Palestine Update 612
Editorial comment
Israeli raids in Gaza and the humanitarian fallout in Gaza
(This editorial is partly resourced from UN sources)
Israel’s war games
Home to about two million people, Gaza is 41km (25 miles) long and 10km wide, an enclave bounded by the Mediterranean Sea, Israel and Egypt.
Tensions between Gaza and Israel have frequently escalated into the worst violence for over years and led the UN to warn of “a full-scale war”. Israel keeps the provocations coming at a frequency and intensity that disallows Gazans to live without fear of attacks.
With each war that Israel has dealt on the people of Gaza on flimsy and undeserving pretexts, Gaza’s humanitarian conditions have worsened. Conflict and the blockade have left 80% of the population dependent on humanitarian assistance to survive.
In politically stable times, as much as one-tenth of the Palestinian population travels daily to Israel (where they are not allowed to stay overnight) to work in menial jobs. Political tension and outbreaks of violence often led Israeli authorities to close the border for extended periods, putting many Palestinians out of work. As a result, a thriving smuggling industry emerged based on a network of subterranean tunnels linking parts of the Gaza Strip with neighboring Egypt. The tunnels provided Palestinians with access to goods such as food, fuel, medicine, electronics, and weapons.
In June 2014 three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped; Israel conducted a massive crackdown in the West Bank and increased air strikes in the Gaza Strip, prompting retaliatory rocket fire from Hamas. As fighting continued to escalate, Israel launched a 50-day offensive into the Gaza Strip on July 8. Some 2,100 Palestinians and more than 70 Israelis were killed in the ensuing conflict, with about 5,000 targets hit in the Gaza Strip. Despite the devastation, Hamas’s handling of the conflict was viewed positively by Palestinians and boosted the group’s popularity.
In the spring of 2018 a series of protests along the border with Israel, which included attempts to cross the border and flying flaming kites, was met with a violent response from Israel? Both the protests and the violence reached a peak on May 14 when about 40,000 Gazans attended the protests. When many of them tried to cross the border at once, Israeli troops opened fire, killing about 60 people and wounding 2,700 others. The violence escalated into military strikes from Israel and rocket fire from Hamas and continued for several months.
In June 2014 three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped; Israel conducted a massive crackdown in the West Bank and increased air strikes in the Gaza Strip, prompting retaliatory rocket fire from Hamas. As fighting continued to escalate, Israel launched a 50-day offensive into the Gaza Strip on July 8. Some 2,100 Palestinians and more than 70 Israelis were killed in the ensuing conflict, with about 5,000 targets hit in the Gaza Strip. Despite the devastation, Hamas’s handling of the conflict was viewed positively by Palestinians and boosted the group’s popularity.
In the spring of 2018 a series of protests along the border with Israel, which included attempts to cross the border and flying flaming kites, was met with a violent response from Israel? Both the protests and the violence reached a peak on May 14 when about 40,000 Gazans attended the protests. When many of them tried to cross the border at once, Israeli troops opened fire, killing about 60 people and wounding 2,700 others. The violence escalated into military strikes from Israel and rocket fire from Hamas and continued for several months.
Amid the occasional skirmishes, and as Egypt tried to mediate a long-term truce between them, Israel and Hamas appeared to make some effort to de-escalate tense situations. In October, when rocket fire from the Gaza Strip hit Israel, Israel concluded that the rockets had been set off by a lightning strike. In November a covert Israeli operation in the Gaza Strip was exposed, and Hamas responded by firing hundreds of rockets into Israel. Israel retaliated with more than 100 air strikes. The two sides quickly agreed to a truce, however, and, throughout 2019 and into 2020, they continued to negotiate a long-term “understanding” for the maintenance of peace and easing of the blockade. The discussions, though occasionally interrupted by brief outbreaks of tit-for-tat violence, were reinforced by halted border protests and a loosening of the restrictions on trade and travel through the Gaza border.
A major escalation took place in May 2021. Weeks of simmering tensions in Jerusalem boiled over when Israel’s Supreme Court was set to rule on the eviction of dozens of Palestinian families from their homes. Confrontations between Israeli police and Palestinian demonstrators prompted Hamas to launch rockets into Jerusalem and parts of southern Israel; Israel responded with air strikes in the Gaza Strip.
The 2022 Gaza–Israel clashes lasted from 5 to 7 August 2022. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) conducted some 147 airstrikes in Gaza and Palestinian militants fired approximately 1,100 rockets towards Israel. The operation followed a raid in Jenin in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, in which Israeli forces arrested a leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) in that area. On 6 August, Israel arrested 20 people in the West Bank of whom 19 were members of PIJ and a further 20 on 7 August according to an unnamed Israeli official. The initial attack included a military leader of the group. On the second day, the PIJ commander of the Southern area of the Strip was also targeted and killed. Islamic Jihad stated that the Israeli bombardments were a ‘declaration of war’ and responded with retaliatory rocket fire towards Israel.
The clashes resulted in the death of at least 49 Palestinians, including 17 children, according to the Gaza health ministry. The IDF stated that over a dozen of these deaths, including 12 of the children, were caused by failed PIJ rocket launches. This was disputed by the father of one of the victims, while other Gaza residents and journalists state they saw the misfires and called for an investigation of the misfires. On 13 August, Haaretz reported that misfires killed 14 civilians, including seven children. Some 20% of rockets fell short and into Gaza.
The humanitarian consequences
——————————————————————————————————21 June 2022 marked 15 years of the blockade of the Gaza Strip. “Largely due to the blockade, poverty, high unemployment rates and other factors, nearly 80 per cent of Gazans now rely on humanitarian assistance. More than half of Gaza’s just over 2 million people live in poverty, and nearly 80 per cent of the youth are unemployed. This year, humanitarians need US$510 million to provide food, water, sanitation and health services to 1.6 million people. The appeal is just 25 per cent funded.
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Break the silence on the Gaza blockade (Picture: The Daily Sabbah)
In June 2007, following the military takeover of Gaza by Hamas, the Israeli authorities significantly intensified existing movement restrictions, virtually isolating the Gaza Strip from the rest of the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), and the world. This land, sea and air blockade has significantly exacerbated previous restrictions, limiting the number and specified categories of people and goods allowed in and out through the Israeli-controlled crossings.
Prior to the Second Intifada in 2000, up to half a million exits of people from Gaza into Israel, primarily workers, were recorded in a single month. So far in 2022, the Israeli authorities have approved only 64% of patients’ requests to exit Gaza mainly for specialized treatment in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, by the time of the scheduled medical appointment. In previous years, patients have died while awaiting a response to their application. The Egyptian authorities closed the Rafah border crossing with Gaza for long periods after 2014 following political unrest in Egypt. Rafah has been mostly operational since mid-2018, and was open for 95 days out of 151 in the first five months of 2022.
After the blockade, the number of truckloads of commercial goods exiting Gaza dropped significantly to only two truckloads on average per month in 2009. Following the 2014 escalation of hostilities, commercial transfers from Gaza to the West Bank resumed, and from March 2015 exports to Israel also resumed. In August 2021, exports to Egypt started for the first time, boosting the monthly average of exports to 787 in the first five months of 2022. Pre-blockade, the average monthly high was 961.
The volume of truckloads entering Gaza in the first five months of 2022, around 8,000 per month, was about 30% below the monthly average for the first half of 2007, before the blockade. Since then, the population has grown by more than 50%. Israeli forces have largely restricted access to areas within 300 meters of the Gaza side of the perimeter fence with Israel; areas several hundred meters beyond are deemed not safe, preventing, or discouraging, agricultural activities. Israeli forces restrict access off the Gaza coast, currently only allowing fishermen to access 50% of the fishing waters allocated for this purpose under the Oslo Accords.
Unemployment levels in Gaza are amongst the highest in the world. Youth unemployment for the same period (age 15-29) stands at 62.5%. 31% of households in Gaza have difficulties meeting essential education needs such as tuition fees and books, due to lack of financial resources. 1.3 million out of 2.1 million Palestinians in Gaza (62%) require food assistance. At its current operating capacity, the Gaza Power Plant can only produce up to 80 megawatts (MW), supplemented by 120 MW purchased from Israel, meeting about 50% of the electricity demand in Gaza (400-450MW). In 2021, rolling power cuts averaged 11 hours per day. 78% of piped water in Gaza is unfit for human consumption.
In June 2007, following the military takeover of Gaza by Hamas, the Israeli authorities significantly intensified existing movement restrictions, virtually isolating the Gaza Strip from the rest of the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), and the world. This land, sea and air blockade has significantly exacerbated previous restrictions, limiting the number and specified categories of people and goods allowed in and out through the Israeli-controlled crossings. Prior to the Second Intifada in 2000, up to half a million exits of people from Gaza into Israel, primarily workers, were recorded in a single month. For the first seven years of the blockade, this number declined to just over 4,000 on average, rising to 10,400 monthly over the next eight years.
So far in 2022, the Israeli authorities have approved only 64% of patients’ requests to exit Gaza mainly for specialized treatment in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, by the time of the scheduled medical appointment. In previous years, patients have died while awaiting a response to their application.
The Egyptian authorities closed the Rafah border crossing with Gaza for long periods after 2014 following political unrest in Egypt. Rafah has been mostly operational since mid-2018, and was open for 95 days out of 151 in the first five months of 2022. After the blockade, the number of truckloads of commercial goods exiting Gaza dropped significantly to only two truckloads on average per month in 2009. Following the 2014 escalation of hostilities, commercial transfers from Gaza to the West Bank resumed, and from March 2015 exports to Israel also resumed. In August 2021, exports to Egypt started for the first time, boosting the monthly average of exports to 787 in the first five months of 2022. Pre-blockade, the average monthly high was 961.
The volume of truckloads entering Gaza in the first five months of 2022, around 8,000 per month, was about 30% below the monthly average for the first half of 2007, before the blockade. Since then, the population has grown by more than 50%. Israeli forces have largely restricted access to areas within 300 metres of the Gaza side of the perimeter fence with Israel; areas several hundred metres beyond are deemed not safe, preventing, or discouraging, agricultural activities.
Israeli forces restrict access off the Gaza coast, currently only allowing fishermen to access 50% of the fishing waters allocated for this purpose under Oslo Accords. Unemployment levels in Gaza are amongst the highest in the world: the Q1 jobless rate in 2022 was 46.6%, compared with an average of 34.8% in 2006. Youth unemployment for the same period (age 15-29) stands at 62.5%. (PCBS)
31% of households in Gaza have difficulties meeting essential education needs such as tuition fees and books, due to lack of financial resources. 1.3 million out of 2.1 million Palestinians in Gaza (62%) require food assistance. 78% of piped water in Gaza is unfit for human consumption.
*Political facts: https://www.britannica.com/place/Gaza-Strip/Blockade and https://www.britannica.com/place/Gaza-Strip/Blockade
**Statistical sources: https://www.unicef.org/mena/documents/gaza-strip-humanitarian-impact-15-years-blockade-june-2022
I hope readers will find the editorial informative for purposes of a background and the various news snippets and links that one might search for more information though helpful to get insights into the crisis of Gaza.
On behalf of MLN Palestine Updates
Ranjan Solomon
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Hamas Slams Israel for Preventing Gaza Christians from Traveling to Holy Sites for Christmas
“Regarding these violations and racist practices which are repeated every year, we call on the United Nations, the international community, and rights organisations to take responsibility and stop these violations against our Christian citizens and places of worship,” the statement added. This year, Israel stopped 200 Christians from going to Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Bethlehem to take part in Christmas celebrations, citing “security concerns”, according to Kamel Ayad, a spokesman for the Orthodox Church in Gaza.
See for more in Palestine Chronicle
Gaza archaeologists find ‘complete’ Roman-era cemetery
The 2,000-year-old burial site is located near the ruins of the Greek port of Anthedon, on the road leading to ancient Ascalon — now the Israeli city of Ashkelon by the Gaza border.
The antiquity ministry team has been focusing on “documentation, research and protection of the site,” Atal said. “Our aim is to ascertain… the causes of death.” Jamal Abu Reda, in charge of antiquities at the ministry, said the site is “of great importance and believed to be an extension of the site” of ancient Anthedon.
Archaeology is a highly political subject in Israel and the Palestinian territories, and some discoveries have been used to justify the territorial claims of each people. In Gaza, both research and tourism to archaeological sites are limited due to an Israeli blockade imposed since Hamas took over the strip in 2007. Israel and Egypt, which shares a border with Gaza, tightly restrict the flow of people in and out of the impoverished enclave, which is home to about 2.3 million Palestinians.
Researchers in the strip unveiled in September Byzantine mosaics dating from the 5th to 7th centuries, and in April a 4,500-year-old stone statuette depicting the face of an ancient goddess. Researchers in the northern Gaza Strip have unearthed dozens of Roman-era tombs at a site discovered earlier this year during construction work.
Caged Sparrows: Palestinian Stories from the Gaza Sea
Since 2007, Israel has banned fishing equipment from entering Gaza. Basic necessities including fishing nets, GPS devices, boat engines, and the simplest fishing tools, are restricted. The prohibitions have devastated the Palestinian fishing economy and have destroyed the lives of fishermen who support their families through fishing. Israel does not compensate Gazan fishermen for the loss of their equipment and tools.
Source:
Photos: Gaza struggles to house the living and the dead
In the blockaded and densely populated Gaza Strip, a battle for space is pitting the living against the dead as homeless squatters settle in the area’s cemeteries while authorities grapple with the growing demand for new housing. In the Sheikh Shaban cemetery, the area’s oldest, Kamilia Kuhail’s family live in a house built by her husband at the eastern edge of the site, covering the graves of two unknown people whose remains are now buried under the foundations. “If the dead could talk, they would tell us, get out of here,” said Kuhail who has lived in the cemetery in downtown Gaza for 13 years with her husband and a family now numbering six children.
Visitors have to climb down three steps to get into the sparsely furnished house where they encounter a strong smell Kuhail calls the “smell of death”. Her children, who earn small amounts bringing water to funeral ceremonies, keep asking their parents when they will be able to move away from the cemetery. “I sometimes get invited by friends from school, but I can’t invite them here. I am too shy to do that,” said her 12-year-old daughter, Lamis.
Read more in Al Jazeera
Real Mystery Behind an Excellent Detective Story Set in Gaza
All roads in Gaza lead to death. Not the death we know where the heart stops beating, but a slow and prolonged death in the depths of the soul – a battle for survival that it is simply impossible to win.
“Running in Place” is a novel by author and Palestinian Authority Culture Minister Atef Abu Seif. It takes readers on a journey to the besieged Gaza Strip, between the alleyways of the Jabalya refugee camp north of Gaza City and the A-Ramal neighborhood in western Gaza City, and describes the everyday lives of the residents, teetering between hope and despair, life and death.
Until now, Gazan writing has rarely been translated into Hebrew. There have been poems by Muin Bseiso, and short stories by Talal Abu Shawish and Abu Seif himself (mostly under the “Short Story Project” banner), but “Running in Place” has the honor of being the first Gazan novel to be translated into Hebrew in full. The novel, first published in Arabic in 2019, received positive reviews thanks mainly to Abu Seif’s skill in expressing the personal world of Gazans, describing the little details that characterize the refugee camp and allowing the reader to dive into life there.
Source
Fifteen years of the blockade of the Gaza Strip
On 21 June, we marked the 15 years of the blockade of the Gaza Strip.”Largely due to the blockade, poverty, high unemployment rates and other factors, nearly 80 per cent of Gazans now rely on humanitarian assistance. More than half of Gaza’s just over 2 million people live in poverty, and nearly 80 per cent of the youth are unemployed. “This year, humanitarians need US$510 million to provide food, water, sanitation and health services to 1.6 million people. The appeal is just 25 per cent funded. “Meanwhile, the impact of the war in Ukraine, on food and other commodity prices, are particularly pronounced in Gaza. “The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, UNRWA, needs an extra $72 million by September for its emergency food programme to meet the food needs of 1.1 million Palestinian refugees through the end of the year. The World Food Programme also needs an extra $35 million to compensate for increasing commodity prices. “The humanitarian community calls for the lifting of the blockade on Gaza. UN Security Council Resolution 1860 of 2009 stresses the need to ensure sustained and regular flow of goods and people through the Gaza crossings.
“More needs to be done to alleviate the humanitarian situation, with the eventual goal of a full lifting of the Israeli closures, in line with UNSCR 1860 (2009). Only sustainable political solutions will relieve the pressures on the long-suffering people of Gaza. “Efforts must also continue to encourage all Palestinian political factions towards political consensus and bringing Gaza and the occupied West Bank under one legitimate, democratic Palestinian authority. Gaza remains integral to a future Palestinian State as part of a two-State solution.”
Source:
Israel facing difficulties recruiting collaborators in Gaza
Israeli newspaper Ynet News yesterday revealed that Israeli intelligence service Shin Bet is facing difficulties recruiting collaborators in Gaza. The newspaper reported how a Palestinian from Gaza allegedly became a double agent after he was sent into Israel to gather information for the Palestinian resistance but was then recruited by Israel and provided with a phone. However, he later told the Israeli operator he didn’t want to work with him, and cut all ties with him.
He then returned to Gaza and told the Palestinian factions everything that had happened. He was then asked by Palestinian factions to return and work with Israel, however when he did he was detained by Shin Bet. The Israeli news website reported that Hamas is monitoring and analyzing Shin Bet’s activities in Gaza.
Source
Israeli warplanes attack Gaza as EU calls for ‘accountability’
Air raids on Gaza come in a week where 10 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank
Israel and as tensions reach a boiling point in the occupied West Bank, where 10 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces. The Israeli military said the air raids in the early hours of Sunday targeted a weapon manufacturing facility and an underground tunnel belonging to Hamas, according to the Associated Press news agency. “The strike overnight continues the progress to impede the force build-up”, the Israeli army said in reference to Hamas.
No group has claimed responsibility for the rocket, reportedly the first fired in a month, which the Israeli military said landed in an open area near Israel’s separation fence on Saturday evening without causing casualties or damage to property. The air attack on Gaza follows outrage over the shooting at point-blank range of a young Palestinian man, Ammar Mufleh, 23, by an Israeli soldier in broad daylight on Friday, which was captured on video. The harrowing footage has sparked widespread anger among Palestinians and calls on social media to escalate resistance against the Israeli occupation.
The Palestinian foreign ministry condemned the shooting of Mufleh as tantamount to an execution, and Palestinian activists and social media users are using the hashtag “Huwara Execution” in Arabic, calling for a response to crimes by Israeli forces. The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, released a statement saying he was “greatly concerned about the increasing level of violence in the occupied West Bank”. “During the last days alone, 10 Palestinians have been killed by ISF (Israeli Security Forces). Yesterday’s tragic killing of a Palestinian man, Ammar Mifleh, by a member of the ISF (Israeli Security Forces) was the latest example,” Borrell said.
Read more in Al Jazeera
