A call from Gazans to the world: “Keep trying to break the siege”

In a press conference at the port of Gaza city yesterday government officials, fishing associations, non-governmental organisations and civil society groups reiterated their support for the attempts by international activists to break the Israeli siege of Gaza by sea.

Yesterday (July 14th 2010) many people amassed at the Gazan port to urge on the latest attempt by activists to enter the strip, this time by a Libyan chartered aid ship. It was the first serious attempt to enter Gaza by sea since the horrifying attack by the Israeli navy on the Free Gaza Flotilla and the Mavi Marmara which saw 9 Turkish activists killed.

Mahfouz Kabariti, President of Palestine Sailing Federation and Palestinian Association for Fishing and Maritime Sports, was communicating with the Amalthea as it neared Gazan waters: “The last contact we had with them was at midnight and since then communication was cut by the Israeli navy. They told us the boat was surrounded by Israeli gunships, but that they were determined to attempt to dock in Gaza and not take the option offered by the Egyptian government to dock in El Arish.”

According to Mahfouz the roll of the Freedom Flotilla missions are two-fold: “First is the arrival with aid, and materials such as construction supplies still banned by the blockade. The second is to put a spotlight on the suffering of the people here. Even if they are attacked, the second message highlights even more the extent to which Israel will go to keep us in Gaza isolated from the rest of the world with this illegal blockade of our people.”
As well as government representatives and the Popular Committee to Break the Siege, Amjad Shawa, Gaza Coordinator for Palestinian Non-Governmental Organizations (PNGO) was present. He emphasised the importance of international civil society persisting in trying to break the siege.

The need is especially acute because so far Israel’s response has only been to reduce the blockade on Gaza by a tiny fraction. The European Union, the United Nations, countless human rights groups and the International Committee for the Red Cross have all expressed the need for a return to the free flow of goods and people in and out of the Gaza Strip. This must include construction materials which are sorely needed to help rebuild the 17,000 houses severely damaged in the 3 week attack over the New Year period of 2009 that left over 1500 dead including over 400 children.

“Nothing has changed here,” says Amjad. “Just some more consumer products…but 80% of the people here still depend on humanitarian aid. It is not enough to demand some kind of minor reduction of this illegal siege. But we are thankful that the siege on Gaza has not been forgotten, and that our people are still in the minds of the world. These kinds of solidarity actions are very important for Gazans, we see that others share with us the values of justice and the principals of human rights.”

When asked about the role of the international community to pressure Israel, Amjad is more critical: “We are so sorry that the international community until now has made no real intervention, put no real pressure on Israel to lift the siege totally or exerted pressure on Israel to have a transparent and accountable international inquiry into the Israeli crimes on the freedom flotillas.

“Still today we’re waiting for real international pressure from the international community. We hope that Israel will not use this silence as a chance to commit more crimes against the Palestinian people and international solidarity workers.”
The Libyan chartered boat was eventually forced to dock in El Arish, Egypt, after a wall of Israeli gunboats blocked its passage through to Gaza. But the Palestinians remain heartened by these attempts and the further missions planned this September. Says Mahfouz: “People here feel grateful to those internationals who try to arrive at the Gaza beach, it’s so important to us that other people worry and support us.”
http://desertpeace.wordpress.com/2010/07/15/gaza-to-the-world-keep-trying-to-break-the-siege/

GAZA: What are promises of humanitarian aid worth?

The death toll of Palestinian hospital patients due to Israel’s blockade of life-saving facilities is nearing 370.

By Stuart Littlewood

We keep hearing from the British government that they have spent millions of pounds in humanitarian aid for Gaza. But nobody is saying exactly where the money has gone and who benefited.

Of course, if they had done what they were supposed to and (with the rest of the international community) made sure the Palestinians were left in peace to run their own affairs with their homeland intact, there would be no need to endlessly raid taxpayers’ pockets for aid.

Here’s the text of a letter to foreign secretary David Miliband:

Some two months ago, on 10 November, Lord Brett announced that the British government had "pledged 30 million GBP at the Sharm el-Sheikh conference, of which 20 million GBP was allocated for reconstruction and 10 million GBP for early recovery. We are already funding a number of early recovery projects, such as cash for work schemes employing people to clear rubble and repair agricultural roads, and expect to spend the full 10 million GBP allocated for this purpose by March 2010. However, due to restrictions on the entry of building materials into Gaza, the UK has not yet been able to spend any of the funding earmarked for reconstruction. We stand ready to provide support as soon as the situation improves, and continue to press the Israeli government for improved access to Gaza for aid, aid workers and reconstruction materials.

"The UK has spent 16.9 million GBP in the West Bank and Gaza so far this financial year, including £5.2 million in humanitarian assistance to Gaza, and 10 million GBP in support to the Palestinian Authority to enable it to provide essential public services. We have also provided nearly 20 million GBP to the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) to provide support to Palestinian refugees, of which around half is allocated to Gaza and the West Bank."

Exactly what have Britain's efforts amounted to so far? How much humanitarian aid has Britain succeeded in bringing to bear on the crisis and human suffering in Gaza? Where has it been spent and by whom?

On 5 January Mr Michael Foster of the Department for International Development [DFID] said: "The 32-million-euro pledge for Gaza made by the Commissioner for External Relations and European Neighbourhood Policy in March 2009 was for humanitarian aid and early recovery activities… Like the DFID, the EU has been unable to spend money on formal reconstruction activities in Gaza due to Israeli restrictions on the import of essential materials."

How long is this inaction likely to continue and why are Britain and the EU merely "pressing" Israel to no effect instead of forcing the issue? If the intended reconstruction aid has been blocked for nine months, why was the money not reallocated to other critical humanitarian needs such as medical care and public health? What is stopping you, for example, asking Gaza's Ministry of Health for a list of hospital spares and shipping them direct?

What concerns so many people out here is that there is no sense of urgency or determination within the Foreign Office or Number 10 to actually deliver real help into the living (and dying) hell that our so-called friends in Tel Aviv have created in Gaza, and that consequently Britain is made to appear complicit in prolonging the criminal devastation when our duty is surely clear enough.

Miliband and his chums need to understand that the death toll of Palestinian hospital patients due to Israel’s blockade of life-saving facilities is nearing 370, itself a scandalous crime against humanity that can be added to the long list of Israel’s other atrocities.

Gaza, tell us how much aid has reached you

Perhaps the authorities in Gaza -- government and non-government -- would please tell the world how much humanitarian aid they were hoping to receive and how much has actually been allowed to reach them?

The siege was inhumanly severe two years ago when, after visiting Gaza, I was sent a list of urgently-required hospital spares by the Ministry of Health, which I forwarded to the British government. To my eternal shame it was ignored. Would our beleaguered healthcare friends in Gaza like to send an up-to-date list to see if that too is rejected? I would suggest they send it to all three UK party leaders, who are in moralizing overdrive with elections looming, and we’ll see what each one is really made of.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown likes saying that “the only solution is a peace settlement between an Israel that needs security within its borders and a Palestine that needs to be a viable economic state”. How long have people like him been saying tosh like that? No, Mr Brown, you simply don’t get it. The only solution is compliance with international law and the dispensing of justice, not more shabby peace “negotiations” dictated by a massively strong side subsidized by powerful friends, armed to the teeth with state-of-the-art weaponry and holding a gun to the head of an impoverished side weakened by 40 years of brutal occupation and equipped only with makeshift weapons and smuggled small arms.

Incidentally, note how Western leaders always stick to the Israeli script and never acknowledge that Palestine is equally entitled to “security within its borders”.

We have the worst British government in my lifetime, guilty of the most disastrous foreign policy blunder of the last 100 years -- Iraq -- and happy to blindly make other lethal mistakes.

And with reports coming in of Israel massing its military strength in the western Negev and elsewhere near the Gaza border, presumably for a second Gaza war as if last year’s wasn’t unforgivable, and the US storing extra ordnance in Israel presumably for the Israeli military to use against Palestinian civilians, it’s time Dogsbody Britain finally snarled a little at the bloodthirsty lunatics in Tel Aviv and Washington instead of sitting at their feet and wagging its tail.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/