This is a few days late, but the first fatality since the Gaza-Israeli truce took hold occurred on the 10th of July. Shockingly, he was a Palestinian, killed by Israeli soldiers near the border area.
Salim Jumaa Hamidi, 18, was shot by Israeli soldiers near the Kissufim crossing on Thursday, July 10, 2008. He was unarmed, wearing a t-shirt and jeans. The soldiers say they warned him to turn back before shooting him in the stomach and shoulder. The wounds would not have been fatal had he received medical assistance. He was shot at around 4:00 am, but the Israeli military did not provide him with any medical assistance. Understandable, since they’re trained to go into Gaza only to kill, and we wouldn’t want them to get confused and not know what to do, the poor souls.
What they could have done, however, was notify the Palestinian medical services that there was a man with serious injuries in need of urgent assistance. Instead, even after checking that Salim was unarmed, the soldiers let him bleed alone. 3 hours after they shot him, at 7:30, they finally notified the medical services.
Salim had already bled to death.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
If you haven't heard about the first death since the truce took hold, it's because he's Palestinian
Thursday, June 26, 2008
This Ceasefire Business
I know I promised to provide my expert analysis regarding the internal political implications of the Hamas-Israel truce days ago, but since nobody actually reads Kabobfest, I knew I’d face no reprimand for my lack of punctuality.
That said, my promise was subject to the truce actually continuing to be implemented, and while, for the most part the violence has come to a standstill, the crippling siege on Gaza has not been lifted. That was supposed to happen on Sunday, but Israel, displaying a maturity characteristic of enlightened democracies, decided that it would not adhere to its commitments and ease the restrictions on the entry of fuel and basic supplies. The ceasefire has been in effect for six days now, and Israel has still only allowed 20% of the necessary amount of supplies into Gaza, even though that number was supposed to increase to 35% on Sunday. But Israel is the powerful occupier, so it knows it can be anal about these things. Meanwhile, another patient died in Gaza after being denied permission to leave the territory for necessary medical attention-the 185th such death in the last year. Of course, you all know how that number is almost ten times the number of people killed by Palestinian home-made rockets, right? Good.
Now, a spade is a spade and homemade rockets being fired at Israel from Gaza are a violation of the agreement, but Islamic Jihad’s two rockets were fired on Tuesday-that’s two days after Israel had not come good on its commitments towards easing the passage of supplies. And while Islamic Jihad say the rockets were a response to the assassination of two Palestinian students in their dorm at Najah University in Nablus, one of whom was a member of the group, their attack was definitely not the first violation of the truce agreement. Just the one that got the media coverage.
Israel then proceeded to seal Gaza’s crossings on Wednesday, and they are due to stay closed until Saturday. Or so they say. I mean there are the several reported (by the UN) incidents of Israeli forces opening fire on Palestinian farmers, but reading the media coverage, you'd think the definition of the word 'violation' is 'rocket from Gaza'. But that coz, like, obviously abusing Palestinian farmers is necessary to Israel’s security.
Everytime I used to call out the insanity of subjecting Gazans to this inhumane siege, Israel’s fanboys would retort with some shit like, ‘Stop the rockets.’ Let us assume that these excuses do pass the flimsy excuse barometer; the rockets have stopped. Why is there still a siege?
Friday, June 20, 2008
One Day In
At 6 AM local time on Thursday, June 20th, a six-month ceasefire went into effect between Hamas and smaller Palestinian resistance factions in the Gaza Strip on one side and Israel on the other.
A day later, the calm has held. There have been no Israeli attacks, incursions or air strikes on the Gaza Strip, and no Palestinian rocket or mortar attacks. The truce has several stages that are to be implemented based on an agreed-upon timetable. The first stage requires a period of total military calm for three days. If that holds, Israel is obliged to begin easing restrictions on the normal supplies of fuel, electricity and raw materials to Gaza on Sunday for the first time in over a year.
The truce was brokered between Egypt and has been several months in the making. Hamas has been calling for it for months, while Israel had adamantly refused for most of that period. Israel’s leaders have been saying for the last couple of years or so that only their military and their inhumane siege of the 1.5 million Palestinians stranded in Gaza would bring an end to Palestinian reprisal attacks. Of course, when it comes to dealing with those you have oppressed, the Israeli leadership has never been known for making sense. Apparently, once you dispossess a people, destroy their society, colonize their land, kill their men, women and children and imprison them by the thousands, the only way to stop them from fighting back is to place them under siege. Even when they are calling for ceasefires and calm.
But I digress. For now, there is progress. It is not much, but a year after the Gaza siege began, there is a small, cautious hope. Not many believe the truce will last the entire six months, but even six hours of calm is a welcome respite. If memory serves me correctly, this is the first ceasefire Israel has agreed to adhere to since…before I was born. My memory really has been around that long. There are many who expect the barbaric Palestinians to be the first to breach the terms of the truce. That’s what bloodthirsty, illogical Jew-haters do. They might be well-served to recall the several unilateral truces Palestinian factions have adhered to in recent years, including the year-long truce implemented by Hamas two years ago and stubbornly ignored by Israel.
Here is the general timetable of the deal:
Day 1 (Thursday) – Truce begins at 6 AM
Day 4 (Sunday) – Israel to ease restrictions on supplies of fuel and materials to
Gaza
A week later – Israel will further reduce restrictions on the cargo crossings in Gaza, and talks will begin on the reopening of the Rafah crossing with Egypt.
If things go as planned, the atmosphere should be more conducive to finalizing the oft-delayed prisoner exchange between Hamas and Israel. Negotiations on that front are due to resume within a few days.
Like I said before, it is extremely unlikely this thing will hold out for the full six months, but heres hoping. If it does, the ceasefire should spread to the West Bank, where, despite an absence of rocket attacks or just about any other form military resistance to the Israel occupation, Israel continues to colonize, expand settlements, imprison and kill Palestinians and demolish their homes.
If the truce holds until tomorrow, I’ll post again on the internal political implications of the ceasefire from a Palestinian perspective. For now, here is Ayman Mohyeldin’s report from Gaza on the first hours of the truce.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Accept the ceasefire
Despite unending calls for a reciprocal ceasefire in Gaza and southern Israel (i.e. no bloodshed, no Israeli incursions, and no Palestinian ‘rockets’ fired at Sderot), Israel’s government still doesn’t know how in the world it is to stop said rockets from being fired at Sderot.
Its military institution has come with multi-hundred million dollar plans to develop highly advanced missile defense systems to neutralize the effects of the flying pipes launched by the Palestinian resistance. Its politicians continually threaten to wipe out Gaza, to kill more and destroy what they still haven’t. Every other day the ‘widescale invasion’ of Gaza is announced to be just days away.
But the calls for a ceasefire are ignored.
The suffocating siege imposed on the world’s largest open air prison is unbelievably catastrophic. Sewage flows in the streets because there is no fuel to power the treatment plants. Drinking water is scarce because there is no electricity to power the water pumps. Ambulances run out of fuel rushing towards the latest victims of the Israeli army’s unchecked killing spree all over Gaza.
If the victims get lucky and die, they’re wrapped with hospital bedsheets and blankets because the morgues have run out of supplies and new covers aren’t allowed in. And those that stay alive sleep without covers, in the cold because there isn’t any fuel or electricity to power the hospitals heating.
The everyday effects of the siege are too overwhelming to describe in any one post, or even a full length article. You can only really experience it by being there. One of the few foreigners to have been allowed in recently is Nora Barrows-Friedman. This is some of what she had to say:
“On a massive and wide-ranging scale, every single aspect of life in Gaza is punctuated by the Israeli occupation and the blockade. There are 1.5 million people here, trapped and hermetically sealed, in this 22-mile by 6-mile strip of devastated open-air prison compound. Fuel is scarce and the streets are thick with the soupy smoke of cooking gas, falafel oil and benzene as Israel's collective punishment policies force people to fill their cars with their families' gas rations.
This trickles down. Hospitals, grocery stores, butcheries, fishing boats, administrative centers, schools, factories, clinics, they all either run on generators or have been forced to quit operations altogether because of the fuel crisis. In the sewage treatment facilities, the fuel shortages mean that sewage plants can't operate at full capacity -- and remember, there are 1.5 million people here -- so millions of gallons of raw sewage are being dumped into the sea, untreated, making the ocean extremely toxic.
Giardia, dysentery, cholera -- diseases not known just five miles up the beach, in the cities of historic Palestine (some call it Israel), where toilets flush and water is safe to drink, where people lay in the mid-day sun getting tan and drinking pina coladas and speaking a language resurrected just in the last hundred years, unknown to the indigenous and dispossessed here in Gaza -- are now common. And once Palestinians get really sick, hospitals try to do all they can to alleviate the pain and eradicate the disease, but, as my friend told me, since the blockade began last summer, there are 95 medicines on the "blacklist" -- prohibited from entering Gaza.”
95 medicines banned from reaching 1.5 million human beings? Shit, no wonder Israelis are so proud of reaching 60 years of statehood. With those kinds of morals, it’s a miracle they’ve lasted this long.
There are very limited supplies of most medicines left, but they are close to running out. The fastest dwindling medicine? Anesthesia.
This is a siege run by sadists. They want the Palestinians to literally feel the pain.
If anybody still believes this siege is designed to stop Palestinian attacks, pull your head out of your ass. Apart from the fact that the casualty numbers between Palestinians and Israelis cannot even be compared, Israel remains the occupier in this unequal equation and the Palestinians have the right to fight back. If you really do care about the number of bedwetters in southern Israel, then the solution is accept the ceasefire and end the siege.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Ceasefire? Fuck No.
A couple days ago, world-renowned blood-thirsty illogically hating anti-Semitic terrorists Hamas offered poor defenseless Israel a six-month ceasefire. It wasn’t the first ceasefire offer by Hamas-indeed it isn’t even the first over the past year. The terms of the truce, as set out by sexy grand-terrorist mullah Mahmoud Zahar are as follows:
In return for a stop to the launching of home-made projectiles at Sderot, Israel would lift its crippling blockade on Gaza and stop incursions and attacks on Palestinians in the Strip. The ceasefire would be mutual and reciprocal, and would initially include Gaza only, with the ceasefire spreading to the West Bank eventually.
Egypt has been mediating between Hamas and Israel for the better part of a month now, ever since the Jabalya massacre (or, just to piss off the Zionuts around here, the Shoah). A major sticking point has been Hamas’ insistence that any ceasefire would include both the West Bank and Gaza, but they’ve agreed to start with Gaza alone instead. Seems sensible, considering that Abbasshole is holding down the fort without any trouble over there. Coincidentally, Abbasshole spent the first couple weeks after the massacre announcing that he is willing to mediate between the Israelis and his own people. So presidential. So desperate for relevance.
Anyway. Israel, which has been whoring out Sderot to the world as its excuse to murder, kill, pillage, bomb, invade and destroy, had this response to Hamas’ offer to give Sderot queit for six whole months.
“There would be no need for Israel’s defensive actions if Hamas would cease and desist from committing terrorist attacks on Israelis,” said David Baker, an Olmert spokesman, referring to Israeli air strikes and commando raids in Gaza. “Israel will continue to act to protect its citizens.”
Sure Mr Baker. Didn’t Hamas just say that they are offering to cease and desist from attacks? Dumbass.
If I recall correctly, Mark Regev, who sounds so convincing because of his exotic Australian accent, continuously insisted that all Hamas had to do was stop firing at Sderot for Israel to lift its siege. Again, that is exactly what Hamas has offered to do, but the Israeli government doesn’t want to listen. In fact, the blockade keeps getting tightened. Over 90% of cars in Gaza are now idle due to a lack of fuel, including 70% of Gaza’s 225 ambulances. Last night, during one of the Israeli Occupation Forces ‘routine operations’ (copyright Regev) in northern Gaza, an ambulance ran out of fuel as it was transferring a wounded civilian to hospital. For the record, the incursion really was a routine operation. One 14 year old girl was killed and three of her family members wounded when the Israeli army shelled and destroyed their home. Five other civilians, stupidly thinking that they have a right to live in peace in their homes and neighborhoods, were also injured.
But I digress. I can do that without even knowing what digress means. Israel says it won’t accept the ceasefire because Hamas is not ‘serious’ and can’t control other factions anyway, plus like, duh, it just wants a ceasefire because we’re totally kicking its ass and it wants to take a breather and shit.
I’ll tackle those three points individually. First, how can Israel say Hamas is not serious? They’ve given the occupation two long term unilateral ceasefires in the past. Israel continued to bomb and kill and steal land during those two periods. They’ve been offering another ceasefire, a reciprocal one this time, for months. Israel has dismissed every offer, saying it must protect its citizens. Eh?
Second, the accusation that were Hamas to actually be serious, attacks would continue from the other factions, leaving Israel sitting on its hands. This sorta goes against everything Israel and Condoleeza Rice have been saying for years, which is that no Palestinian can launch an attack from Gaza without Hamas’ approval. Nevertheless, the PFLP and Islamic Jihad have said that they will be announcing their position in the next few days, and are expected to support the ceasefire.
Third, Israel is all proud of its army for managing to kill hundreds of Palestinians over the last few months. This is seen as a clear indication that they’re damaging Hamas. Of course, this contradicts an Israeli intelligence report published recently that says Hamas’ military wing is getting stronger than ever. But that’s okay, that report came out when Israel was about to launch another major offensive on Gaza and needed an excuse.
The fact is, unless Israel changes its stance soon we will be further than ever from the chance for calm in Gaza (and southern Israel). Yes, Hamas probably would use the ceasefire to its military advantage, but so would Israel. The point of a ceasefire, however, is to give diplomatic channels a chance. Without people starving in Gaza, sewage flowing in the streets, hospitals running out of medicines, schools and universities empty because there isn’t any fuel for cars or ambulances, there is a much greater chance of working out some sort of long term truce and securing a prisoner exchange. But when you’re the stronger party and are used to bullying the people you occupy, it is always hard to see sense.
