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<h1 class="title" id="page-title"><small>One year after “ceasefire,”
Gaza’s suffering deepens</small></h1>
<div class="submitted"> <span property="dc:date dc:created"
content="2013-11-21T23:05:32+00:00" datatype="xsd:dateTime"
rel="sioc:has_creator">Submitted by <span class="username" xml:lang=""
about="/users/ali-abunimah" typeof="sioc:UserAccount"
property="foaf:name" datatype="">Ali Abunimah</span> on Thu,
11/21/2013 - 23:05<br>
<b><small><small><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/one-year-after-ceasefire-gazas-suffering-deepens">http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/one-year-after-ceasefire-gazas-suffering-deepens</a></small></small></b><br>
</span> </div>
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<p>One year ago, a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas ended
an eight-day Israeli bombardment that <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/who-responsible-death-baby-omar-masharawi-gaza-last-november">killed
174 Palestinians</a>, the vast majority civilians, dozens of them
children.</p>
<p>Israel even carried out deliberate killings of journalists, offering
justifications that Human Rights Watch termed “<a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/human-rights-watch-israels-justifications-killing-journalists-are">evidence
of war crimes.”</a></p>
<p>Six Israelis, four of them civilians, also died as a result of
Palestinian fire.</p>
<h2>“Quiet” for some</h2>
<p>The past year has been “the quietest period in ten years, with the
lowest numbers of rocket attacks from Gaza and of Palestinian
casualties from Israeli incursions into Gaza,” <a
href="http://us7.campaign-archive1.com/?u=d7bf98037b5abfd4c69593c62&id=a08ab5d83a">according
to an update</a> from the UK development agency <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net">Oxfam</a>.</p>
<p>But while Israelis are enjoying unprecedented “quiet,” the term
“ceasefire” is a complete misnomer for Palestinians in Gaza, where the
humanitarian situation is also worse than ever.</p>
<p>“Life is worse than a year ago. We just want to make a living but
it’s now almost impossible. The electricity is off most of the day, and
the fuel is so expensive I can only afford to turn the generator on for
30 minutes at a time,” Ibrahim Zayed, a shopkeeper in northern Gaza,
told Oxfam.</p>
<p>Zayed has seen the number of customers in his shop drop by half and
fears he will have to close.</p>
<p>“The crisis affects every part of our lives – last week my daughter
had a chest problem and needed an examination,” Zayed said.</p>
<p>“I drove around looking for an open health center, but everywhere
was closed because they had no power. We had to drive all the way into
Gaza City to find one open.”</p>
<h2>Gaza becoming “uninhabitable”</h2>
<p>UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees, said this week that 19
of its 20 construction projects in Gaza had ground to a halt because
Israel has refused to allow building materials into the territory.</p>
<p>With the tightened Israeli blockade and Egypt’s <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/tunnels">systematic
destruction of tunnels</a> under its border since the July military
coup, “Gaza is quickly becoming uninhabitable,” outgoing UNRWA
Commissioner Genera Filippo Grandi <a
href="http://www.unrwa.org/newsroom/press-releases/unrwa-construction-projects-gaza-%E2%80%9Cground-halt%E2%80%9D-outgoing-commissioner-general">warned
this week</a>.</p>
<p>The tunnels have been a lifeline providing Palestinians a way to
evade the Israeli siege and bring in food, basic goods, fuel and
construction supplies.</p>
<p>“Further conflict is bound, as before, to affect civilians in Gaza
and southern Israel, unless its causes are addressed,” Grandi said.</p>
<h2>Frequent “ceasefire” violations</h2>
<p>As Oxfam notes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the ceasefire has been violated on numerous occasions. In the past
year, Israel has carried out <strong>19 airstrikes and over 300
incidents of border and naval fire, causing seven fatalities and at
least 132 injuries</strong>. Palestinian factions have fired over 140
homemade rockets towards Israel, with no casualties reported.</p>
<p>For some civilians, security has worsened. So far in 2013, <strong>there
have been over 150 incidents of Israeli naval fire against Gaza
fishermen – a 40 percent increase over the past two years.</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>These numbers underscore the fact that while violence is
overwhelmingly perpetrated by Israelis against Palestinians, media
coverage of Gaza tends to focus disproportionately on armed action by
Palestinians, even though this year it has resulted in no injuries.</p>
<h2>Economy devastated</h2>
<p>Instead of lifting its blockade and allowing reconstruction,
Israel’s tight siege continues to devastate the lives of Palestinians
in Gaza where, <a
href="http://us7.campaign-archive1.com/?u=d7bf98037b5abfd4c69593c62&id=a08ab5d83a">Oxfam
says</a>, “80 percent of people … receive international aid, 57 percent
of households are food insecure, exports are virtually non-existent,
many basic services are barely functioning, and unemployment is over 35
percent and rising.”</p>
<p>Such poverty and dependency can only be the result given that
“entrance of goods into Gaza via Kerem Shalom, the sole
Israeli-controlled crossing, stands at around 50 percent of
pre-blockade levels,” according to Oxfam.</p>
<p>While Israel often claims – without evidence – that its restrictions
on imports are designed to prevent Palestinians obtaining goods that
could have a use in military resistance, what possible explanation
could it give for banning exports?</p>
<p>Through October 2013, Israel had only allowed 111 trucks of exports
out of Gaza, less than half the figure for 2011 and 2012.</p>
<p>This compares with almost 6,000 trucks in 2007 and puts 2013 on
course to be the worst year for exports from Gaza since 2009.</p>
<p>The only effect of Israel banning exports is to damage – as
effectively as if it were using bombs – any self-sufficiency in Gaza
and to further immiserate the population.</p>
<p>Following Egypt’s crackdown on the tunnels, the true impact of
Israel’s siege has been revealed: with fuel in short supply, much of
Gaza has no power for 12-18 hours per day, <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/content/power-cuts-force-gazas-youth-study-dark/12931">forcing
children to study in the dark</a>.</p>
<p>And as the sewage pumps have ceased functioning, <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/video-siege-stops-pumps-gaza-children-wade-school-sewage">children
in many areas wade to school through sewage</a>.</p>
<h2>Isolating the people</h2>
<p>Israel and Egypt have together ensured unprecedented isolation of
the almost 1.7 million Palestinians in Gaza.</p>
<p>Fewer than 6,000 people are currently able to use the Erez crossing
with Israel every month to reach the occupied West Bank, hospitals in
present-day Israel or to travel abroad with difficult-to-obtain permits.</p>
<p>This compares with over half a million <em>monthly</em> crossings
through Erez in the year 2000, Oxfam says.</p>
<p>Since Israel has sought to close Gaza off, Egypt’s <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/rafah-crossing">Rafah border
crossing</a> has become the only exit to the outside world for most of
its residents.</p>
<p>Already plagued by chronic closures from the Egyptian side, since
the July coup the numbers passing through Rafah have dropped from
20,000 per month to fewer than 4,000.</p>
<h2>Lift the blockade</h2>
<p>Faced with the dire situation in Gaza one year after the
“ceasefire,” UNRWA’s Grandi renewed calls for lifting the blockade:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Perhaps strengthening the human security of the people of Gaza is
a better avenue to ensuring regional stability than physical closures,
political isolation and military action. To obtain this, first and
foremost, the Israeli blockade – which is illegal – must be lifted.
Meanwhile, the United Nations must be allowed to at least continue
construction projects and provide a few extra jobs to the beleaguered
population.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Yet even these limited aspirations seem unlikely to be fulfilled as
Israel’s punishing siege has become the “new normal” tolerated by the
so-called international community.</p>
<p>The irony of the last year is that Palestinians are constantly
lectured: “It is your resistance that brings Israeli punishment on you.
Be quiet and you will see things improve.”</p>
<p>Yet the fact that Israelis have enjoyed unprecedented quiet, while
Palestinians in Gaza are in a worse situation than ever, demonstrates
that this is, and has always been, a lie.</p>
<p>It is Israeli impunity, not Palestinian resistance, that allows the
catastrophe in Gaza to continue.</p>
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