Sanctions causing Gaza to implode, say rights groups
A new report issued by a coalition of eight UK humanitarian and human rights groups including Oxfam, Amnesty and Save the Children say that conditions in Gaza represent the worst humanitarian crisis in the region since the 1967 war and lay the blame for this squarely at the door of Israel.
Movement is all but impossible and supplies of food and water, sewage treatment and basic healthcare can no longer be taken for granted. The economy has collapsed, unemployment is expected to rise to 50%, hospitals are suffering 12-hour power cuts and schools are failing - all creating a "humanitarian implosion".The notion that Tony Blair, the man who refused to call for a ceasefire during the Lebanon war, will make a statement condemning Israel's actions is simply fanciful, but his silence is no more shameful than the silence of Bush and the EU and their complicity in this act of collective punishment that is being committed upon the Palestinian people.
The NGOs said that while Gaza's 1.5 million Palestinians had seen a "long-term pattern of deterioration" stemming from decades of occupation and from sanctions on Hamas, "the severity of the humanitarian situation has increased exponentially due to the Israeli government's imposition of the blockade in response to indiscriminate rocket fire against Israel".
The depth of the crisis was underlined by last month's mass breakout across the border into Egypt and by the latest violence. Israel has reportedly asked UN agencies to examine opening up "humanitarian corridors", possibly anticipating further large-scale military action to suppress Palestinian rocket fire.
The report challenges the Israeli argument that Israel is no longer bound by the laws of occupation since it "disengaged" from Gaza in summer 2005.
It also urges the UK and EU to condemn the blockade and calls on Tony Blair, representing the Quartet of Middle East peacemakers (the US, EU, UN and Russia), to make a statement on the extent of the humanitarian crisis. Israel and the Palestinians should agree to reopen the crossings into the strip and both sides should halt attacks, the report says.
Nor, as the events of the past few weeks have shown, does the embargo or Israel's military strikes have any effect on rocket attacks on Israel. Indeed, if anything, Israel's military action has only increased the number of missiles aimed at Israel.
The only thing that will lessen missile attacks into Israel is negotiation, the very thing that the Israeli population want to happen and the very thing that Olmert - with, I suppose, Bush's backing - is very keen to avoid.
So we are stuck where we are, engaging in an action that is proven not to work, is probably deeply illegal, and stokes hatred into new generations of Palestinians. Only in a planet that is run by neo-cons could such a blatantly stupid plan be considered the only way forward.
Heaven forbid that anyone should ever look at the deliberate starving of an occupied people and make "inflammatory" remarks about the wrongness of what they are looking at. Only in a world run by neo-cons could this shit pass for policy...Geoffrey Dennis, chief executive of Care International UK, said: "The escalation in violence, from rocket attacks and military strikes, will make life even more unbearable in Gaza. Unless the blockade ends now it will be impossible to pull Gaza back from the brink of this disaster and any hopes for peace will be dashed."
The appeal follows a report by John Dugard, the UN special rapporteur on Palestinian human rights in the occupied territories, in which he described Palestinian terrorism as the "inevitable consequence" of Israeli occupation and laws that resemble apartheid. Palestinian terrorist acts are to be deplored but "must be understood as being a painful but inevitable consequence of colonialism, apartheid or occupation", wrote Dugard, whose report accused Israel of acts and policies consistent with all three. Israel dismissed his conclusions as one-sided and inflammatory.
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