Fra ZNet i dag.
Knut Rognes
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Report from Gaza
by Benjamin Dov Granby
April 17, 2002
MIDEAST WATCH
The Israelis have a political term that isn't applied as much as it should
be to the current conflict. 'Tahalikh Medini," means "settling state
affairs." Wipe away all of the humanitarian masking on this topic and you
are left with Israeli pragmatism. Unchallenged in any serious political
manner by either the Palestinians or the Israeli left, PM Ariel Sharon is
simply proceeding as he wishes to settle his affairs and to move on. It's a
callous, one-sided calculation to say the least, but it goes much further
to explain things than UNRWA or the Red Cross will ever be able to do in
the rubble of Jenin.
The human rights organization I work at, Al Mezan Center, issued a press
release on April 16, warning that the situation is becoming dire in the
Gaza Strip. It isn't a case of interrupted services and destroyed
infrastructure s is the case in the West Bank - a far far more dire
situation - but rather one of slow and unnoticed strangulation. The Israeli
government has been quietly squeezing the life out of the Gaza Strip.
Because they are in total control of the passage of goods and transit
inside the Strip, they can shut down Palestinian life here at will. And
this happens constantly without any fanfare or attention from the outside
world, as Sharon settles this matter out of the limelight.
The Gaza Strip of course, despite perceptions in America, has never been
fully free of occupation. Indeed, tiny Israeli settlements continue to
prosper, where some 6,900 Israelis along with their security cordon, occupy
about 40% of the total area of Gaza while 1.2 Million Palestinians share
the remainder. What's more, small incursions into Palestinian controlled
areas in towns like Rafah, Khan Yunis and Beit Hanoun are so frequent, the
press typically just ignores them. Most of these incursions leave dead or
wounded civilians along with a few demolished homes and bulldozed farmland.
Only on occasion does anything happen that the world takes note of, and
even then it is quickly forgotten. Take the case of the January 10, 2002
incursion into Rafah where fifty-three Palestinian residences were reduced
to rubble, leaving eighty-three poor families to live in tents. The West
quickly forgets such horrible activities here, but now things could get
much worse without any notice. Since the Israeli destruction of the Gaza
International Airport and regional port facilities, goods can only enter
the Strip through one of three land routes: Erez and Karni in the north and
Sufa in the south. With the commencement of the Israeli invasion of the
West Bank three weeks ago, both Erez and Sufa have been completely closed.
At Karni, the Israelis have greatly reduced the hours during which goods
can come in, severely strangling the entire Gaza Strip. Essentially, the
Israelis have enacted a siege on the entire area, letting only a trickle of
basic foodstuffs in to keep the people alive. If the situation does not
improve, the poorest people of Gaza may begin to starve.
At Kissufim and Netzarim junctions, the two arteries of road where Israeli
settlers must pass to go from their settlements in Gaza to Israel proper,
the Israeli army has begun arbitrarily closing them to Palestinian passage.
While this is nothing new, it has become more frequent and severe in recent
weeks. These closures essentially subdivide the Gaza Strip into three
sections, and since goods and food only come in from the North, their
passage to markets in the South is greatly hampered. Those who suffer the
most from these closures happen to be the poorest in all of the Palestinian
Occupied Territories - the people of Khan Younis and Rafah in the extreme
south.
The best illustration of the effects of this siege is in the price of
flour, the staple of the Palestinian diet. Since the outbreak of the
current Intifada until the end of March, the price of flour per kilogram
rose only from 6.5 NIS to 6.8. In the past three weeks, the price has
skyrocketed to 8.0 NIS per kg. Given the extreme poverty of most people in
Gaza and the soaring unemployment rate, this is not a situation that can
long remain. What's more, with the best water wells monopolized by the
Israeli settlements, most Palestinians living in refugee camps only have
access to unsafe, somewhat saline water supplies. This makes bottled water
essential, however the new Israeli blockades threaten these supplies.
Clearly, these are not aspects of Sharon's "war on terror" that he is
advertising to the press. Instead, it formulates a collective punishment on
all people of the Gaza Strip, a policy made illegal under Article 33 of the
4th Geneva Convention. What Gazans fear more perhaps than an outright
invasion and re-conquest is to be completely cutoff and forgotten by the
outside world. Abdel Karem Ektefan, a student in Gaza City, explains to me
how he cannot understand that the world sits by and watches: "In the 1940s
there were no cameras to witness the holocaust, yet the world was outraged
and finally acted. Now with all the mass media, the world can see what is
happening here if it wants, but still no one acts. Why?"
While the world is rightly in uproar over the potential humanitarian
disaster openly committed by the Israeli army in the West Bank, the
international community had best not ignore the quiet disaster looming in
the Gaza Strip. That is, unless the world is truly content with having
Sharon quietly settling his state affairs on the side while no one is
watching.
Benjamin Dov Granby Volunteer at Al Mezan Center For Human Rights Gaza
City, Gaza Strip Work: 972-8-245-3555 Mobile: 972-59-362148
http://www.mezan.org
Address in Gaza: 55/517 Hassan El Shawa Building El Shuhada St. Gaza City,
Gaza Strip via Israel
Address in USA: 430 W. Main St. #403 Madison, WI 53703 608-257-5771
Email: sarin@devo.com
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