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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element"> <font
size="-2"><a class="domain reader-domain"
href="https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2020/01/23/616893/Israel-gas-Gaza-Egypt">https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2020/01/23/616893/Israel-gas-Gaza-Egypt</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">Israel prevents gas from entering Gaza
and begins selling it to Egypt</h1>
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<div class="reader-estimated-time">January 23, 2020<br>
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<p><span><strong>By Robert Inlakesh</strong></span></p>
<p>(<span>Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer and
political analyst, who has lived in and reported from
the occupied Palestinian West Bank. He has written for
publications such as Mint Press, Mondoweiss, MEMO, and
various other outlets. He specializes in analysis of
the Middle East, in particular Palestine-Israel. He
also works for Press TV as a European correspondent.)</span></p>
<p><strong><span>The severity of Gaza’s humanitarian
crisis is currently growing in magnitude, as a
result of Israel tightening its 15-year long,
illegal siege of the poverty-stricken Palestinian
territory. Due to Israel’s restriction of gas,
prevented from entering the besieged coastal
enclave, the people of Gaza are facing a lack of
sufficient heating, lighting, and the ability to
properly deal with sewage, all this and more whilst
their Arab neighbor, Egypt, is purchasing stolen
Israeli gas.</span></strong></p>
<p><span>Last February, Egypt signed a 19-billion-dollar
gas deal with Israel. A few days ago, Israel
officially began pumping that gas into Egypt via an
‘Eastern Mediterranean Gas’ pipeline formerly used to
supply Israel with Egyptian gas (during the rule of
ex-president of Egypt Hosni Mubarak).</span></p>
<p><span>Israel restricts the gas it is allowing into
Gaza, collectively punishing the Palestinian people —
which constitutes a crime against humanity — for what
Israel decides is the illegitimate actions of Gaza’s
democratically-elected government.</span></p>
<p><span>Egypt’s coup leader, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, has
not only sold the soul of Egypt by purchasing the
Israeli occupying entity, but has also participated in
enforcing Egypt’s side of the illegal blockade of
Gaza. Sisi has continuously watched on as the
two-million-strong population of the besieged Gaza
Strip suffers untold misery.</span></p>
<p><span>Besides Egypt’s collaboration with Israel’s
racist persecution of the Palestinian people in Gaza’s
death camp is also the most shameful of deliberate
targeting of Gaza’s food and resources by Israel
itself.</span></p>
<p><span>The Palestinian Agricultural Ministry said in a
statement on Sunday that Israel had purposely flooded
and destroyed roughly 920 acres of farmlands in
Eastern Jabalia and Beit Hanoun, Northern Gaza,
causing 500,000 dollars worth of damage. On top of
this, Israel has also begun spraying dangerous
chemicals over farmland to the East of Khan Yunis and
Rafah, located in the South of Gaza. The Gaza Strip
has very scarce amounts of agricultural land and is
already operating in a declared state of emergency, as
of February 2018.</span></p>
<p><img alt=""
src="http://217.218.67.233//photo/20200123/1ae88423-5b75-44f8-8d29-096f94602012.jpg"
width="555" height="312"></p>
<p><span>Adding to the list of Israeli crimes in Gaza is
the fact that the Gaza gas fields, which were
discovered in 1999 and belong to the Palestinian
people under international law, still have not been
excavated. The only reason for the Palestinians not
being able to take advantage of their own oil is that
Israel’s illegal blockade prohibits them from doing
so, meaning that the people of Gaza are living in an
area which has been deemed ‘unlivable’ by experts at
the United Nations, suffering unimaginable pain,
whilst literally sitting right next to a treasure
trove of natural gas.</span></p>
<p><span>Approximately two weeks ago, Israel decided to
cut off the main supply of gas from entering the Gaza
Strip. Since then, Egypt has let in 10 trucks, which
have entered the besieged territory, but according to
Gaza’s residents, this simply has not been enough to
supply the people with a sufficient source of gas.
Khaled Tabasha, a Palestinian activist living in
Gaza’s al-Bureij refugee camp, spoke to me, informing
me that his family and many others living in his camp
have not been able to cook properly. Khaled even said
that things have gotten so bad that he and others have
begun looking for wood, in order to start fires from
which they can cook their food.</span></p>
<p><img alt=""
src="http://217.218.67.233//photo/20200123/ef999bbe-c9b1-4a5e-af5c-c7626ddd85a1.jpg"
width="555" height="312"></p>
<p><span>The term “sending Gaza back to the stone age” has
been often used by Israeli politicians, referring to
the military bombardments of the territory by Israel,
but it seems by the blockade alone, Israel is
achieving this aim. </span></p>
<p><span>In the Gaza Strip, a lack of gas not only means
that Palestinians are having to resort to using wood
fires to cook, it also affects motor vehicles,
hospitals, and of course the heating inside houses. In
addition to this, Gaza is again having an electricity
crisis, which means that right now the people only
have access to roughly four and a half hours of
electricity per day. This is during a time where the
climate is very cold in Gaza. To give an example of
how cold Palestine has been lately, just yesterday, it
snowed in al-Khalil (Hebron), located to the North of
Gaza, in the West Bank.</span></p>
<p><span>Toxic Pesticides have also recently been sprayed
along the separation fence, illegally built between
Gaza and Israel. The spraying of these potentially
lethal substances along the separation fence — a
violation of international law — is justified by the
Israelis as being a “security” precaution.</span></p>
<p><span>The question now remaining is: how long can Gaza
continue to suffer as the conditions get more and more
severe?</span></p>
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