In plaats van in te gaan op de waarschuwing van de VN om de blokkade van de Gazastrook op te heffen voor humanitaire hulp, heeft Israël letterlijk de waterkraan voor de Gazastrook gesloten, terwijl dit gebied gebukt gaat onder droogte……..
Dit terwijl 97% van de Gazaanse watervoorraad is verontreinigd met rioolwater en zout, dit was begin vorig jaar al zo en de situatie is sindsdien niet verbeterd……. VN woordvoerder Robert Piper noemt de situatie ernstig en stelt dat de organisatie voor wie hij werkt achterloopt met het voorzien van de Gazanen van drinkwater…….. (overigens de situatie op de West bank niet veel beter dan die in de Gazastrook en de volgende gegevens zijn ook daar voor het grootste deel van toepassing, behalve dan de genoemde verontreiniging van de grondwatervoorraad….)
Hierbij komen ook de verdoemde Oslo akkoorden weer om de hoek kijken: destijds werd afgesproken dat Israël (dat toentertijd een deel van de Gazastrook bezet hield voor illegale nederzettingen) de grondwatervoorraden voor de Gazastrook (en West Bank) beheert, waarbij de verdeling werd vastgesteld op 4 keer de hoeveelheid voor Israël en de rest voor de Palestijnen. Echter in de praktijk gebruikt Israël meer dan 80% van de watervoorraad….. Israël verkoopt water aan de Palestijnen tegen de hoofdprijs, terwijl de zwembaden in de illegale nederzettingen (dat zijn alle nederzettingen…..) en elders t.b.v. de Israëliërs goed gevuld zijn……
Men mag van Israël in de Gazastrook geen putten slaan (in wat hoger gelegen gebied waar dit water nog wel bruikbaar is) en het is de Gazanen zelfs verboden om regenwater op te vangen in door hen gegraven bekkens……… Lees ook het volgende Haaretz artikel: ‘Otherwise Occupied // The Israeli ‘Watergate’ Scandal: The Facts About Palestinian Water‘, een link die je ook in het volgende artikel tegen zal komen)
Israël heeft het grootste deel van de infrastructuur in de Gazastrook vernield en ook elektriciteit wordt de Gazanen maar al te vaak onthouden (veelal heeft men 6 uur per dag elektriciteit…), nadat Israël de Palestijnse elektriciteitscentrale in 2014 aan flenters heeft gebombardeerd…… Als gevolg daarvan werken ook de sanitaire voorzieningen in dit uiterst dichtbevolkte gebied voor het grootste deel niet, een gebied dat in feite een openluchtgevangenis, of SS stijl getto is………. Pompen in de Gazastrook werken niet meer en de fascistische apartheidsstaat Israël houdt de import van onderdelen ter reparatie tegen……
Ongelofelijk dat de wereld keer op keer Israël laat wegkomen met deze oorlogsmisdaden, met deze misdaden tegen de menselijkheid en het aanrichten van enorme bloedbaden onder de Palestijnse bevolking…….. Waar zijn de hypocriete politici die vooraan staan te schreeuwen als het om landen als Rusland, Iran, Noord-Korea en Syrië gaat, waartegen men ofwel boycots heeft ingesteld en openlijk dan wel verhuld een verandering van regime eist ,onder meer gebaseerd op ‘mensenrechtenschendingen…….’
Terecht wordt in de kop boven het volgende artikel van Darius Shahtahmasebi de vraag gesteld of er hier sprake is van een genocide…. Als het zo doorgaat zal het niet lang meer duren of het zal duidelijk zijn, dat Israël bezig is met een genocide uit te voeren op de Palestijnen……..
Lees het volgende uitstekende artikel van Darius Shahtahmasebi:
Genocide?
As Gaza Dries Out, Israel Turns Off Fresh Water Spigot
Rather
than heeding the warnings from the UN to open up Gaza’s blockade
and allow vital aid, what we have witnessed over the course of the
last decade is a periodic all-out Israeli assault on Gaza’s vital
infrastructure.
February
15th, 2018
GAZA (Analysis) — Near the end of last month, Haaretz reported that, according to an expert hydrologist, 97 percent of Gaza’s drinking water has been contaminated by sewage and salt. The UN also confirmed that this was the case early last year, and clearly, the situation has remained unchanged even up until 2018. Robert Piper, the UN’s local coordinator for humanitarian and development activities, has called the situation “really very serious” and stated that “[w]e are falling far behind the demand for clean drinking water for Gazans.”
This
kind of mistreatment is part and parcel of an overall package of
deprivation that continues to plague the Palestinian people. There
are some 2 million residents in Gaza affected by this egregious
policy, famously one of the most densely populated areas on the
planet. Gaza’s water resources are fully controlled by Israel and
the division of groundwater is something that was provided for in the
Oslo II Accord. However, despite the fact that under the Accord
Israel is allocated
four times the
Palestinian portion of water resources, it has
been revealed that
Israel has been extracting 80 percent more water from the West Bank
than it agreed to.
In
2009, the World Bank wrote that
the responsibility was on the government of Israel to recognize that
water and sanitation is a central component of the Gaza Strip
humanitarian crisis and make arrangements to facilitate fuel
distribution to some 170 water and sewage pumps in Gaza; maintain the
Beit Lahiya Sewage Lake; and restore regular electricity supply in
order to reduce dependence on fuel for generators.
According
to the World Bank, at the time, almost all of Gaza’s population was
without running water and was dependent on stored water supplies. The
World Bank also noted that nearly all sewage and water pumps were out
of operation due to lack of electricity and diminished fuel supplies,
something that we will address below. But once again, these
deficiencies fall squarely on the shoulders of the Israeli
government, which is wholly responsible for Gaza’s electricity and
water supply.
In
order to rectify the issue, the Deputy UN Special Coordinator for the
Middle East Peace Process, Maxwell Gaylard, called
for the immediate opening of
Gaza’s crossings to allow the entry of spare parts and materials
critical to the restoration of Gaza’s water and sanitation
services. Israel famously closed Gaza’s crossing points in June
2007 and the local population has been suffering ever since.
However,
there are many other factors that have helped to create this
humanitarian catastrophe. Israel routinely unleashes bombing
campaigns on the Gaza Strip every few years, targeting vital
infrastructure, including destroying
Gaza’s only power plant in 2014.
The blockade single-handedly prevents vital materials and equipment
from making its way into Gaza, making redevelopment impossible, even
some four years later.
Electricity
supply
A
Palestinian family warm themselves on a fire outside their makeshift
home during a power cut in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.
(AP/ Khalil Hamra
According to
the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the Gaza Strip
endures dry, hot summers that are subject to drought.
Exploiting
these conditions, Israel has used electricity as an inventive point
of leverage to torture the Palestinian people, while the
international community has stayed largely silent. This is the same
international community that cites human rights abuses in Syria,
Iran, and North Korea to promote military intervention and regime
change to suit its geopolitical needs, yet stays silent as 2 million
Gazan residents are suffering immensely in what is widely regarded as
an open-air
prison and
the world’s largest ghetto.
On
a good day, residents in Gaza over the last six months have been
receiving three
to four hours of electricity per day, the flow of which is controlled
by Israel. However, according to the Times
of Israel,
Gazans were only able to obtain four hours’ worth of electricity
thanks mainly to fuel supplies sent from Egypt. On a bad day, some
estimates cite
that Gazans have been receiving as little as two hours electricity
per day if any at all.
After
the Palestinian Authority said
it would begin
resuming payment for Israeli electricity flows to the Gaza Strip (at
a cost of some $2.8 million per month), Israel announced it would
restore its share of the electricity supply. However, this will
increase Gaza’s electricity supply only to approximately six hours’
worth of electricity per day. The outage of electricity is expected
to last for 12 hours a day at least, according to the Electronic
Intifada.
One
should bear in mind that, with a Gazan population of around 2 million
residents, the effects of this stringent electricity supply are felt
far beyond just the average household. In August of last year, Gaza’s
children’s hospitals also
warned of
a health “catastrophe,” as power cuts routinely take place during
four-hour-long dialysis treatment.
For
years, Israel has attempted to shed blame from its inhumane policies
and instead point to the debacle solely on an internal Palestinian
issue between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. Last year, Human
Rights Watch’s director for the region, Omar Shakir, told
the right-wing pro-Israel publication Algemeiner that
because Israel is “legally the occupying power,” it bore the
brunt of the responsibility for this crisis. “Israel controls the
borders, the airspace, the waters of Gaza, so Israel has an
obligation that goes beyond merely responding to a request from
Palestinian authorities,” Shakir reportedly said.
The Electronic
Intifada also
notes that Israel has been using electricity as a politically viable
blackmail tool, with Israel’s Coordination of Government Activities
in the Territories (COGAT) stating it
would restore electricity after Israeli prisoners held in Gaza were
returned, as well as the bodies of two Israeli Defense Forces (IDF)
soldiers, Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul. It is also worth noting that
Egypt, too, shares
a great dealof
the blame for this horrific treatment of the Palestinian people
Assaults
on Gaza
A
Palestinian girl walks next to destroyed houses, in the Shijaiyah
neighborhood of Gaza City after a devastating bombing campaign by
Israel in March of 2015.
Rather
than heeding the warnings from the UN to open up Gaza’s blockade
and allow vital aid, what we have witnessed over the course of the
last decade is a periodic all-out assault on Gaza’s vital
infrastructure.
Since
the blockade was enforced, there have been three major IDF operations
in Gaza: Operation Cast Lead in 2008-2009, Operation Pillar of
Defense in 2012, and Operation Protective Edge in 2014.
Following
Operation Cast Lead, the World Bank reported that
there had been severe damage to the water and sanitation
infrastructure in the Gaza Strip.
After
Operation Protective Edge in 2014, the UN reported that
more than 20,000 Palestinian homes, 148 schools and 60 healthcare
centers in Gaza were damaged or destroyed. Israel even
bombed a
disability center at the time. Gaza has no air force, no air
defenses, and no substantive military to defend its people.
While
most pro-Israeli pundits would point to Hamas rocket fire as an
excuse for the interventions, the truth on the ground tells a
different story.
The
Submission to the United Nations Independent Commission of Inquiry on
the 2014 Gaza Conflict, published
by Truthout,
quite clearly demonstrates that Israeli airstrikes and ground
attacks preceded Hamas
rocket fire; and that Hamas rocket-fire had been nonexistent since
Israel’s previous assault in 2012. In other words, Hamas had been
abiding by its terms of the ceasefire —
even while Israel had been starving Gaza of basic human rights, as
argued and outlined above.
Further,
in July 2014, The
Guardian published a
blog by investigative journalist Nafeez Ahmed, which claimed Israel’s
brutal assault on Gaza in 2014 was rooted in a desire to control
Palestinian gas off the coast of Gaza and had nothing to do with
concerns about Hamas rocket fire. The
Guardian axed
his blog
not long after.
The
Jerusalem debacle
Israeli
police fire tear gas at Palestine protesters during protests against
US. President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the
capital of Israel. Ramallah, Occupied Palestine. Feb 2, 2018.
(AP/Majdi Mohammed)
Israel modus
operandi has
been to attack Gaza by punishing the civilian population with these
heavy sanctions affecting its basic life necessities. It is almost as
if the Israeli government has been attempting to provoke a response
from the Gaza Strip, which could then be used again to justify yet
another intervention — given it has been proven that Israel has
lied about its stated reasons for intervention in the past. This
response, however, never came in the form that Israel might have
hoped for.
U.S.
President Donald Trump’s decision to unilaterally declare Jerusalem
the capital of Israel, inflaming an already tense situation, was the
political icing on the cake of Palestinian suffering. Regardless of
one’s views on the Israel-Palestine conflict, which continues to
divide people all along the political spectrum, the fact remains that
this decision alone pushed an already volatile situation to a point
of outright violence. According
to Reuters,
since Trump’s infamous decision, at least 13 Palestinians have been
killed in clashes with Israeli forces.
Further,
it wasn’t long after Trump’s announcement that Israel
began resuming
air strikes in
the Gaza Strip. Perhaps this is a sign of things to come in the
not-too-distant future. While tensions are heating up between Israel
and Syria, Lebanon and Iran, it has been largely overlooked that
Hamas and Israel are preparing for an imminent
war even
as we speak.
Gaza
in crisis
A
Palestinian man and his son warm themselves by a fire during cold,
rainy weather on the outskirts of the Khan Younis refugee camp in the
southern Gaza Strip, Jan. 5, 2018. (AP/ Khalil Hamra)
In
2015, the UN predicted that
Gaza would become uninhabitable by 2020. Not pulling any punches, the
UN concedes the cause of this crisis is based on two important
factors: Israeli military operations and the decades-long blockade
that has crippled Gaza’s economy and infrastructure. Reportedly,
Gaza has an unemployment
rate of some 50 percent,
the highest unemployment
rate in the world,
with a youth unemployment rate of at least 60
percent.
According
to The
New York Times,
UN officials are warning that Gaza is facing a total collapse. Rather
than exporting some much-needed freedom, human rights and democracy,
the Trump administration instead announced that it would withhold $65
million from UNRWA — vital money required for providing basic
necessities for some 1.2 million Palestinians in Gaza. The Times also
wrote:
Still,
whether out of bluster or desperation, Gazans both in and out of
power have begun talking openly about confronting Israel over its
blockade in the kind of mass action that could easily lead to
casualties and escalation.”
No
matter how one cuts it, whether Israel has been intentionally trying
to elicit a response from Gaza or not, the fact remains that the
Israeli government is intentionally pursuing a long list of policies
that will almost certainly lead to a hostile escalation, as the
international community continues to turn a blind eye to the everyday
suffering of the Palestinian people. Israeli policies indeed border
on a systematic genocide that will, if unchecked, completely erode
the Gaza Strip to nothingness in just a few short years.
Top
Photo | Palestinian children fill their bottles with water from
a UNICEF tap in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. (Photo: UNICEF)
Darius
Shahtahmasebi is
a practicing attorney with an interest in human rights, international
law, and journalism. He is a graduate of the University of Otago,
where he obtained degrees in Law and Japanese. Follow him on
Twitter at @TVsLeaking.
==========================================
Tot slot nog dit: Ahed al-Tamimi, een meisje van 17 zit nog steeds vast in een militaire gevangenis, dit vanwege het in het gezicht slaan van een Israëlische militair……
Free Ahed Tamimi and all other Palestinian kids!
Zie wat het vorige betreft ook: ‘Israëlische rechtbank besloot proces tegen 17 jarig meisje Ahed al-Tamimi achter gesloten deuren te houden >> voor haar eigen bestwil….. ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!‘
en: ‘Israël gebruikt nieuw chemisch wapen tegen Palestijnse demonstranten in de Gazastrook‘
