gaza’s one power plant, but not ordinary diesel used for back-up and stand-by generators or – along with gasoline – used by private vehicles.

An official from Gaza’s Shifa Hospital said the fuel was needed in Gaza today, not tomorrow.

The Gaza power plant is the only source of electricity supply in Gaza City and the central Gaza area, where one-third of the coastal strip’s residents live.

Dr. Rafiq Maliha, director of contracts at the Gaza power plant, said that the plant has already reduced loads, and has been producing only 45 MW of electricity since yesterday, in an effort to maintain operations until tomorrow.

But, he noted, there has been no confirmation of delivery on Wednesday. “We only believe it when we receive it”, Maliha said.

There are unconfirmed indications that employees of the private Israeli company, Dor Alon, which is the sole provider of fuel to Gaza, are now refusing to transfer fuel to Gaza after two of their colleagues were killed on 9 April in an attack from Gaza that breached the security perimeter of the special fuel transfer facility at Nahal Oz.

“We have been informed officially that the fuel will be transferred tomorrow, in two messages – one last night and one this morning”, the Chairman of the Palestinian Energy Authority Dr. Omar Kittaneh said in his office in Ramallah on Tuesday.

He said that “every party in the Palestinian Authority has intervened”, Kittaneh said. “We are representing both the President and the Prime Minister. We want the fuel delivered. It means less punishment for the Palestinian people”.

Dr. Kittaneh confirmed that at the present reduced level of output, there is enough fuel to operate the power plant today and tomorrow only. If no fuel is delivered, he said, the power plant will have to shut down on Wednesday.

Shlomo Dror, the spokesman for Israel’s Defense Ministry, also said on Tuesday that “from tomorrow we intend to deliver fuel for the power plant”. Cooking gas would also be delivered, he added. “We hope Hamas will not shoot again”.

Asked about the Dor Alon employees, Dror said “this is a private company, and there is a situation where people do not want to risk their lives. These Israeli truck drivers are helping the Palestinian people. I can understand that these people are concerned…and there is not much we can tell them”.

Dror said that “We are doing our best, but we are not in the Palestinian area”. He said that the attack last week had been by machine gun from 500 meters away, and that there have also been mortar attacks on all the Israeli-Gaza crossings as well – and, he added, “there is a lot of fuel on these trucks”.

“Yes, there will be more security tomorrow, but all the security cannot help against shooters and mortars – there is a risk”, Dror added. “But we expect the Palestinians to try at least not to attack the drivers”.

No fuel delivered to Gaza on Sunday

The Gaza power plant is teetering on the brink of shut-down by Tuesday, for lack of fuel.

Again on Sunday, the power plant’s manager of contracts, Dr. Rafiq Maliha, said that there still had been no fuel delivered – although he said that one Palestinian truck that had been stuck at the crossing last week had been allowed through. It contained only 45,000 liters of the industrial diesel fuel that the power plant uses – not enough for even half a day of operations for one turbine.

Israel’s Haaretz newspaper reported that “The head of the political-defense bureau at the Defense Ministry, Amos Gilad, told the radio Sunday that before fuel supplies to the Gaza Strip are renewed, the investigation into the attack must be completed ‘in order to prevent future attacks’ … He added that Israel will transfer fuel and supplies to Gaza when it ‘sees fit’.”

Gilad also said that Israel was ensuring that there will be no humanitarian crisis in Gaza – though it is not clear exactly how. The Israeli military is putting out frequent updates of the truckloads of humanitarian supplies it is delivering into Gaza – mostly on behalf of international organizations.

But, because of the closure of Nahal Oz, this does not include fuel.

Gisha, the Israeli human rights organization that led the effort to stop those cuts, issued an appeal on Sunday to Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak to order a restoration of all fuel supplies to Gaza. Israel has the right to protect itself against attacks on its civilians. But, just as international law forbids deliberately harming Israeli civilians working at Nahal Oz, so it (also) forbids deliberately harming civilians in Gaza, by depriving them of the fuel they need to produce electricity, travel, and run vital services”.

Currently, Gisha said, Gaza is experiencing rolling electricity blackouts that last approximately three hours a day. In the statement, Gisha’s Executive Director Sari Bashi noted that Israel does not permit fuel to enter Gaza from any point other than Nahal Oz.

Gisha added that “The cuts to Gaza’s fuel supply are part of punitive measures taken against Gaza residents, pursuant to an Israeli Cabinet decision calling for restrictions on the movement of people and goods in an out of Gaza”.

The industrial diesel fuel needed to run Gaza´s power plant has been paid for by the European Union ever since the plant was able to resume partial operations, many months following the damage inflicted by an IDF airstrike at the end of June 2006, in retaliation for the abduction of IDF Corporal Gilad Shalit near the Kerem Shalom crossing. (Shalit is still being held captive somewhere in Gaza.)

Dr. Maliha has told this reporter that the Gaza power plant has never been allowed to replenish its fuel reserves since they were drawn down following the start of Israeli military-imposed sanctions that began on 28 October.

Now, the Gaza power plant has only enough fuel on hand to last to Tuesday – and only due only to its own economies since late January, the last time the power plant was forced to close operations due to lack of fuel.

Since late January, the average daily electrical output of Gaza’s power plant has been limited, because of the reduced quantity of fuel, to 55 MW, Dr. Maliha said.

The Israeli Supreme Court declined to intervene after months of petitioning and arguments from ten Israeli and Palestinian human rights organizations who tried to block the military-ordered fuel cuts, and cuts in Israeli-supplied electricity as well.

Despite information supplied to the Court that it would take 3.5 million liters of industrial diesel fuel per week to operate two turbines at a full load — more than the 2.2 million liters permitted under the military-imposed sanctions that have been in place since 28 October — the Israeli Supreme Court did rule that this quantity should be boosted, when it handed down its ruling on 27 January.

Gisha noted in its statement on Sunday that this Israeli Supreme Court decision was “condemned by human rights groups as authorizing illegal collective punishment”.

There is also a severe crisis in ordinary diesel fuel and gasoline for private automobiles, which has nearly paralyzed life in the sealed-off coastal strip where 1.5 million souls are hemmed in, and unable to leave. A Hamas spokesman said Saturday that 80% of all vehicles are without fuel.

Gisha noted, in its statement, that “Gasoline supplies have been cut by 81%, while ordinary diesel has been cut by 43%”.

Interestingly, Haaretz reported on Thursday that “The fuel depot at Nahal Oz, near the Karni crossing did not have guards, despite its proximity to the Gaza border and the presence there of civilians. The IDF only had troops along the border fence, who failed to prevent the terrorists’ infiltration. IDF sources said that Dor Alon, the company that operates the terminal, probably did not post guards at the site to save money, even though the IDF had demanded it. The sources said other companies operating border crossings to the Gaza Strip all employed security guards. In response, Dor Alon said it had never been asked to post guards at the depot and that the IDF is responsible for the crossing”.

Even more interestingly, the same Haaretz story also stated that “Palestinian fuel coordinators alerted Israelis operating the Nahal Oz fueling terminal that Palestinian terrorists had infiltrated Israel prior to the terror attack that left two Israeli civilians dead”.

Son of Sharon

The son of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, now comatose in an Israeli medical facility, has written in Israel’s YNet news that “Gaza Strip residents must reject terrorism – or face the consequences”.

Gilad Sharon said in his article that “Israel’s leadership is debating. On the one hand, it knows (or so we hope) that the situation in Sderot and Gaza-region communities cannot continue. Yet on the other hand it is justifiably worried about the price of a large-scale ground operation that could exact a heavy casualty toll and burden us with responsibility for the fate of Gaza residents. Israel subjected itself to yet another limitation: Avoiding a humanitarian blow to Gaza residents who are uninvolved in terrorism. As usual with this government and the person who heads it, it chose to do a little of this and a little of that: Partial humanitarian pressure on the one hand, and limited military activity on the other hand. But as we know, a little of this and a little of that is not enough of both. As if the Gaza population is not suffering right now, and as if a particular kind of suffering that lasts for years and with no end in sight is better than massive pressure for a limited time. The State seeks all sorts of explanations to show the High Court of Justice that partially cutting off the electricity supply to Gaza does not constitute a humanitarian blow. That’s nonsense, as such measure would clearly hurt the population, but what’s the alternative? … This is an extreme situation and therefore it requires an extreme solution. The civilian pressure on the population should bring about an end to rocket attacks on Israel. I’m not talking about curbing the flow of water, food, and medicine, yet all the rest should be curbed completely. The State must openly and courageously face the High Court of Justice and say: ‘This is Israel’s foreign and defense policy. We are obligated to do it in order to protect our citizens, and this is better both for Gazans and for us over a large-scale operation in the Strip that would involve losses among our troops and among the civilian population in Gaza’. I’m certain that the High Court of Justice will respect this – it will certainly respect such stance much more than the ridiculous attempts to explain that such moves would not hurt the population … In the framework of phased punishments, we should view the cutting off of electricity and fuel as a lower phase than injury or death in a military operation”… Gilad Sharon’s full commentary in YNet is published here.

Israel closes off all border crossings into Gaza

Israeli Defense Minister is going for the big one. Late on Thursday night, Barak reportedly ordered all border crossings into Gaza closed.

The AP reported Friday that “Israel’s defense ministry will decide whether to allow individual shipments of crucial humanitarian aid in Gaza, the Israeli officials said, but trucks bearing basic food items and other supplies will not enter for at least the next few days, they said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss defense ministry policy with the media”.

This AP report is here.

This same AP story was updated about an hour later, with this material added: “It was not immediately clear which supplies would not be allowed into strip, said Defense Ministry spokesman Shlomo Dror. The territory, home to 1.4 million Palestinians, receives food and humanitarian supplies from Israel and aid organizations. ‘It’s time that Hamas decide to either fight or take care of its population’, Dror said. ‘It’s unacceptable that people in (the southern Israeli town of) Sderot are living in fear every day and people in the Gaza Strip are living life as usual’.”

Life as usual!!!! He can’t be serious.

The same AP story went on: “Dror said Gazans had enough food that no one would go hungry and assured ‘there will not be a humanitarian crisis in Gaza’.”

An even later update of the AP story reported: “About 20 trucks of food scheduled to enter Gaza on Friday would not be allowed through, said Defense Ministry spokesman Shlomo Dror. The crossings are routinely closed Saturdays, and may not be reopened Sunday morning if the rocket fire continues, he said”. This updated version of the AP story is posted here.

OK, now it has to be said, he truly knows very well that there already is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. I have reported earlier what he told me about the shortage of industrial diesel fuel for Gaza’s only electricity-generating plant. I can only report what he says.

The Israelis are buying time to act, until Washington wakes up and the rest of the world reacts.

Haaretz reported Friday that: “Defense Minister Ehud Barak ordered the IDF on Thursday to more forward with planning a large-scale ground operation in Gaza, but stressed that no such operation has yet been authorized. Barak’s office noted that the army has been planning such an operation for the past several months, so as to be ready for any contingency. Barak also decided to tighten economic sanctions on Gaza’s Hamas government – inter alia, by reducing the amount of fuel allowed into the Strip. In addition, cargo trucks bringing humanitarian supplies into Gaza will undergo stricter inspections, due in part to the fact that two such trucks were recently found to be carrying material that could be used to make Qassam rockets. In addition, Barak said that the IDF would ‘deepen’ its military operations against the rocket-launching crews. ‘It won’t be simple, it won’t happen this weekend, but we will stop the rocket fire on Sderot’, he said, speaking during a tour of the South”… This article in Haaretz is posted here.

YNet reported Friday that “Defense Minister Ehud Barak toured the region accompanied by regional army commanders and vowed Israel would put an end to the Palestinian rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip. The defense minister could not give a timetable for his pledge but said he had ordered the IDF to intensify and deepen its ongoing pinpointed operations against terror cells in the Hamas-controlled coastal territory. The army was also instructed by Barak to continue preparing for a possible wide-scale operation in the Strip while simultaneously tightening the closure imposed on its border crossings. ‘The IDF will continue its ongoing operations and expand them in order to target Qassam launchers, until the rocket fire stops. This will not be simple and will not happen over the weekend, but we will see to it that the attacks on Sderot stop’, Barak said. At present time only authorized personnel and goods are allowed through the crossings, but Barak’s instructions call for all movement in or out of Gaza to be halted. Only humanitarian cases will be allowed special consideration. Israel’s supply of fuel and electricity to Gaza will also be cut back under the defense minister’s orders. The measures approved by Barak will, for now, only be in effect for several days and are intended to increase pressure on terror groups and sever connections between Israel and Gaza as much as possible … Meanwhile United National Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he was ‘deeply concerned at the current escalation of violence in Gaza and southern Israel, as well as in the West Bank’. In a written statement issued by his office, the UN leader said he was ‘troubled by the heavy bloodshed, particularly the killing and injuring of civilians on both sides and the potential for further casualties unless the situation is de-escalated’. Ban called for an immediate cessation of Palestinian attacks into Israel, and for maximum restraint on the part of the IDF”. The YNet story is published here.

The NYTimes reported that “Another rocket had fallen in a nearby street [in an older part of Sderot, where there are no “safe rooms”] a short while before [on Thursday evening], outside the home of Shula Dahan, 56. Her 19-year-old son was in the apartment at the time but was not hurt. ‘We have no protected space; they’ve turned us into a human shield’, she said of the government, adding that there had been no electricity in her neighborhood for hours after a rocket hit a high-voltage cable [a day before]. In Gaza City, too, residents had electricity for only a few hours of the day. In response to the rocket fire, Israel has reduced the amount of fuel delivered to Gaza, leading to a rationing of power there.
The NYTimes story is here.

An ultimately unmanageable experiment

Reports of humanitarian consequences following its phased cuts in the supply of fuel and electricity to the Gaza Strip caused Israel ’s Ministry of Defense to tweak its program once again on 10 January.

The Defense Ministry has now authorized a restoration of industrial diesel fuel supplies for Gaza ’s main power plant, back up to the levels provided before Phase I fuel cuts went into effect on 28 October.

It is still not enough. But, as the winter cold began to bite, the news came as a big relief to many in Gaza .

The densely-populated and now nearly totally-isolated coastal strip is completely dependent on Israel for its fuel, and partially dependent for its electricity.

The Israeli military announced plans to institute progressive cuts in both fuel and electricity to sanction Gaza, on the basis of a 19 September decision by the Israeli Cabinet to declare the Gaza Strip a “hostile territory” or “enemy entity”, in response to continuing Qassam rocket and missile and mortar attacks from Gaza into Israel.

The Israeli High Court of Justice has, in response to petitions from a group of Israeli and Palestinian human rights groups, asked for a delay in the electricity cuts until it sees a plan for avoiding humanitarian consequences, and a further court hearing is scheduled for 3 February. But the Court declined to intervene in the fuel cuts, because the military promised to keep the humanitarian situation under review.

As a result, all decisions are being made solely by Israel ’s military.

The decision to restore pre-cut levels of industrial diesel fuel was taken by Israel ’s Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilna’i after a meeting in the Ministry last week to discuss the matter, ministry spokesperson Shlomo Dror said in a phone interview with Al-Ahram Weekly on Monday.

“We did some mistakes — we had figures for fuel deliveries for the last three months, then we found out that the amounts used in that period were less than before”, Dror explained, so the cuts were deeper than they should have been.

It has indeed been difficult to get a handle on the figures, with numerous parties involved, sometimes speaking on the basis of different criteria.

Dr. Rafiq Maliha, Deputy Director of the Gaza Power and Electricity Company, said that in August, the plant was closed for five days for lack of fuel. The amount of fuel he received in September was 10,634 cubic meters, and in October it was 9.002 cubic meters, while after Phase I fuel cuts went into effect he received only 7,282 cubic meters for November, and 7,685 cubic meters in December.

These military-ordered cuts have been a risky social engineering experiment, approached as if it were a computer game, and managed by struggling to adjust choices and control consequences only after they appear.

Industrial diesel fuel is used exclusively to operate Gaza’s main power plant, which had announced the previous Saturday, 5 January, that all its useable fuel reserves had been exhausted. It announced an immediate cut back in electrical production by 35%. The distribution company was asked to “manage the loads”, but this had to be done manually, and is both difficult and dangerous.

Dr. Rafiq Maliha, Deputy Director of the Gaza Power and Electricity Company, said that after the fuel reserves were depleted, only about 45 MW of electricity could be generated, instead of the previous 65 MW. As a result, the predicted 8 hours of electricity loss had sometimes extended as long as 10-12 hours.

Residents of Gaza City and adjacent areas in middle Gaza were the most affected, because northern Gaza, and perimeter areas in middle and southern Gaza, receive direct supplies of electricity totaling 120 MW per day through feeder lines from Israel, while Egypt provides 17 MW of electricity across the border to the Rafah district of Gaza.

Britain ’s Foreign Secretary David Miliband and Minister of State for International Development Douglas Alexander issued an unprecedented statement on 10 January, saying they were “deeply concerned by the growing humanitarian impact of restrictions by the Government of Israel on industrial diesel supplies to Gaza , particularly on the most vulnerable sections of the population.”

It was the only public statement made by any international actor about the worsening situation in Gaza .

But, the subject was apparently discussed privately the same day in Ramallah, during the meeting between visiting U.S. President Bush and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. “They talked about the situation in Gaza for a considerable time”, according to a source in the Muqata’a, “and President Abbas requested with much determination that President Bush intervene to lift the siege and all sanctions imposed by Israel on Gaza”.

This was confirmed by Palestinian negotiator Sa’eb Erekat, who said in a phone interview on 14 January that “Abu Mazen said that the humanitarian needs of the population in Gaza – including fuel, electricity, water, food, and medical supplies should not be touched, and Bush seemed to agree”.

Erekat said that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had also pledged, twice, not to touch these vital supplies – the first time on 25 June at a meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh, Erekat said, and the second time in early January.

With the limited restoration of supplies on Sunday, Dr. Maliha said the power station is now able to produce 55 MW continuously. He said he has been given a new schedule showing the increased amounts of fuel deliveries through the end of the week that would amount to 315 cubic meters (315,000 liters) per day. With the increased amounts that he has seen this week, Dr. Maliha´s projected figure for January fuel deliveries is about 9,300 cubic meters.

But, he said in exasperation: “What is needed if I operate two turbines is 360 cubic meters (360,000 liters) per day, and for three turbines it would be 450 to 500 cubic meters (450,000 to 500,000 liters) per day. I can’t understand why I should always work at the red line.”

The Gaza power plant is now ready to bring a third turbine online, if fuel supplies become available, and that would increase the plant’s production to about 80 MW per day. Dr. Maliha indicated that the demand in Gaza is now 240 MW, but less than 200 MW per day are available now, even after the restoration of October levels of fuel. So, there have been rolling black-outs and brown-outs. The third generator would add 25-30 MW a day, and come close to meeting the current daily need.

The European Union’s Temporary International Mechanism, set up for donors who did not want to see any of their money going to Hamas after their electoral victory and subsequent agreement to participate in Palestinian Authority government in early 2006, has been paying for all the fuel delivered to the Gaza power plant since its partial restoration in November 2006, following the June 2006 IDF airstrike that destroyed the plant in retaliation for the capture of Corporal Gilad Shalit, who is still being held somewhere in Gaza. Before Phase I fuel cuts started in November 2007, the EU’s fuel bill for the Gaza power plant was about $10 million per month.

The EU is monitoring the deliveries, and Price Waterhouse is monitoring the fuel levels on my meters on a daily basis”, Dr. Maliha said. “There is a transparent process – so why are we receiving fuel only on a daily basis? Why can I not build up my reserves? The issue is funny”.

“I cannot control 1.5 million people in Gaza ”, he said, “when they decide to turn their lights on or off”.

When news broke that the Israeli Defense Ministry had instructed the private Dor Alon fuel company to restore previous levels of industrial fuel, the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office amended their earlier statement and welcomed the move, but said the ministers were nevertheless continuing to urge Israel “to lift all restrictions on fuel with immediate effect”.

The Ministers’ said that ‘We utterly condemn the rocket attacks from Gaza into Israel . We support all efforts to stop these attacks consistent with obligations under international law. The humanitarian needs of people who are in no way associated with the rocket attacks should not however be compromised”.

And, the statement said, “We also welcome Israel ‘s recent lifting of the restrictions on non-industrial diesel, important for back-up generators and ambulances, and hope that this will not be reversed”.

This last remark was actually rather prescient, for on Monday, just two days later, prominent Israeli newspapers reported, quoting anonymous defense officials, that the refill might just be a one-time, or one-off operation.

The Jerusalem Post published an article saying that defense officials said on Sunday that once the Palestinian fuel storage containers were full, Israel would then complete its disengagement from the Gaza Strip and cut off all ties, including the supply of fuel and electricity. “The idea is to give them an increased amount of fuel so they can quickly fill up their tankers and when they are full we will then cut the supplies,” a defense official said.

The Palestinian Ma’an News Agency published a report on Monday saying that Maariv had quoted an Israeli official saying, ‘Let’s give them diesel, and separate them from the Israeli electricity network, and if they need more electricity, let them ask for it in Egypt ’.”

But, Israeli Ministry of Defense Dror said that he had no idea where these stories came from — they were “totally untrue”

Dror said that the intention with the proposed fuel and electricity cuts was “not to make a humanitarian crisis – we only wanted to signal to the Palestinians that the situation can no longer continue as it is.”

“If the Palestinians tell us there is a shortage of fuel for electricity, we will give it to them”, Dror said several times in the conversation. But, he said, “The main problem of the Palestinians is that they are using all the time complaints, they want every time to attack Israel . It’s about time that Hamas stop with this game, and start taking care of their own people”. He said that the current problem was being used for propaganda.

There does appear to be not only great mistrust, but also a serious problem in communication. Palestinians say they have made their needs quite clear. It appears that the present arrangements have the Palestinian Ministry of Finance communicating its fuel orders to the Israeli Ministry of Finance. How the Israeli Ministry of Finance coordinates with the Israeli Ministry of Defense is not clear. Shlomo Dror said that the correct channel for the Palestinians would be through General Mishlev, the Coordinator of Government activities in the Palestinian territory – as Dror said, Sa’eb Erekat has done on many occasions.

Erekat, contacted Monday evening – after a day in which he participated in the first Israeli-Palestinian negotiating session on “core issues”, and then in a Palestinian Liberation Organization Central Committee meeting to discuss the situation of the Palestinian Legislative Council – expressed surprise. He said that he had handled these files – “and Abu Mazen was personally involved as well” — from April 2006 until July 2007, from the time of the formation of the first government with Hamas participation, when Israel refused to speak to the Palestinian ministers, until the dissolution of the National Unity government. But, since July, Erekat said, these matters have become the responsibility of the Salam Fayyad government. “I even put an announcement in the papers that I was no longer handling the coordination”, Erekat explained.

Officials in Ramallah and Gaza note that many times, however, General Mishlev has said he had not heard about any problem, or said he had received no information, when in fact he had been informed and he had been given the details…

At the very least, however, sworn affidavits giving precise figures and explanations from various Palestinian non-political technical officials have been submitted to the Israeli High Court of Justice – and thus are fully available to the Israeli Ministry of Defense, represented by the State Attorney — in the case now under review.

Israeli Supreme Court denies appeal by 14 seriously ill Gazans to travel through Israel for treatment

Fourteen very ill patients from Gaza who were denied permits on security grounds to enter Israeli for specialized treatment – either in Israel, Jordan, or Egypt – lost an appeal to the Israeli High Court of Justice (Supreme Court) on Tuesday, according to Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) in Israel, who took the appeal to Court.

Most of the patients have cancer, and the time factor is very important for them care – early medical intervention is often a matter of life or death in cancer cases.

The state attorneys told the Court that the patients do not need to enter Israel (through Erez), but can instead go to Egypt — whenever the border will be open.

However, Physicians for Human Rights argued, nobody knows how long it will be before either Kerem Shalom or Rafah border crossings will be open again.

Israel has strongly protested the passage of Gazan pilgrims going to and returning from the Hajj pilgrimage through Rafah without European Union observers present, and without Israeli agreement.

The EU abandoned its observation position at Rafah following Hamas’ mid-June rout of Fatah security forces in Gaza, and has not returned.

The PHR attorney Yohanna Lerman noted, after the Court hearing, that Kerem Shalom has only been open four days in recent months – and patients were given only one or two hours notice of the opening, which was not enough time for them to make arrangements for the trip.

“There is no medical treatment for cancer available in Gaza now”, Lerner said, “no radioactive materials and no MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) equipment. We are denying Gaza’s doctors the ability to treat these patients, yet they are not allowed to go to West Bank – or to Palestinian hospitals in East Jerusalem – for appropriate care.”

In another development, PHR was informed on Tuesday evening that it had received a permit from the military for a group of Israeli Arab medical doctors to enter Gaza through Erez crossing on Wednesday. The doctors plan to bring some needed medical supplies, and to visit Shifa Hospital.

Gaza's main power plant reduces output due to fuel shortages

Israeli military-ordered fuel cuts to Gaza have now caused electricity cuts in the nearly-totally-isolated Gaza Strip.

News reports indicated Sunday that 8-hour per day electricity cuts will now have to be instituted across the board in Gaza.

Maher el-Najjar, Deputy Director of the Coastal Municipalities Water Unit in Gaza, who has been associated with the human rights groups effort to seek Court intervention to block the fuel and electricity cuts to Gaza, sent an email message Sunday saying that “We have been informed by the Gaza Power Plant and GEDCO that the fuel tanks levels reached dangerous levels at the Plant. So, the Gaza Power Plant can not continue with the current operation scheme”.

Dr. Rafiq Maliha, Deputy Director of the Gaza Power and Electricity Company, confirmed by phone in Gaza on Sunday afternoon that as of Saturday, the fuel reserves had reached “a red line” and were virtually zero — so a drastic new cutback has already been in effect for the past 24 hours: “Yesterday, starting at 2 pm, we reduced our production by 30-35%, due to lack of fuel”.

This will mean that there will be 8 hours of disconnection from electricity services per day for everyone in Gaza – “if you have an ideal situation”. If there are further breakdowns, the situation will only worsen.

He said that “We have been asked to manage without stopping either one of the two turbines now in operation”. If both turbines were shut down, the Gaza Power Plant’s production would then be reduced by 50%.

So, they are trying to preserve the two turbines now in operation, Dr. Maliha explained, by “asking the distribution company to reduce the loads”. But this “must be done manually, and the process is not easy”, Dr. Maliha said. “And we don’t have the capacity to monitor the situation to know if this is working”.

Dr. Maliha is now, too, affiliated with the GISHA-led effort to block the Israeli military’s cuts though the Israeli High Court of Justince. In an affidavit supplied to the Court on Sunday, Dr. Maliha said that only about 45 MW of electricity are now being generated, instead of 65 MW. He said that in addition to the minimum of 360,000 liters per day (2,520,000 liters per week) needed to operate two turbines at the plant, “we [also] urgently need 1,800,000 liters of industrial diesel in order to have two meters of reserve”.

Each turbine needs 160 cubic meters (160,000 liters) of industrial diesel fuel per day to work.

Before Phase I fuel cuts went into effect in late October, Dr. Maliha indicated, the Gaza Power Plant was receiving 360 cubic meters (360,000 liters) of fuel – enough to operate two turbines.

Since 28 October, he explained, “We are operating now only on what we receive, which is 250 cubic meters (250,000 liters) of fuel”.

The difference was made up by dipping into the fuel reserves, which are now exhausted.

The Gaza Power Plant currently supplies about one-third of Gaza’s electricity – whereas before the June 2006 air strike which destroyed all six of the million-and-a-half dollar plant’s transformers, the power plant was able to provide nearly two-thirds of Gaza’s electrical supply.

It took months of reconstruction work — and negotiation with various parts of the Israeli government — to get in the materials needed.Despite all these efforts, only half of the plant’s pre-strike capacity was restored.

The human rights organizations who have gone to the Israeli High Court had been informed that a second round of fuel cuts – Phase II — was scheduled to start on 30 December, with a military-ordered reduction of some 35% to 43% (apparently depending on what numbers are used as the baseline) in the amount of gasoline (benzene, petrol) that would now be supplied to the Gaza Strip.

Immediately after the Israeli High Court of Justice rejected a petition on 3 January from a group of ten Israeli and Palestinian human rights organizations asking for an injunction to stop state-ordered second round of deeper fuel cuts to Gaza, the petitioners submitted an urgent request Thursday evening for a new injunction.

Their new request for Court intervention concerns the continuing shortfall in delivery of industrial diesel fuel that is used to operate the main Gaza Power Plant, according to Sari Bashi, the Executive Director of GISHA, which has taken a leading role in the case.

It became clear, Bashi said Friday, that the Phase II measures had in fact actually been in effect for the previous week – though they have not been applied exactly as the state had informed the Court.

The Jerusalem Post reported after the Court ruling on Thursday that only 230,000 liters of gasoline (benzene, petrol) – used mainly by automobiles — will now be delivered per week to Gaza.

But, Bashi explained on Friday, monitoring of actual amounts delivered last week shows that the cuts in gasoline/benzene have been deeper than predicted – instead of 230,000 liters, more like 190,000 to 200,000 liters were actually supplied.

The Phase II fuel cuts ordered by the Israeli Defense Ministry were also supposed to include a temporary restoration, to pre-cut levels, in the amounts of diesel fuel that will be allowed into Gaza.

Diesel supplies are used to run Gaza’s main power plant, and all back-up and emergency generators, which are vitally-needed back-up sources of power for essential services during rolling and random power outages in Gaza. Many public institutions and certain hospital services are also dependent on diesel fuel, including the laundry and sanitation services at Gaza City’s ash-Shifa Hospital , run on diesel. Some automobiles and other vehicles also use diesel fuel.

The state told the Israeli High Court last Wednesday that “everything’s fine” in Gaza, Bashi said.

The Court said on Thursday that it was dismissing the petitioners’ request after recording the state’s commitment to avoid a humanitarian crisis there, as well as the state’s assurance that it is possible to distribute differently the reduced quantities of vital supplies that will now be allowed into the sealed-off and virtually totally-isolated coastal strip.

But GISHA maintains that the Israeli government has no means to actually monitor or verify the humanitarian situation inside Gaza.

GISHA’s Bashi said earlier that, after the Phase I fuel cuts were ordered, diesel supplies were reduced from 1.4 million liters per week to 1.2 million liters. Industrial diesel supplies were reduced from 2.2 million liters per week to 1.75 million liters.

Bashi explained Friday, monitoring information shows that while regular diesel supplies are reportedly back up to pre-cut levels, industrial diesel supplies delivered last week were still only at Phase I level (1.75 million liters) — and Gaza’s main power plant is now in trouble.

As a result of the Phase I fuel cuts, the Gaza Power Plant has now used up all its fuel reserves. Without an immediate restoration of fuel, the Gaza Power Plant will only be able to run at half its present limited capacity, starting next week.

At present, Gaza needs 240 MW of electricity a day but is getting only some 80% of that amount, from three sources: The Israel Electric Company is currently supplying some 120 MW; Egypt is providing 17 MW across the border to the Rafah district in Gaza; and the main Gaza Power Plant is generating some 55-60 MW.

Dr. Rafiq Maliha, Deputy Director of the Gaza Power and Electricity Company, said a week ago that “We now have only a temporary configuration, which is just working partially”, as a result of the June 2006 Israeli air attack in anger on the Gaza power plant which destroyed, one by one, all six transformers at the power station. “We have not been able to restore the plant’s capacity – and now we are only able to produce a maximum of 60 MW of electricity rather than 140 MW that the plant was designed to generate. Since the attack, we have been running in a constant state of deficit”.

The current 20% deficit is being managed by “burden-sharing”, which distributes the planned cuts through rolling black-outs and brown-outs, which means that electricity is completely cut for several hours a day, every day, in different areas of Gaza. Back-up generators then must be used for the most essential public services. But, in the current situation, this is a fragile compromise.

The deficit could have been reduced with the recent delivery of a new transformer, Dr. Maliha said, which would add 25-30 MW of production per day, so that Gaza power plant could now provide up to 80 MW of electricity. But, to do that would require receiving 500 cubic meters of diesel fuel per day – and that is double the amount supplied under Phase I cuts.

Dr. Maliha said at the time that, “when the reserves are exhausted, we will be receiving only enough incoming fuel to run one turbine per day with the present cuts”, and the Gaza’s main power plant will have to cut back its output by 25-30 MW of electricity per day –which is about half of 55-60 MW generated at present.

This will only increase the difficulties in Gaza, where technicians and engineers have been juggling rolling black-outs and brown-outs to handle an overall 20% deficit in electrical supply since the partial restoration of the Gaza Power Plant that was destroyed by an Israeli air strike in June 2006.

Now, there are fears are that the electricity deficit could become unmanageable.

A decision on separate military-ordered electricity cuts to Gaza is still pending, and the Court has now set an 8 February hearing date.

Israeli High Court refuses to stop state's Phase II fuel cuts to Gaza

The Israeli High Court today denied a petition by a group of ten Israeli and Palestinian human rights organizations to stop state-ordered deeper Phase II fuel cuts to Gaza.

It is probably no coincidence that the Court’s decision came on the day that Palestinians fired a rocket that hit the beach in the northern part of the important Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon — where there are major fuel storage depots.

According to the Jerusalem Post, only 230,000 liters of gasoline (benzene, petrol) will be delivered per week to Gaza now.

Sari Bashi, Executive Director of GISHA, one of the organizations who submitted the petition to stop the cuts, said recently that 350,000 liters of gasoline had been delivered to Gaza per week in October.

In Phase I of the fuel cuts, which began on 28 October, the amount was reduced to 300,000 liters per week.

Diesel supplies, by contrast, which are used to run Gaza’s main power plant, and all back-up and emergency generators, are supposed to be restored to pre-cut levels in Phase II.

The JPost report is posted here.