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<font size=4 color="#191919"><b>Gaza's last gasp <br>
</b></font><font size=3 color="#191919">Sonja Karkar, <i>The Electronic
Intifada,</i> 23 January 2008 <br>
<a href="http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9246.shtml" eudora="autourl">
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9246.shtml<br><br>
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<img src="http://electronicintifada.net/artman2/uploads/2/080123-gaza-karkar.jpg" width=483 height=318 alt="[]">
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Palestinians in Gaza gather in front of the Rafah border crossing at the
border with Egypt, 22 January 2008. (Wissam
Nassar/<a href="http://maanimages.com">MaanImages</a>) <br><br>
By now, people watching their news programs around the world would have
caught a glimpse of Gaza City in candle-lit darkness. A pretty sight
indeed if it were not for the fact that most of the people in the Gaza
Strip will have to depend on these candles as their only source of light
now that the power plant servicing much of Gaza's population has shut
down completely. There is no fuel to keep the plant running because
Israel has imposed a complete lock-down of this most densely populated
place on earth. That means no movement in or out of the Gaza Strip for
people, or any kind of shipments in of vital food, fuel supplies and
medicines. It is more than a miserable existence: it is a slow
death.<br><br>
This is the sixth day of Israel's draconian action against a people
already suffering from the punitive sanctions imposed on them after their
democratic elections in January 2006 did not yield a result palatable to
Israel and parts of the international community. Israel's latest 24-hour
reprieve to let in some supplies is not going to change the circumstances
under which the Palestinians have had to live for the last two years. At
most, these supplies will last two days. The Palestinians have been
struggling to survive in conditions that reached emergency levels even
before this latest siege. Hunger, poverty and unemployment are widespread
and in this maximum-security prison surrounded by Israel's military
cordon, disease, malnutrition and anarchy are dangerously close to
breaking out.<br><br>
Israel claims that its actions are in response to the homemade rocket
fire aimed at the Israeli town of Sderot bordering the Gaza Strip. But by
no stretch of the imagination is the firing of rockets compared to
Israel's ongoing siege of Gaza an even contest. The Palestinians are
imprisoned in Gaza and have no military force other than guns and
homemade rockets. Israel, on the other hand, has the most sophisticated
weaponry in the world at its disposal and uses it with merciless
ferocity. It is bombing the Gaza Strip with its F-16 fighter planes and
helicopter gun ships and is launching artillery fire from the tanks it
has surrounding this tiny stretch of land. In just the last few days,
some 40 people have been killed and 120 injured, most of them
civilians.<br><br>
Israel's responses are completely disproportionate to the damage caused
by the rocket fire from Gaza, which is a symbolic retaliation for
Israel's aggression and its effect is largely psychological. While it
certainly makes life miserable for the residents of Sderot, Israel itself
is not under threat. The number of Israelis killed and injured by these
rockets has been very few compared to the exponentially more Palestinians
killed in Gaza. In six years, twelve Israelis have been killed while
hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in retaliation, not to mention
the hundreds more that have been wounded, often permanently
maimed.<br><br>
Such collective punishment of an entire population is illegal under
international law. Most of the Palestinians in Gaza are not combatants.
Like in any other population, there is the usual mix of civil servants,
doctors, teachers, lawyers, health care workers, engineers, journalists,
politicians, students and the thousands of people upon whom any society
depends to keep services running -- except that hundreds of thousands are
now unemployed. And then of course, there are the mothers and children,
the elderly and the sick, the incapacitated, the mentally impaired, the
charity workers, volunteers, people who do not have a say about what
decisions are made. There are also angry young men who feel helpless to
protect their families and people already burdened by decades of
humiliation and oppression, and many of them are fighting back as any
people would do under attack, but their means are primitive and limited
because they cannot leave the confines of Gaza.<br><br>
Over 1,000 Palestinian civilians have gone out on the streets in protest
and to beg the world to put an end to this enforced starvation and siege.
People are queuing up to find bread, but no one is baking because there
is no electricity. Connections with the outside world are dwindling as
mobile phones and laptops run out of battery power. There is no water
because the pumps need electricity. Washing machines, cook tops and ovens
are useless. People cannot get to work because there is practically no
fuel for cars and buses. Hospitals with generators are running out of
fuel to power them, halting all surgery procedures. Babies in incubators
will die once the power goes. Asthmatics on ventilators will suffer.
People needing dialysis machines and heart monitors will collapse.
Clinics and laboratories will lose their tests and vaccines. Soon, all
communication with the outside world will cease and what are we going to
do about it?<br><br>
Najwa Sheikh Ahmad who works for UNRWA in Gaza and began the Candles for
Gaza Campaign with her husband last year in October has written to say,
"The Israeli side is doing its best to steal every joyful moment in
our lives. Starting from treating us like another weird species that
should have no mercy, to destroying the best happy moments that a family
can have, the wedding of a son, to the slow killing of my people, like
banning their right to have medical treatment outside Gaza which has seen
72 people die already, to finally controlling every border and banning
the regular rights of having electricity, water and fuel -- basic needs
that no one should have to bargain over. I am sitting in the dark cold
with my three children and I try to keep them busy, but the days are long
and dark and they feel bored and are starting to make trouble. Oh God,
how exhausting it is to live this way in the 21st century."<br><br>
John Dugard, UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the
Palestinian territories said that "The killing of some 40
Palestinians in Gaza in the past week, the targeting of a government
office near a wedding party venue with what must have been foreseen loss
of life and injury to many civilians, and the closure of all crossings
into Gaza raise very serious questions about Israel's respect for
international law and its commitment to the peace process."<br><br>
Luisa Morgantini, the vice president of the European parliament, has
expressed concern over the escalating acts of murder committed by the IOF
troops in Gaza and the West Bank and has urged the EU high representative
Javier Solana and the world community to work side by side to force the
Israeli government to stop the violence and mass punishment against
Palestinian civilians.<br><br>
The UN's Emergency Relief Coordinator, the Undersecretary-General for
Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes said that "This kind of action
against the people in Gaza cannot be justified, even by those rocket
attacks".<br><br>
Israel's actions have done nothing to further the peace process over
which there was so much fanfare only a few weeks ago. Where will it all
stop if Israel is allowed to continue its siege? When people are taking
their last gasps in their battle for survival, who knows where
desperation will lead them -- mass riots, anarchy, and absolute despair
where death will be better than life?<br><br>
Israel might find that giving the Palestinians their freedom and allowing
them the dignity of self-determination in their own land might be far
more effective in bringing about a peaceful solution than all this
bloodshed and misery. Fifty years have passed since Israeli Chief of
Staff Moshe Dayan said, "How can we complain about Gaza's hatred
towards us? For eight years, they have been sitting in refugee camps
while right in front of them, we are turning the land and villages of
their forefathers into our home." How much deeper must the hatred be
after decades of oppression that has reduced their existence to a mere
specter of life? Without a political solution that includes Gaza in
negotiations to settle the wrongs done to the Palestinians, a just peace
for Palestinians and Israelis is as remote as ever.<br><br>
The Palestinians need candles desperately and they need your voice to
speak for them. There are many ways that you can do this. Organize
demonstrations or vigils, or take part in ones that are already being
organized. Take the time and write to newspapers and politicians urging
them to take action and bring an end to this humanitarian disaster. Also,
a deluge of letters to the Israeli Embassy would allow the Israelis to
see that the world does not support a siege on the people of Gaza. The
power is in your hands to spread the word through your churches, work
groups, clubs, neighborhood networks, and simply by talking to everyone
you know. We cannot stand by and allow this slow agonizing death of a
whole people to continue whatever justification Israel gives for its
actions. There has to be another way that gives succor to the people of
Gaza and hope for a better future than the ominous one being forced on
them right at this moment.<br><br>
<i>Sonja Karkar is the founder and president of
<a href="http://www.womenforpalestine.com/">Women for Palestine</a> in
Melbourne, Australia.</i> <br><br>
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