'Gaza
Is A Jail -
We Are All Starving Now'
By Patrick Cockburn
08 September 2006
The
Independent
Gaza
is dying. The Israeli siege of the Palestinian enclave is so tight that
its people are on the edge of starvation. Here on the shores of the
Mediterranean a great tragedy is taking place that is being ignored
because the world's attention has been diverted by wars in Lebanon and
Iraq.
A whole society is being
destroyed. There are 1.5 million Palestinians imprisoned in the most
heavily populated area in the world. Israel has stopped all trade. It
has even forbidden fishermen to go far from the shore so they wade into
the surf to try vainly to catch fish with hand-thrown nets.
Many people are being killed
by Israeli incursions that occur every day by land and air. A total
of 262 people have been killed and 1,200 wounded, of whom 60 had arms
or legs amputated, since 25 June, says Dr Juma al-Saqa, the director
of the al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City which is fast running out of medicine.
Of these, 64 were children and 26 women. This bloody conflict in Gaza
has so far received only a fraction of the attention given by the international
media to the war in Lebanon.
It was on 25 June that the
Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was taken captive and two other soldiers
were killed by Palestinian militants who used a tunnel to get out of
the Gaza Strip. In the aftermath of this, writes Gideon Levy in the
daily Haaretz, the Israeli army "has been rampaging through Gaza
- there's no other word to describe it - killing and demolishing, bombing
and shelling, indiscriminately". Gaza has essentially been reoccupied
since Israeli troops and tanks come and go at will. In the northern
district of Shajhayeh they took over several houses last week and stayed
five days. By the time they withdrew, 22 Palestinians had been killed,
three houses were destroyed and groves of olive, citrus and almond trees
had been bulldozed.
Fuad al-Tuba, the 61-year-old
farmer who owned a farm here, said: "They even destroyed 22 of
my bee-hives and killed four sheep." He pointed sadly to a field,
its brown sandy earth churned up by tracks of bulldozers, where the
stumps of trees and broken branches with wilting leaves lay in heaps.
Near by a yellow car was standing on its nose in the middle of a heap
of concrete blocks that had once been a small house.
His son Baher al-Tuba described
how for five days Israeli soldiers confined him and his relatives to
one room in his house where they survived by drinking water from a fish
pond. "Snipers took up positions in the windows and shot at anybody
who came near," he said. "They killed one of my neighbours
called Fathi Abu Gumbuz who was 56 years old and just went out to get
water."
Sometimes the Israeli army
gives a warning before a house is destroyed. The sound that Palestinians
most dread is an unknown voice on their cell phone saying they have
half an hour to leave their home before it is hit by bombs or missiles.
There is no appeal.
But it is not the Israeli
incursions alone that are destroying Gaza and its people. In the understated
prose of a World Bank report published last month, the West Bank and
Gaza face "a year of unprecedented economic recession. Real incomes
may contract by at least a third in 2006 and poverty to affect close
to two thirds of the population." Poverty in this case means a
per capita income of under $2 (£1.06) a day.
There are signs of desperation
everywhere. Crime is increasing. People do anything to feed their families.
Israeli troops entered the Gaza industrial zone to search for tunnels
and kicked out the Palestinian police. When the Israelis withdrew they
were replaced not by the police but by looters. On one day this week
there were three donkey carts removing twisted scrap metal from the
remains of factories that once employed thousands.
"It is the worst year
for us since 1948 [when Palestinian refugees first poured into Gaza],"
says Dr Maged Abu-Ramadan, a former ophthalmologist who is mayor of
Gaza City. "Gaza is a jail. Neither people nor goods are allowed
to leave it. People are already starving. They try to live on bread
and falafel and a few tomatoes and cucumbers they grow themselves."
The few ways that Gazans
had of making money have disappeared. Dr Abu-Ramadan says the Israelis
"have destroyed 70 per cent of our orange groves in order to create
security zones." Carnations and strawberries, two of Gaza's main
exports, were thrown away or left to rot. An Israeli air strike destroyed
the electric power station so 55 per cent of power was lost. Electricity
supply is now becoming almost as intermittent as in Baghdad.
The Israeli assault over
the past two months struck a society already hit by the withdrawal of
EU subsidies after the election of Hamas as the Palestinian government
in March. Israel is withholding taxes owed on goods entering Gaza. Under
US pressure, Arab banks abroad will not transfer funds to the government.
Two thirds of people are
unemployed and the remaining third who mostly work for the state are
not being paid. Gaza is now by far the poorest region on the Mediterranean.
Per capita annual income is $700, compared with $20,000 in Israel. Conditions
are much worse than in Lebanon where Hizbollah liberally compensates
war victims for loss of their houses. If Gaza did not have enough troubles
this week there were protest strikes and marches by unpaid soldiers,
police and security men. These were organised by Fatah, the movement
of the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen,
which lost the election to Hamas in January. His supporters marched
through the streets waving their Kalashnikovs in the air. "Abu
Mazen you are brave," they shouted. "Save us from this disaster."
Sour-looking Hamas gunmen kept a low profile during the demonstration
but the two sides are not far from fighting it out in the streets.
The Israeli siege and the
European boycott are a collective punishment of everybody in Gaza. The
gunmen are unlikely to be deterred. In a bed in Shifa Hospital was a
sturdy young man called Ala Hejairi with wounds to his neck, legs, chest
and stomach. "I was laying an anti-tank mine last week in Shajhayeh
when I was hit by fire from an Israeli drone," he said. "I
will return to the resistance when I am better. Why should I worry?
If I die I will die a martyr and go to paradise."
His father, Adel, said he
was proud of what his son had done adding that three of his nephews
were already martyrs. He supported the Hamas government: "Arab
and Western countries want to destroy this government because it is
the government of the resistance."
As the economy collapses
there will be many more young men in Gaza willing to take Ala Hejairi's
place. Untrained and ill-armed most will be killed. But the destruction
of Gaza, now under way, will ensure that no peace is possible in the
Middle East for generations to come.
The deadly toll
* After the kidnap of Cpl
Gilad Shalit by Palestinians on 25 June, Israel launched a massive offensive
and blockade of Gaza under the operation name Summer Rains.
* The Gaza Strip's 1.3 million
inhabitants, 33 per cent of whom live in refugee camps, have been under
attack for 74 days.
* More than 260 Palestinians,
including 64 children and 26 women, have been killed since 25 June.
One in five is a child. One Israeli soldier has been killed and 26 have
been wounded.
* 1,200 Palestinians have
been injured, including up to 60 amputations. A third of victims brought
to hospital are children.
* Israeli warplanes have
launched more than 250 raids on Gaza, hitting the two power stations
and the foreign and Information ministries.
* At least 120 Palestinian
structures including houses, workshops and greenhouses have been destroyed
and 160 damaged by the Israelis.
* The UN has criticised Israel's
bombing, which has caused an estimated $1.8bn in damage to the electricity
grid and leaving more than a million people without regular access to
drinking water.
* The Israeli human rights
group B'Tselem says 76 Palestinians, including 19 children, were killed
by Israeli forces in August alone. Evidence shows at least 53 per cent
were not participating in hostilities.
* In the latest outbreak
of violence, three Palestinians were killed yesterday when Israeli troops
raided a West Bank town in search of a wanted militant. Two of those
killed were unarmed, according to witnesses.
* At least 120 Palestinian
structures including houses, workshops and greenhouses have been destroyed
and 160 damaged by the Israelis.
* The UN has criticised Israel's
bombing, which has caused an estimated $1.8bn in damage to the electricity
grid and leaving more than a million people without regular access to
drinking water.
* The Israeli human rights
group B'Tselem says 76 Palestinians, including 19 children, were killed
by Israeli forces in August alone. Evidence shows at least 53 per cent
were not participating in hostilities.
* In the latest outbreak
of violence, three Palestinians were killed yesterday when Israeli troops
raided a West Bank town in search of a wanted militant. Two of those
killed were unarmed, according to witnesses.
© 2006 Independent News
and Media Limited