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The Palestinian-International Campaign to End the Siege
on Gaza
November 2007
On 25
October, a Palestinian patient died at Erez
crossing while awaiting being allowed to cross to
Israeli hospital. A week ago, a woman died in Gaza
hospital with her newly born baby, while awaiting
permit to be transferred to Israel for medical
treatment.
These are not the first
victims,
and will certainly not be
the last should the current situation continue to
prevail
Last
week, the operations rooms in Gaza's main hospital were
shut down due to the lack of medical gases, which was
not allowed by the Israelis. Today Israel does not allow
except 12 basic items to enter Gaza, out of over 9,000
commodities. From soap to coffee, from water to soft
drinks, from fuel to gas, from computers to spare parts,
from cement to raw materials for industry, all and
hundred other items are not allowed into Gaza today.
The
Israeli cabinet declared Gaza as hostile entity, and has
declared its intentions to further intensify the
collective punishment by cutting the electricity power
and fuel products. Banks in Israel are also threatening
to cut off all financial cooperation with Palestinian
banks in Gaza.
Given
all this, we have adopted the initiative of the Gaza
Community Mental Health Programme to launch the
Palestinian-International campaign for breaking the
siege on Gaza, which has been intensified lately by the
strict siege imposed on the Gaza Strip since June 2007.
The aim of
this humanitarian, non-partisan campaign is to put
pressure on the Israeli government in order to lift the
siege imposed on the population of Gaza. By raising the
awareness of the international community on the
deteriorating living conditions resulting from the
siege, we aim at mobilizing the efforts of the various
international community organizations and governments
to stop the boycott of Gaza. We call for the
implementation of the recent European Parliament
resolution calling on the Israeli government to end the
siege.
It is
important to declare that "End the Siege" is a non-
partisan campaign, initiated and managed by
representatives of the
civil society, business community, intellectuals,
academics, women activists, and advocates for human
rights and peace from the West Bank and Gaza. We are all
guided by our commitment to peace and our respect to
human dignity.
We believe
that it is a moral and ethical duty to rescue the lives
of human souls living under bitter circumstances that
sabotage their right to exist. People in Gaza are
deprived of the simplest requirements for a decent life.
We are determined to move hand in hand and shoulder to
shoulder with all people who believe in freedom, human
dignity and peace.
We need the
support of all people who believe in justice all over
the world, to contribute to the success of this
campaign. We also call upon all Palestinians, whether in
Gaza, West Bank, inside the green-line, or anywhere else
in the Diaspora to support our efforts and join our
activities. It is a genuine call to rescue people not
governments or political parties. It is time to put
aside any partisan conflicts and unite people in the
pursuit of freedom, justice, and peace. We particularly
call upon Jews whose history of trauma, discrimination
and suffering should guide them to stand up today
against the suffering of others.
Planned activities of the
campaign:
The
campaign is planned to take place from November 2007
until the siege is broken. We will hold a press
conference to announce the launching of the campaign.
Media
and information technology methods will be our main
tools to lobby supporters
and
contributors from around the world.
The
first major event of the campaign will be organizing an
international symposium entitled “Breaking the Siege on
Gaza: Together for a United Front for Peace” in Gaza.
The
campaign will also include inviting friends from around
the world for an on-going individual or group visits to
Gaza. The visitors will have first hand information on
the Palestinian life in order to disseminate such
information in their own country. Visitors will be
hosted in Palestinian homes in order to closely get
acquainted with the Palestinian hardship realities and
their living conditions. Media coverage of the
activities in Gaza will be documented.
We
will rely on our Israeli friends to host and help our
friends from abroad who, if not allowed to enter Gaza,
are expected to stage non-violent protests.
We
will arrange for a peaceful march to Erez checkpoint
from both the Israeli and Palestinian sides of the
checkpoint. It will include peace activists from all
over the world.
Throughout the campaign, solidarity meetings, cultural
activities, and discussion will take place not only in
Gaza, but in Tel Aviv, Ramallah, and different cities in
the world.
The
campaign will include a major event in May, which is the
arrival of 120 human rights activists including Noble
Prize winners to Gaza on a boat coming from
Cyprus. This event will be titled “Free Gaza Movement
Day” and is planned by the "Free Gaza" solidarity group
in USA.
The
campaign will have special posters as well as a website
where all relevant materials will be published. The site
will give opportunity for people to exchange
information, ask questions, and have their comments.
Throughout the campaign, close contact with the media
will be maintained with regular feeding of information
and news update.
The Impacts
of the Siege on Gaza:
The Gaza
Strip has two main crossings that connect it to the
whole world, i.e. Rafah in the south (To Egypt) and Erez
in the north (to Israel) . There are three other
crossings that are used to exchange goods and bring in
food to the Gaza Strip; Today all are closed partially
or completely.
Since the
winning of Hamas in the Palestinian Legislative Council
elections in 2006, the Israeli government, with the
support of the US administration, has imposed a siege on
all the Palestinian occupied Territories, declared its
boycott on the new Palestinian government, and refused
to transfer customs revenues to the Palestinian
government. After taking these measures, several donor
countries including major donors like Europe have
severely cut off their development assistance offered to
the Palestinian people. The result of that form of
collective punishment was a gradual deterioration of
life in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT).
Following
Hamas military take-over of Gaza strip in June 2007, the
siege imposed by Israel was tightened to an
unprecedented level. Citing the continuing home-made
rockets from inside Gaza, the Israeli government has
recently declared Gaza as a hostile entity and
threatened to cut electrical power, fuel supply to Gaza
and to substantially decrease the number of people
allowed in and out; as well as, the amounts of goods and
food supplies, and money needed for the daily life of
people of Gaza.
The Israeli
policy of unlawful collective punishment has always had
its serious impact on the lives of the Palestinian
civilians.
Collective punishment is expressly forbidden under
international humanitarian law. According to this
principle, persons cannot be punished for offenses that
they have not personally committed. In its authoritative
commentary on Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva
Convention, the International Committee of the Red Cross
has clarified that the prohibition on collective
punishment does not just refer to criminal penalties,
“but penalties of any kind inflicted on persons or
entire groups of persons, in defiance of the most
elementary principles of humanity, for acts that these
persons have not committed.”
The siege
that was imposed on the Gaza Strip has created excessive
loss and damage in the different aspects of Palestinian
life. The Gaza Strip has turned into a huge prison with
no access to the outside world.
The health
sector has been dramatically affected by the siege.
According to the latest Humanitarian Situation Report of
the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
(OCHA) released on October 9th, 2007, fewer
than five patients crossed into Israel/West Bank each
day for medical treatment compared to an average of 40
patients per day in July . World Health Organization
has indicated, though, that an average of 1000 patients
used to leave Gaza for treatment each month prior to the
mid-June closures.
As a result
of the continuous closures, the United Nations World
Food Programme (WFP) has reported significant increases
in the costs of some food items. The price of 1 KG of
fresh meat has increased form NIS 32 to NIS 40 (20%)
while the price of chicken rose from NIS 8 to NIS 12
(33%). According to OCHA’s report of October, 9th,
during the month of September, a total of 1,508
truckloads of goods crossed into Gaza. This compares to
2,468 truckloads in the month of August and 3,190 in
July. There are no food stocks anymore and that
contributes to the rising of prices.
The
educational system in Gaza has also been affected by the
siege. With the start of the new school year, there has
been a serious lack of books and a shortage of the raw
materials needed for printing. According to the United
Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), one third of
the students started the school year without the needed
text books. The closures also deprived thousands of
students from reaching their universities outside the
Gaza Strip. Thousands of students are not allowed to
join their universities in the West Bank or abroad due
to the siege.
On the
industrial level, preventing the import of raw materials
essential for Gaza businesses and industry, and the
export of final goods, resulted in the shut down of many
manufacturing businesses. According to Paltrade’s
assessment on 12 September 2007, over 75,000 private
sector employees (around 60% of the total private sector
workforce) have been laid off in the latest three
months, bearing in mind that private sector employees
represent around 36% of the total work force in Gaza.
According to the Palestinian Private Sector Coordination
Council (PSCC), the current restrictions have led to the
suspension of 90% of Gaza’s industrial operations.
The agricultural sector is also at risk. According to
OCHA’s report, the export
season for Gaza’s cash crops (strawberries, carnation
flowers and cherry tomatoes) is expected to begin in
mid-November. This year, 2,500 dunums of strawberries
have been planted with an expected production of
approximately 6,250 tons of strawberries including 2,500
destined for European markets. 490 tons of cherry
tomatoes are also expected to be produced. If exports
are not allowed by this time, farmers will be exposed to
tremendous losses in terms of production cost and
potential sales.
According to the World Bank, 67% of the Gaza population
live under poverty line
which is estimated by World bank to be $2.per day. Since
human
beings are the products of the environment in which they
live, the Palestinian environment today is a combination
of deprivation, poverty, anger, feelings of
powerlessness and despair. Such feelings will inevitably
lead to simmering anger which will eventually brew into
more violence and defiance.
Palestinians
have gone through repeated traumas of death and
destruction of home and life over the past few decades.
The current siege provokes the previous traumas making
people re-experience the negative feelings that they
have previously encountered and passed through.
It is only to
be expected that in such an environment extremist
ideologies will flourish. This will impact on the
Palestinian society internally as well as the political
environment in the whole region, destroying the
possibilities of peace and security.
Putting all in a nutshell, with this immoral siege, Gaza
is meant to be the city of death where everything is
destroyed. It is our duty to rescue life.
See
also
Concept Paper French
Concept Paper Italian
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