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”
- In June 2007, following the military takeover of Gaza by Hamas, the Israeli authorities significantly intensified existing movement restrictions, virtually isolating the Gaza Strip from the rest of the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), and the world. This land, sea and air blockade has significantly exacerbated previous restrictions, limiting the number and specified categories of people and goods allowed in and out through the Israeli-controlled crossings. ”
UNICEFTHE GAZA STRIP/THE HUMANITARIAN IMPACT OF15 YEARS OF BLOCKADE-JUNE 2022
About
- In June 2007, following the military takeover of Gaza by Hamas, the Israeli authorities significantly intensified existing movement restrictions, virtually isolating the Gaza Strip from the rest of the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), and the world. This land, sea and air blockade has significantly exacerbated previous restrictions, limiting the number and specified categories of people and goods allowed in and out through the Israeli-controlled crossings.
- Prior to the Second Intifada in 2000, up to half a million exits of people from Gaza into Israel, primarily workers, were recorded in a single month. For the first seven years of the blockade, this number declined to just over 4,000 on average, rising to 10,400 monthly over the next eight years.
- So far in 2022, the Israeli authorities have approved only 64% of patients’ requests to exit Gaza mainly for specialized treatment in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, by the time of the scheduled medical appointment. In previous years, patients have died while awaiting a response to their application.
- The Egyptian authorities closed the Rafah border crossing with Gaza for long periods after 2014 following political unrest in Egypt. Rafah has been mostly operational since mid-2018, and was open for 95 days out of 151 in the first five months of 2022.
- After the blockade, the number of truckloads of commercial goods exiting Gaza dropped significantly to only two truckloads on average per month in 2009. Following the 2014 escalation of hostilities, commercial transfers from Gaza to the West Bank resumed, and from March 2015 exports to Israel also resumed. In August 2021, exports to Egypt started for the first time, boosting the monthly average of exports to 787 in the first five months of 2022. Pre-blockade, the average monthly high was 961.
- The volume of truckloads entering Gaza in the first five months of 2022, around 8,000 per month, was about 30% below the monthly average for the first half of 2007, before the blockade. Since then, the population has grown by more than 50%.
- Israeli forces have largely restricted access to areas within 300 metres of the Gaza side of the perimeter fence with Israel; areas several hundred metres beyond are deemed not safe, preventing, or discouraging, agricultural activities.
- Israeli forces restrict access off the Gaza coast, currently only allowing fishermen to access 50% of the fishing waters allocated for this purpose under the Oslo Accords.
- Unemployment levels in Gaza are amongst the highest in the world: the Q1 jobless rate in 2022 was 46.6%, compared with an average of 34.8% in 2006. Youth unemployment for the same period (age 15-29) stands at 62.5%. (PCBS)
- 31% of households in Gaza have difficulties meeting essential education needs such as tuition fees and books, due to lack of financial resources.
- 1.3 million out of 2.1 million Palestinians in Gaza (62%) require food assistance.
- At its current operating capacity, the Gaza Power Plant can only produce up to 80 megawatts (MW), supplemented by 120 MW purchased from Israel, meeting about 50% of the electricity demand in Gaza (400-450MW). In 2021, rolling power cuts averaged 11 hours per day.
- 78% of piped water in Gaza is unfit for human consumption.
EINDE
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCHLETTER TO OLMERT: STOP THE BLOCKADEOF GAZA20 NOVEMBER 2008
November 20, 2008
Dear Prime Minister Olmert,
We are writing to express our deep concern about Israel’s continuing blockade of the Gaza Strip, a measure that is depriving its population of food, fuel, and basic services, and constitutes a form of collective punishment.
The latest measures, a complete closure of all Gaza border crossings since November 5, are part of an ongoing policy by your government that has prevented the normal flow of goods and people in and out of Gaza since January 2006. It has contributed to a humanitarian crisis, deepened poverty and ruined the economy. We urge your government to abandon this policy.
Your government states that this latest blockade was in response to Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel, in which two Israel civilians were injured (on November 14 and 16), and over a dozen others treated for shock. Human Rights Watch has repeatedly condemned deliberate and indiscriminate Palestinian rocket attacks on Israeli communities as violations of the laws of war. We recently sent a letter to Hamas leaders calling on them to renounce such attacks, and arrest and prosecute those who carry out or encourage attacks on civilians.
However, violations of the laws of war by one party to a conflict do not justify violations by the other. As such, illegal attacks by Palestinian armed groups do not justify an illegal Israeli response. Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip, an occupied territory under the Fourth Geneva Convention, constitutes collective punishment in violation of the laws of war.
While your government has eased the restrictions for one day on November 17 the humanitarian situation in Gaza is now critical as the borders remain closed. Food distribution by the United Nations to 750,000 people—half of Gaza’s population—was forced to a halt last week, and remains severely disrupted.
Israel permitted 30 trucks to enter Gaza on November 17, delivering just eight trucks of food aid for the United Nations relief agency distribution centers, enough to feed 20,000 people. Those supplies are now almost gone, according to UN officials. The agency has to import at least 15 truckloads of food daily to meet the territory’s needs. Food stocks in three UN warehouses have also been emptied.
Gaza’s main power station needs over 21 million liters of industrial diesel before it can restart power production, according to the relief agency. Gaza is currently suffering widespread power shortages with power cuts of up to 16 hours a day. On average 650,000 people–over a third of the population—are without power at any one time amid rolling power cuts throughout the territory.
The fuel and power shortages have disrupted the pumping of water from 80 percent of Gaza water wells according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Twenty percent of the population has access to water for six hours five times a week. Forty percent have access to water four days a week, and the remaining 40 percent have water for just three days a week.
No wheat grain has entered Gaza for 16 days, prompting Gaza’s largest flour mill al-Philistiniya to close, according to OCHA. A lack of cooking gas has closed 28 out of 47 pita-bread bakeries in Gaza, and bread is being rationed. There are no bakeries in production in Rafah in the south of Gaza.
The latest closures have compounded the already severe effects of a longer term blockade your government implemented when Hamas took full control of Gaza in June 2007. Other restrictions have been in place since December 2005, when Hamas won legislative elections in the West Bank and Gaza. Over the last year, this policy has deepened poverty in Gaza and cut its industrial production by over 90 percent, according to the World Bank. The Palestinian Federation of Industries estimates that as a result of import restrictions and the inability to export, only 23 of the 3,900 industries in Gaza are operating, six of which produce wheat flour, one clothing, and the remainder food processing.
These restrictions are impacting a population that is already among the poorest in the world. Close to 70 percent of the population lives in deep poverty, according the UN relief agency, UNRWA. (The agency defines deep poverty as a family of six persons or more living on income of less than US$467 per month.) Egypt has been complicit in the blockade by keeping its borders with Gaza closed for much of the past year, in cooperation with your government.
Israel made a commitment in June to ease some of these restrictions – but the movement of goods into Gaza and people in and out the territory remains a fraction of what it was when borders were last opened for free trade. October’s imports represented only 21 percent of the December 2005 level (13,430 truckloads), that is prior to the Palestinian Legislative Council elections, and 26 percent of the May 2007 level, immediately before the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip, according to OCHA. Exports from Gaza are not allowed by your government.
In September and October, Egypt and Israel allowed around 6000 pilgrims, hospital patients and some businessmen to pass through the Rafah and Erez border crossings. However, the Israeli and Egyptian governments have prevented over 800 students from leaving the territory to study abroad. Restrictions on freedom of movement for the large majority of the population remain in place, preventing their access to work, healthcare, and family outside of Gaza.
Even though Israel withdrew its permanent military forces and settlers in 2005, it remains an occupying power in Gaza under international law because it continues to exercise effective day-to-day control over key aspects of life in Gaza. Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, Israel is obliged to ensure the provision of food and medical supplies to the civilian population to the fullest extent possible.
We urge your government to immediately lift restrictions on the flow into Gaza of food, medicines, and other supplies essential for the well-being of the civilian population and to cease all measures that amount to collective punishment of the civilian population, including disruptions to the electricity supply and fuel cuts. We also urge your government to respect the right to freedom of movement, especially for those who need to travel for reasons of health or education.
We look forward to your response to this matter.
Yours sincerely,
SarahLeah Whitson
Executive Director
Middle East and North Africa Division
Human Rights Watch
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“We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly,””
THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
DEFENSE MINISTER ANNOUNCES ”COMPLETE SIEGE”
OF GAZA: ”NO POWER, FOOD OR FUEL”
9 OCTOBER 2023
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant says he has ordered a “complete siege” of the Gaza Strip, as Israel fights the Hamas terror group.
“I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed,” Gallant says following an assessment at the IDF Southern Command in Beersheba.
“We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly,” he adds.
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NH NIEUWS
AMSTERDAM: GEEN GEZICHTSBEDEKKENDE KLEDING EN
TERREURVLAGGEN BIJ PRO-PALESTINA MARS
13 OCTOBER 2023
De driehoek – burgemeester, justitie en politie – heeft voorwaarden gesteld aan de organisatoren van de pro-Palestina mars van aankomende zondag. Zo moet de organisatie zelf de orde houden over de demonstranten. Daarnaast is het zwaaien van vlaggen van terreurorganisaties zoals Hamas of Hezbollah verboden, mag gezichtsbedekkende kleding niet worden gedragen en mogen er geen voorwerpen worden verbrand. De gemeente zegt dat er tussen de 2500 tot 10.000 deelnemers worden verwacht.
“De driehoek zal haatzaaien, oproepen tot geweld en andere bedreigingen van onze vreedzame en open samenleving niet tolereren”, zo laat de driehoek weten. Vlaggen van terreurgroepen mogen bijvoorbeeld niet worden getoond en een oproep tot geweld mag niet worden gedaan. Gezichtsbedekkende kleding is ook verboden om de orde te bewaren, religieuze kleding mag wel. Het verbranden van voorwerpen tolereert de driehoek ook niet: “Aangezien dit tot wanordelijkheden kan leiden en voor andere demonstranten en omstanders een gevaar kan zijn.”
Zelf orde houden
Omdat er bij eerdere pro-Israël en pro-Palestina protesten incidenten en confrontaties zijn geweest, is er bij de driehoek nu ook zorgen over de kans op nieuwe incidenten. “Het verleden leert dat demonstraties over dit thema vaak over en weer tegenreacties oproepen, waarbij strafbare feiten en confrontaties met tegendemonstranten kunnen plaatsvinden”, schrijft burgemeester Halsema aan de organisatie.
De driehoek wijst de organisatoren daarom scherp om de mars in goede banen te leiden en zelf mensen te regelen die de ervoor zorgen dat er geen strafbare feiten worden gepleegd. De Amsterdamse politie is ook ter begeleiding aanwezig. Halsema liet gisteren al weten dat het Openbaar Ministerie meeluistert tijdens de protesten, bijvoorbeeld bij de speeches. Als de voorwaarden worden overtreden of als er niet naar de politie wordt geluisterd, zal er worden opgetreden door de politie.
Pro-Israël demonstratie
Op het moment van de Palestina-mars is er ook een pro-Israël demonstratie op het Beursplein. De mars loopt niet langs de demonstratie en de demonstranten mogen niet afwijken van de afgesproken route. Vanaf de Dam loopt de Palestina-mars via de Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal en de Haarlemmerstraat naar het Westerpark.
Joodse buurt
Toen begin deze week de mars werd aangekondigd werd er op sociale media met afschuw gereageerd op de route. De protestmars zou namelijk vanaf de Dam richting het Jonas Daniël Meijerplein lopen, midden in de oude Joodse buurt. “In het hart van de oude Jodenbuurt, tussen de synagoges. Dit zou een gigantische schandvlek zijn voor onze stad. Nu en in de toekomst”, reageerde stadsdeelcommissielid uit Zuid Michael Vis (VVD).
Een van de organisatoren van de mars liet aan AT5 weten niet stil te hebben gestaan bij de gevoeligheid van het plein en dat de route was gekozen omdat het een makkelijke looproute is die vaker wordt gebruikt. De organisatie gaf aan de route te wijzigen en ook de politie en de gemeente verzochten de organisatie om dat te doen. Het eindpunt werd vervolgens verplaatst naar het Westerpark.
EINDE BERICHT