The "enemy entity" declaration follows months of Israeli closure of the Egyptian-Gazan border crossing at Rafah, during which thousands of Palestinians were stranded in Egypt. Rafah crossing remains closed since 9 June 2007. With the Erez crossing into Israel open to only an exceptionally few number of Palestinians, Gazans feel as though their jailer has thrown away the key to their open-air prison
With the total closure of the Strip, whose residents are mainly food aid-dependent refugees, Palestinians fear a major disaster is imminent. Gaza Community Mental Health Programme Director Eyad Al Sarraj wrote before Gaza went dark following Israel's cutting of fuel supplies on 17 January 2008
"[The] Israeli military establishment decided to stop power supply and fuel to Gaza. Since Thursday, food and humanitarian aid are not allowed in. Very soon life will come to a standstill. Water will not be pumped for a even drink. My step-son is on ventilator for asthma every night. What will happen to him when our generator is not running anymore? What will happen to hospitals, vaccines and blood banks? What will happen to patients on dialysis machines, and to babies in incubators?Before it is dark and when there is no communication with the world, I want to tell you that the current Israeli policy of squeezing [Gaza] has the aim of pushing Egypt to open its borders with Gaza and bring the situation to [Egyptian occupation as it was] prior 1967. Israel will then close its borders with Gaza, separate the Strip from the West bank, and destroy the peace proposals of one state or two states. In short, Israel is fulfilling the Sharon unilateral withdrawal strategy. If Egypt fails to open its borders with Gaza, Israel will push us through Rafah towards the Sinai desert. Wait for the exodus."
As The Guardian (UK) reported on 27 November 2007:
Aid officials working in Gaza say the reality of life here is barely understood abroad. "You must be on the ground for days and weeks to begin to appreciate the full horror of the situation," said John Ging, the Gaza director of the UN Relief and Works Agency which works with Palestinian refugees, in a speech in London last week. He said as many as 800 patients needing treatment abroad were waiting permission to leave. "By what other definition or name can these sanctions be described, other than arbitrary collective punishment of a civilian population, helplessly caught in the middle of a conflict?"Palestinians watching Gaza come apart at the seams are furious. "We are on the verge of a real catastrophe," said Raji Sourani, director of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights. "What is the meaning of international humanitarian law? Is it just something for academics to discuss? This is the law of the jungle."
The same day of The Guardian's report, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) reported the death of a Palestinian woman and mother of seven after she was denied permission to travel to Israel to receive medical treatment. As of 27 November, PCHR documents that 11 Gaza patients, including three woman and an infant, have died since August because they haven't been able to access medical care. Many more remain vulnerable as Gaza doctors can only look on as stocks of medicine have depleted and hospitals are unable to bring in medical equipment.
The Palestinian human rights organization Al-Haq stated in response to the declaration:
In addition to the ongoing sanctions, the aim of the decision of the Israeli security cabinet is clearly to diminish popular support for Hamas in the Gaza Strip by imposing intolerable living conditions on a population already subjected to a belligerent occupation. As such, these measures amount to an attempt to coerce 1.5 million Palestinians to bend to the political will of Israel and certain members of the international community. Article 31 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibiting coercion against protected persons clearly states that this prohibition applies to both physical and moral forms of coercion, covering both direct and indirect pressure, and that "[c]oercion is forbidden for any purpose or motive whatsoever."
However, the effects of Israel's policy towards Gaza have been that of collective punishment. As the Quartet maintained its boycott of the Hamas government and the sanctions that have come along with it, Gaza's population is now almost entirely dependent on humanitarian food aid.
Following three days of Israeli raids and air strikes on Gaza that killed at least 30 persons, and a day after US President George W. Bush left the region, on 17 January Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak ordered the total closure of the Gaza Strip.
Nineteen were killed in Gaza on 15 January, including the son of Hamas head Mahmoud al-Zahar. Several fighters were amongst them but also slain were three farmers and a student. That same day an Ecuadorian farmer in Israel was killed by sniper fire from the Strip. The launching of homemade rockets from Gaza into Israel has increased with the intensified Israeli attacks. More than 150 rockets and mortars have struck Israel between 15-18 January, none of them causing any fatalities or serious injuries. Such rockets have killed 12 in the past six years. Conversely, research by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights finds that almost 700 Palestinians, including 224 civilians (78 of them children) have been killed by Israeli forces in extra-judicial executions during that same time period.
While Israeli officials insisted that "there will not be a humanitarian crisis in Gaza," saying that necessary provisions would be let into the Strip, earlier that same week The Jerusalem Post quoted a defense official who said, "'The ultimate idea is to completely disengage from Gaza and to cut off all ties with the Strip.'" However, as the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem states, "The state's action is especially wrongful given the Gazans' almost total dependence on Israel for electricity and fuel, a result of the thirty-eight years of Israel's direct control of the Strip. This dependence has grown since June 2006, when Israel bombed the only power station in the Strip." As Israel still has effective control over the Strip, it is still consdired an Occupying Power under international humanitarian law and is thus responsible for the welfare of the civilian population.
Even before the total closure orders, Gaza's residents have been acutely suffering under Israel's collective punishment policies. As a widowed mother of five living in Shati refugee camp told the IRIN news agency, "'We had electricity for only two hours during the day yesterday [16 January] ... We can't afford to buy gas heaters, or even gase ... We try using blankets to keep warm, but we don't have enough blankets.'"
While Hamas officials accuse the US of complicity with the severe Israeli measures as they coincided with Bush's visit to the area, the killings in Gaza have only merited verbal wrist-slapping by Washington and the usual calls for restraint by the UN Secretary-General. Meanwhile, EI's correspondent Rami Almeghari writes, "we Gazans are trying our best to live normally as our fate is toyed with in a court in Jerusalem."
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