<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
</head>
<body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<div class="container font-size5 content-width3">
<div class="header reader-header" style="display: block;"
dir="ltr"> <font size="-2"><a class="domain reader-domain"
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israel-keeps-gaza-vise">https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israel-keeps-gaza-vise</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">Israel keeps Gaza in a vise</h1>
<p class="node__submitted">
<span class="field field-author"><a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/maureen-clare-murphy">Maureen
Clare Murphy</a></span> <span class="field field-blog">-</span>
<span class="field field-publication-date"><span
class="date-display-single"
content="2018-07-23T22:10:17+00:00">23 July 2018</span></span>
</p>
</div>
<hr>
<div class="content">
<div class="moz-reader-content line-height4" dir="ltr"
style="display: block;">
<div id="readability-page-1" class="page">
<div>
<article>
<figure id="file-66861"><source media="(min-width:
72rem)"><figcaption><small><span></span></small></figcaption></figure>
<p>Hospitals have had to temporarily close and Gaza’s
sole power station was shut down as Israel continues
to ban imports to and exports from the territory.</p>
<p>Israel’s stated reason for the tightened restrictions
imposed earlier this month was the launching of
incendiary balloons and kites from Gaza in previous
weeks.</p>
<p>Israel <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israel-launches-major-assault-gaza">halted</a>
fuel imports to the territory last week.</p>
<p>Palestinians have ceased launching the balloons and
kites since a ceasefire was reportedly declared
between Hamas and Israel late Friday.</p>
<p>Israel had pounded Gaza with air strikes and
artillery fire Friday evening after an Israeli soldier
and three Palestinians died in exchanges of fire. The
previous day, Abd al-Karim Radwan, a member of Hamas’
military wing, was killed when Israel fired at a group
of Palestinians allegedly launching burning kites.</p>
<h2>“Their side will not return to normal routine”</h2>
<p>The military <a
href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israel-and-hamas-exchange-fire-in-gaza-palestinian-reports-say-1.6293272">announced</a>
that Israeli communities near the Gaza boundary could
return to “civilian routine” following the ceasefire.</p>
<p>But Israel continues to keep Gaza’s two million
Palestinians in a vise.</p>
<p>“Gaza’s residents need to understand that as long as
there are incendiary balloons and fires on our side,
life on their side will not return to a normal
routine,” Israeli defense minister Avigdor Lieberman <a
href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/defense-chief-israel-to-re-open-gaza-border-crossing-if-calm-persists-1.6294479">stated</a>
on Sunday.</p>
<p>“The key is quiet, calm, zero incendiary balloons,
zero border friction and zero rockets or God forbid
shootings,” he added.</p>
<p>Lieberman’s remarks are an admission that the
tightened import and export restrictions are a form of
collective punishment.</p>
<p>In 2010 the International Committee of the Red Cross
<a
href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-blockade-icrc/israels-gaza-blockade-breaks-law-says-icrc-idUSTRE65D00R20100614">affirmed</a>
that Israel’s blockade on Gaza, now in place for more
than a decade, “constitutes a collective punishment
imposed in clear violation of Israel’s obligations
under international humanitarian law.”</p>
<p>Then, as now, “The whole of Gaza’s civilian
population is being punished for acts for which they
bear no responsibility,” the ICRC stated.</p>
<p>More than a dozen human rights groups based in Israel
<a href="http://gisha.org/updates/9328">said last week</a>
that “Closing Gaza’s major crossing for movement of
goods, the main lifeline for almost two million
people, half of whom are children, constitutes an
illegal and immoral act of collective punishment.”</p>
<h2>“Lives at stake”</h2>
<p>On Sunday United Nations humanitarian coordinator
Jamie McGoldrick reiterated his call on Israel to end
restrictions preventing the import of fuel to Gaza.</p>
<p>He warned that emergency fuel funded by international
donors is set to run out in early August as Gaza
residents endure blackouts of around 20 hours each
day.</p>
<p>“At least one hospital has been forced to shut down
for a few hours, and services are being dramatically
reduced at others,” McGoldrick <a
href="https://www.ochaopt.org/content/essential-services-verge-shutting-down-gaza-due-lack-emergency-fuel">stated</a>.</p>
<p>“If fuel does not come in immediately, people’s lives
will be at stake, with the most vulnerable patients,
like cardiac patients, those on dialysis, and newborns
in intensive care, at highest risk,” he added.</p>
<p>Gaza’s al-Quds hospital “will be forced to shut down
in coming days due to lack of fuel, with another four
hospitals likely to run out within the next three
days,” McGoldrick’s office said.</p>
<div id="file-66866">
<div>
<blockquote data-width="550">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">Gaza's only power plant has
shut down and Israel has been blocking entrance
of fuel, necessary for back-up generators for
homes, hospitals and businesses, for the past
week. <a
href="https://twitter.com/Gisha_Access?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Gisha_Access</a>
and partner organizations are calling for an end
to this madness. <a
href="https://t.co/lGqgFKMDjM">https://t.co/lGqgFKMDjM</a></p>
— Tania Hary (@taniahary) <a
href="https://twitter.com/taniahary/status/1021431407611187200?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July
23, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
</div>
<p>More than 7,000 surgeries have been postponed in
recent months as Gaza’s hospitals have struggled to
cope with thousands of live fire injuries by Israeli
forces during mass protests along the territory’s
eastern boundary.</p>
<h2>“Grave public health risks”</h2>
<p>Waterborne diseases could break out if water and
sanitation facilities reduce functioning.</p>
<p>The exhaustion of available fuel supplies for water
and sanitation, set to run out by the end of July,
“would also potentially lead to sewage overflowing
into inhabited areas, entailing grave public health
risks,” according to the UN Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.</p>
<p>Last week the Gaza-based human rights group Al Mezan
<a href="http://www.mezan.org/en/post/23078">decried</a>
“the inaction of the international community” which
has allowed the closure and blockade of Gaza to
continue for 11 years.</p>
<p>The UN has long <a
href="http://unctad.org/en/Pages/PressRelease.aspx?OriginalVersionID=260">warned</a>
that Gaza will become “unlivable” by the year 2020 due
to the economic deterioration resulting from Israel’s
closure, blockade and successive military assaults.</p>
<br>
</article>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div> </div>
</div>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863.9977
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://freedomarchives.org/">https://freedomarchives.org/</a>
</div>
</body>
</html>