What everyone should know about Israel’s siege of the Gaza Strip

For 11 years, Israel has imposed an unforgiving siege on the Gaza Strip. With severely restricted access in and out of the enclave — via land, air and, notoriously, sea — Gaza has effectively been sealed off from the world. The Strip is only 360 square kilometres in size, about the same as Las Vegas in the US or one-quarter the size of London.

What everyone should know about Israel’s siege of the Gaza Strip

It is now home to almost two million Palestinians, making it one of the most densely populated areas in the world and leading some to dub Gaza “the world’s largest open-air prison.”

According to UNRWA, the UN body responsible for Palestinian refugees, 1.3 million of Gaza’s 1.9 million inhabitants are refugees. Most were expelled from their homes in 1948 when the State of Israel was created, and many were uprooted again when Israel occupied the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights, Sinai Peninsula and Jerusalem during the 1967 Six Day War. A further 23,500 people continue to be internally displaced following Israel’s “Operation Protective Edge” military offensive against Gaza in 2014.

So what does the daily reality of the siege look like? Here are 11 aspects, one for each year that the siege has been imposed by Israel.

Movement of people is heavily restricted

Under the siege, the Palestinian residents of Gaza are required to obtain a permit to leave. Israel repeatedly refuses to issue such permits for exit via the Erez/Beit Hanoun Crossing. In the first quarter of 2018 alone, Israel denied 833 exit permit applications “on grounds of having family ties to Hamas,” the group which has ruled the Strip since winning the last Palestinian elections held in 2006. Compare this with 2017, when 21 applications were refused on such grounds throughout the whole year.

These restrictions also prevent those in need of medical attention from leaving Gaza via Israel. According to Al Jazeera, “Israel was responsible for at least 54 Palestinian deaths in 2017,” having rejected hundreds of medical permit applications by people needing treatment in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Israel itself or abroad. A report by the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs for the occupied Palestinian territories (OCHA OPT) found that the rate of denied or delayed permit applications to access health care outside Gaza reached 45 per cent in October 2017.

Crossings into and out of Gaza are closed

Israel has closed almost all of the Gaza Strip’s entry and exit points. There were formerly six crossings in and out of Gaza: Erez/Beit Hanoun, Nahal Oz, Karni, Sufa, Kerem Shalom/Karm Abu Salem and Rafah.

Until recently, only one commercial route into and out of Gaza remained: Kerem Shalom. However, in July, Israel also closed this crossing, citing incendiary kites and balloons flown into Israel from inside Gaza as part of the Great March of Return protests. Whereas previously 300-400 trucks would pass through the crossing every day, only 150 trucks of essential medical and humanitarian supplies were being allowed to pass. Only a week later, cooking gas distribution companies in the besieged Strip announced that they had “run out of backup”.

In the south of the Strip is Rafah, the only pedestrian crossing open to Palestinians (Erez crossing, in the north, is reserved for journalists, medical staff, international diplomats and those in need of medical attention). An almost complete closure of the Rafah crossing has been imposed by Egypt since 2013, for “security” reasons but almost certainly at Israel’s behest. In 2017, the Rafah crossing was closed for 337 days.

Gaza’s access to the sea is restricted

On top of the restrictions Israel enforces on land, it also restricts access to the sea. According to an OCHA map (included in UNRWA’s report “Gaza in 2020”), since Israel’s three-week assault on Gaza in 2009 it has imposed a limit of three nautical miles on fishermen working out of the territory. This has been tightened consistently, even though a limit of 20 nautical miles was recommended by the Oslo Accords in the early 1990s. A no-entry zone of one and one and a half nautical miles, in the south and north respectively, has also been imposed, extending out from each of Gaza’s frontiers with Israel and Egypt.

In 2017, OCHA estimated that over 35,000 Palestinians still depended on the fishing industry for their livelihoods, but Israeli restrictions have all but destroyed Gaza’s once thriving fishing industry. Israel also targets Gazan fishermen, with international charity Oxfam noting that “in the first half of 2014, there were at least 177 incidents of naval fire against fishermen.” Many have been killed or wounded, and had their boats destroyed or seized by the Israeli navy.

Some have speculated that Israel’s restrictions are motivated by the presence of gas reserves in the Mediterranean Sea. In 2015, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signed a deal to allow companies to begin extraction from the gas field. Thought to contain some 22 trillion cubic feet of gas, the discovery was hailed as a “gift from God” which could turn Israel into a “regional energy powerhouse.” Most of the gas fields are situated off Gaza’s shore, meaning that the gas reserves and their revenue would belong to Gaza were it not for Israel’s occupation, naval restrictions and blockade.

Israel imposes a strict naval blockade

Israel’s naval siege also includes blockading vessels seeking to enter or leave Gaza. In July 2018, an international convoy carrying humanitarian and medical supplies, dubbed the Freedom Flotilla, tried to break Israel’s siege of Gaza. Consisting of two ships – Al-Awda and Freedom – the flotilla was intercepted by Israeli naval forces in international waters amid accusations of violence by the troops involved.

This is not the first time that such flotillas have been hijacked in what have been called acts of piracy on the high seas. Infamously, in 2010 Israeli commandos boarded the Mavi Marmara taking humanitarian aid to Gaza and killed nine Turkish citizens; a tenth died later of his wounds.

Earlier this month (August 2018), images were revealed showing the construction of an underwater barrier stretching some 200 metres into the Mediterranean, separating Palestinian and Israeli territorial waters. Consisting of an underwater structure, an armoured stone base and a six-metre-high barbed wire fence, and at an estimated to cost the Israeli government of $6.7 million, the barrier adds to the land and sea restrictions already imposed on Gaza under the siege.

A strangled economy means high unemployment

A recent report by the World Bank revealed a drop in Gaza’s growth, from eight per cent in 2016 to 0.5 per cent in 2017. Much of this has been caused by Israel’s prohibition on goods and raw materials being allowed into Gaza, which has prevented the reconstruction necessary after three major Israeli military offensives waged on the enclave over the past decade. The World Bank also noted that the cuts to UNRWA funding announced early in 2018 have further hampered the chances for economic recovery.

Unemployment in the Gaza Strip is therefore one of the highest in the world; Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem notes that the unemployment rate in Gaza reached 46.6 per cent in the third quarter of 2017. Among those aged 20 to 24, unemployment reached 67.8 per cent, and among women the rate was 71 per cent. Overcrowding and a predominantly young population have contributed further to this problem.

Gaza’s agricultural potential is stifled

Gaza has huge agricultural potential, but much of this is stifled by the siege. Highly-fertile land means that fresh fruit including strawberries, tomatoes, peppers, as well as herbs, used to be huge contributors to Gaza’s economy.

In his book Gaza: Preparing for Dawn, former Jerusalem bureau chief for the Independent Donald Macintyre noted that even before the siege began officially, intensive Israeli security inspections often meant fresh produce “had rotted by the time [it] left Gaza.” With commercial crossings now closed; the lack of any potential for exporting via sea routes; and the lack of fresh water for irrigation purposes, much of this industry has failed.

Israeli herbicides kill Palestinian crops

Compounding the problem is Israel’s practice of spraying herbicides near the Gaza fence, which kills crops inside the territory. OCHAopt quotes the Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture as saying, “A spraying operation in January 2018 affected some 550 acres of agricultural lands belonging to 212 farmers, with an estimated loss of $1.3 million.” Israel insists the spraying is done on the Israeli side of the boundary, but has refused to consider claims made by Palestinian farmers for damage to their farmland.

Gaza receives only four to six hours’ electricity per day

Gaza receives just four to six hours of electricity per day because repairs have not been allowed to the territory’s only power plant, damaged by successive Israeli offensives. Fuel for the plant and emergency generators is also subject to tight import restrictions imposed by the Israeli siege. In 2017, OCHAopt reported that electricity shortages were directly affecting 14 hospitals and more than 140 health clinics in the Strip. In July 2018, patients from across Gaza’s hospitals staged a sit-in in front of the Erez crossing to highlight the shortages in medical equipment and resources, which prevent patients from receiving adequate care. These electricity shortages also impact schools’ capacity to provide education to Palestinian children, families’ ability to store food at home and employment opportunities in Gaza.

96% of Gaza’s water is undrinkable

According to OCHA OPT, 40 per cent of Gaza’s population receives just three to five hours of water supply every five days. In addition, over 96 per cent of water extracted from Gaza’s aquifers is unfit for human consumption; the aquifers have been contaminated by sea water as well as chemicals from fertilisers washed down by rainfall from Israeli settlements. This means that 90 per cent of Gazans have to buy desalinated or bottled water, imposing an additional cost burden on families already living under the poverty line. The water problem has been compounded by outages in electricity, which have led to sanitation difficulties and left untreated sewage to flow into the sea, contaminating 73 per cent of the shoreline.

Education is strained and graduates are jobless

Education has come under strain during the siege, with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) reporting that to cope with ever-increasing demand, 70 per cent of public and UNRWA schools teach in double shifts, where one group of students attends in the morning and another in the afternoon. Yet despite the challenges facing Gaza’s students, literacy rates remain among the highest across the Middle East-North Africa (MENA) region.

However, unemployment is particularly acute among those with college and university education, with B’Tselem noting that among residents of Gaza with post-secondary education, unemployment in late 2017 was 52.3 per cent.

Israel didn’t ‘disengage’ from Gaza

The official Israeli narrative states that Israel disengaged from Gaza in 2005, when it forced almost 8,000 illegal settlers to leave 21 settlements. Many settler families were given generous compensation packages in exchange, some amounting to almost $200,000, but others had to be removed by force.

However, the extent to which Israel disengaged from Gaza has been undermined by its implementation of the siege since 2007. Some have suggested that Israel simply replaced its direct control of Gaza with a remote control occupation, squeezing the economy, natural resources and movement of people all without maintaining boots on the ground.

With its complete control of Gaza’s air, land and sea borders, Israel remains technically and legally an occupying power in the territory. The occupation is still very much in place. This means, among other things, that Israel cannot claim that its military offensives are simply acts of self-defence; there is no such claim under international law for states involved in a military occupation, which those living under occupation have every right to resist.

HOW THE MLI IS NORMALISING ISRAEL THROUGH SELECTIVE NARRATIVES

RAMONA WADI

The Shalom Hartman Institute’s Muslim Leadership Initiative (MLI) barely manages to conceal its agenda. Launched in 2013, it has strived to marginalise Palestinians through its programme that emphasises fabrications of “conflict” to justify the prevailing Zionist colonial narrative. The institute’s choice of manipulation tactics lies in how to apply selectivity and disseminate the results to a wide audience. While such tactics are unlikely to convince anyone with an understanding of the Israeli settler-colonial expansion and violence in Palestine, the MLI’s programme includes visits to Israel with the intention of communicating the Israeli colonial narrative. In keeping with its purported expansion of “participants’ critical understanding”, it defines the space and context of how Palestinians are represented by the institute. The tactic employed is to manipulate Palestinian aims by eliminating their expression and speaking over them. Palestinians’ function, in this case, is to build the coloniser’s narrative and exist as a mere appendage, rather than embody their own history and memory. “Serving Israel” is the foundation of the Shalom Hartman’s Institute. Through its programs, among these, the MLI, it invites “American Muslims to explore how Jews understand Judaism, Israel, and Jewish peoplehood.” The overt implication of religion obscures the ultimate aim — that of normalising Israel through selective narratives that serve the colonial project. Some weeks ago, Wajahat Ali’s article in the Atlantic, titled A Muslim Among the Settlers elicited furore and accusations of normalising Israel’s existence. Reading the article, it is clear how a very selective process was applied to document the settler narrative. Besides use of language that implied doubts as regards to Israeli violations, mere landscape descriptions contrasting Israel and the occupied West Bank were juxtaposed as orderly and disorderly without any context as to why territory inhabited by Palestinians is described in a crude manner, while labelling Palestinians “creative” for seeking ways to live with the absence of basic necessities, such as water. Earlier, on May 15, the Times of Israel published an article by Donniel Hartman, President of the Shalom Hartman Institute, titled “The Moral Challenge of Gaza”. Unlike Ali’s article, which plays with barely disguised nuances that normalise Israeli violence, Hartman openly justifies the IDF’s use of force against Palestinians demonstrating at the Gaza border:

“What is happening on the Gaza border is not a protest against the reality of life in Gaza, but an attack against the sovereignty of Israel and its right to exist.” Hartman says that “Palestinians have every right to their narrative of Nakba”, but the settler-population is also within its rights to “express joy at being in our home country, whose capital is Jerusalem.” From describing Israel’s presence in Palestine as a benevolent project to silencing Nakba memory through state-fabricated narratives of the homeland, it is easy to see that settler-colonialism takes precedence in both of these writing examples. It is not about eliminating Palestinian presence, but justifying the settler-colonial population defining its existence at the expense of Palestinians, their territory, and their memory. What purported understanding is the MLI, through the institute, seeking to impart? Similarly to the international political impositions, it employs normalisation through the two-state compromise. The coercion in such an agenda is concealed through references to “peace”, which makes it incumbent upon Palestinians to legitimise the violent colonisation of their land and people while getting fragments of territory in return. The international community uses the term “peace” as a euphemism for the acceptance of violence. Little differs with the Shalom Hartman institute and its programs, except for the fact that it finds willing participants in society that can further the Israeli agenda of oblivion when it comes to Palestinian narratives and history. Politics and propaganda can play its role in the normalisation of Israeli violence through the insistence of the two-state paradigm. Just as the international community is relying upon the obsolete imposition, declared so by the Middle East Quartet, the Shalom Hartman Institute’s evoking of the same turns the defunct into opportunities for Israel, through its programs and participants.

Ramona Wadi Ramona Wadi is an independent researcher, freelance journalist, book reviewer and blogger specializing in the struggle for memory in Chile and Palestine.

World will never forget Palestinian map

By: Khamenei.ir The Zionist regime will not survive. All historical experiences, certainly, dictate and convey this message. The Zionist regime has fundamental problems. Today, the Americans, the elements in the Zionist regime, itself, and some weak-willed governments, which are obedient to the US, think that by establishing overt or covert diplomacy with the Zionist regime, they can solve some problems. --This is not the case. The problems caused by the Zionist regime will not be solved by the existence or non-existence of a diplomatic relationship with other governments. It is not the case that problems initiated by the Zionist regime will be resolved should two, three governments – more or less – establish relations with it or break the taboo of establishing relations with "Israel" and join hands with it. The Zionist regime's biggest problem stems from its lack of legitimacy: the Zionist regime is illegitimate; the formation of this regime is based on a lie. Zionists expelled a people from their country by force, via massacres and threats, and with the help of armed forces: they did this to a historical nation. The Palestinian nation is not an illegitimate or newly-emerged nation: the same is true of the country of Palestine. Are they able to eliminate Palestine's map from the historical-geographical memory of the world? Is this possible? Even if they force several weak-willed countries in the Middle-Eastern region into establishing diplomatic relations with the Zionist regime, this will not solve their problem: the source of their problems stems from lack of legitimacy. The Zionist regime's foundations in the region are shaky, unstable, and faulty: this is not something wherein the key to solving matters are in the hands of other government officials. The people's emotions in some of the countries, which happen to have a long history of friendly relations with the Zionist regime – I will not mention which countries, are getting much tenser towards the Zionist regime than other countries. The overall concern rest with several nations.

The Zionist regime's lack of legitimacy has been carved into the hearts of the Islamic Ummah and this is not erasable. They will not be able to solve this problem with the efforts of the White House and by transferring the US embassy to Quds and other such actions. This problem is unsolvable. And without doubt, by Allah's favor and with the determination of Muslim nations, this regime – which has been created on the basis of falsehood – will be completely destroyed. Like all free countries in the world, the people of Palestine – real Palestinians – should be asked for their opinions: this includes Palestinian Muslims, Christians, and Jews. Those who are Palestinian – not those who have entered Palestine from other places – should be asked to express their opinions. The votes of those who are Palestinian should become a point of reference. They should be asked to give their opinions. It is they who should determine the government of the country of Palestine. Then, that government will make a decision on those who have entered the region unlawfully – the Zionists, their leaders, and the rest. There is no other way to heal Palestine, and this also provokes the annihilation of the evil and illegitimate Zionist regime which, unfortunately, has power today. By Allah's favor and grace, this [end of the Zionists regime] will definitely happen in the not-too-distant future – one cannot set a date for this time to come, it will happen. And when it happens, Muslim nations will manage to achieve unity in the region, God willing.

Feeding ‘the Monster’

Dr. Philip M. Giraldi, Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, has written an interesting article on the fact that Washington's spinelessness enables Israeli brutality. What follows is all from Dr. Giraldi’s own tongue and words.

I, Dr. Philip M. Giraldi, Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, have just spent a couple of days in New York City. Returning to Virginia a few days ago, I had a somewhat strange experience. I cleared through my emails before leaving the hotel and also read through a number of the featured news articles. One, in particular, caught my eye. It described how the US Democratic Party primary in Queens New York had returned a startling result. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won over mainstream incumbent Joe Crowley, signaling that not everyone in the Democratic Party is buying into the Clinton model of good governance by big donors and powerful interest groups. Many want change and even a radical departure from the political game whereby media savvy pressure groups and narrow constituencies are pandered to create a governing majority. 

 One paragraph in particular in the article I read was highly suggestive, the claim that Ocasio-Cortez had been strongly opposed to the Israelis’ routine slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza, which has by now become of such little import that it is not even reported any more in the U.S. media. She is also allegedly a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction movement (BDS), which pressures the usurper regime of Israel to end its theft and occupation of Palestinian land. The article expressed some surprise that anyone in New York City would dare to say anything unpleasant about Israel and still expect to get elected. 

 This is what Ocasio-Cortez, who called the shooting of more than 130 Gazans a “massacre,” actually said and wrote: 

“No state or entity is absolved of mass shootings of protesters. There is no justification. Palestinian people deserve basic human dignity, as anyone else. Democrats can’t be silent about this anymore. I think I was primarily compelled to speak out on moral grounds because I could only imagine if 60 people were shot and killed in Ferguson. Or if 60 people were shot and killed in the West Virginia teachers’ strikes. The idea that we are not supposed to talk about people dying when they are engaging in political expression just really moved me.” 

 Five hours later, when I arrived home in Virginia I went to pull up the article I had read in the morning to possibly use it in a piece of my own and was somewhat surprised to discover that the bit about Israel had been removed from the text. It was clearly yet another example of how the media self-censors when there is anything negative to say about the brutal Zionist regime of Israel and it underlines the significance of the emergence of recent international media reporting in The Guardian and elsewhere regarding how Zionist billionaire Sheldon Adelson largely dictates U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. That means that the conspiracy of silence over Israel’s manipulation of the United States government is beginning to break down and journalists have become bold enough to challenge what occurs when pro-Zionist guys obtain real power over the political process. Adelson, for what it’s worth, wants war with Iran and has even suggested detonating a nuclear device on its soil to “send a message.” 

 I, Dr. Philip M. Giraldi, Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, personally would have liked to see Ocasio-Cortez go farther, a lot farther. The occupied lands called “Israel” is a place where conventional morality has been replaced by an alleged ‘theocratically’ and culturally driven sense of entitlement which has meant that anything goes when it comes to the treatment of “inferior” Christian and Muslim Arabs from the Zionists’ eyes. It also means that the United States is being played for a patsy by people who believe themselves to be superior in every way to Americans. 


 The question of the relationship with Israel comes at a time when everyone in America, so it seems, is concerned about children being separated from their parents who have illegally crossed the border from Mexico into the United States. The concern is legitimate given the coarse and sometimes violent justifications coming out of the White House, but it’s a funny thing that Israeli abuse and even killing of Arab children is not met with the same opprobrium. When a Zionist fanatic/Israel settler kills Palestinian children and is protected by his government in so doing, where is the outrage in the U.S. media? Settlers and soldiers martyr Palestinians, young and old, with impunity and are almost never punished. They destroy their orchards and livestock to eliminate their livelihoods to drive them out. They bulldoze their homes and villages. The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency does none of that and is yet subject to nonstop abuse in the mainstream media, so what about Israel? 

 A recent story illustrates just how horrible the Israelis can be without any pushback whatsoever coming from Washington objecting to their behavior. As the United States is unfortunately the only force that can in any way compel Israel to come to its senses and chooses not to do so, that makes U.S. policymakers and by extension the American people complicit in Israel’s crimes. 

The UN is in fact manipulated in a way, the US has vetoed several anti-Israel bills at the UN Security Council. The particularly horrible recent account that I, Dr. Philip M. Giraldi, Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, am referring to describes how fanatical Zionist settlers burned alive a Palestinian family on the West Bank, including a baby, and then celebrated the deaths while taunting the victims’ surviving family when they subsequently appeared in court. The story was covered in Israel and Europe but insofar as I could determine did not appear in any detail in the U.S. mainstream media. 

 Israeli settlers carried out their shameful deed outside a court in the city of Lod, chanting “’Ali was burned, where is Ali? There is no Ali. Ali is burned. On the fire. Ali is on the grill!” referring to the 18-month old baby Ali Dawabsheh, who was burnt alive in 2015 by Zionist settlers hurling Molotov cocktails into a house in the West Bank town of Duma. Ali’s mother Riham and father Saad also died of their burns and were included in the chanting “Where is Ali? Where is Riham? Where is Saad? It’s too bad Ahmed didn’t burn as well.” Five year-old Ahmed, who alone survived the attack with severe burns, will have scars for the rest of his life. 

 The Zionist settlers were taunting Ali’s grandfather Hussein Dawabsheh, who accompanied Ahmed, at a preliminary hearing where the court indicted a man who confessed to the murders and a minor who acted as an accomplice. A video of the chanting shows Israeli policemen standing by and doing nothing. The court appearance also revealed that there has been another Molotov cocktail attack by settlers on another Dawabsheh family house in May that may have been an attempt to silence testimony relating to the first attack. Fortunately, the family managed to escape. 

 And by all accounts this outrage was not the first incident in which the burning of the Palestinian baby was celebrated. A December 15th wedding video showed settlers engaged in an uproarious party that featured dances with Molotov cocktails and waving knives and guns. A photo of baby Ali was on display and was repeatedly stabbed. A year later, 13 people from what became known as the “murder wedding” were indicted for incitement to terrorism, but as of today no one has actually been punished. Israelis who kill Arabs have never been indicted or tried. If it is a soldier or policeman that is involved, which occurs all too often, the penalty is frequently either nothing at all a slap on the wrist. Indeed, the snipers who fired on Gazans recently were actually ordered to shoot the unarmed civilians and directed to take out anyone who appeared to be a “leader,” which included medical personnel. 


 The Trump Administration could, of course, stop the Israeli brutality if it chooses to do so, but it does not think Benjamin Netanyahu’s crimes against humanity are on the agenda. Nor did Clinton, Bush and Obama dare to confront the power of Israel’s lobby, though Obama tried a little pushback in a feeble way. 

 Someone in Washington should be asking why the United States should be fighting unnecessary wars and becoming an international pariah defending a brutal Zionist and usurper regime that believe they are “chosen” by God? One can only hope that the shift in perceptions on the Middle East by liberal Democrats like Ocasio-Cortez has some legs and will lead to some real change in U.S. foreign policy. To succeed the liberal Democrats will need to push against some formidable obstacles within their own party, most notably the Clinton wing and people like Senator Chuck Schumer, Minority leader in the Senate, who describes himself as Israel’s “shomer” or defender in the Upper House. Perhaps someone on the New York Times editorial board should publicly suggest to Schumer that he go and run for office in Israel since he seems to prefer it to the country that has made him rich and powerful. But of course, the Times and all the other mainstream media, which is responsible for what we are not allowed to know about Israel and its American mouthpieces, will never entertain that suggestion or anything like it.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is www.councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134