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 Posted: Fri Nov 14, 2008 8:45 am Post subject: Israel: Starving them out. International law requires that c |
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The Christian Science Monitor Nov 13, 10:53 AM EST
UN: Israel's border closures halting Gaza food aid
By BEN HUBBARD Associated Press Writer
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) -- A United Nations flour warehouse
in Gaza that was full early last week now stands empty - the
guttural sounds of trucks replaced by the chirping of pigeons
in the rafters.
Another warehouse holds just a few crates of lunch meat and
space usually filled with oil and powdered milk is taken up by
air conditioners for medical centers yet to be built.
Israel has kept its borders with Gaza shut for nine days in
response to Palestinian rocket and mortar fire. On Thursday,
the U.N. warned its stocks had run so low that it would not be
able to make its next delivery of food to 750,000 needy Gazans
on Saturday.
"We've been working here from hand to mouth for quite a long
time, so these interruptions on the crossing points affect us
immediately," said John Ging, director of U.N. Relief and
Works Agency operations in Gaza.
Israel's Defense Ministry had said it would allow 30
truckloads of humanitarian supplies into Gaza on Thursday. But
the crossings remained shut because militants fired rockets
and mortars into Israel earlier in the day, Israeli security
officials said.
The crisis is only the latest since Islamic militants from
Hamas overran the Gaza Strip last year. Hamas and Israel are
bitter enemies. Hamas does not recognize a place for a Jewish
state in an Islamic Middle East and has sent dozens of suicide
bombers into Israel, which in turn labels Hamas a terror
group.
To pressure Hamas, Israel imposed a blockade, allowing only
minimal humanitarian supplies and an occasional trickle of
commercial goods. All but one of Gaza's crossings are into
Israel. The exception is Rafah, which leads to Egypt but Egypt
is also enforcing a blockade.
Among the items UNRWA has not been able to get into Gaza are
fire extinguishers for its facilities, tires for its vehicles,
toner for the photocopiers in its schools and clinics and
materials for a blind children's center, said UNRWA spokesman
Christopher Gunness.
"These children are effectively being punished as a group, and
it's hard to see why they should be punished for a small group
of people firing rockets," Gunness said.
More than half of Gaza residents are refugees and their
descendants from the 1948-49 war over Israel's creation and
many still live in squalid shantytowns.
The Israeli blockade has plunged the crowded territory even
further into poverty, while keeping construction materials out
and Gazans locked in. About 80 percent of Gaza's 1.4 million
residents depend on food aid, according to U.N. figures.
No decision had yet been made about when to reopen the
crossings but the government was considering the U.N.'s
position, Israeli military spokesman Peter Lerner said.
However, "If Hamas continues firing rockets into Israel, it
impedes our ability to open the crossings," he said.
The U.N.'s Ging said vulnerable Gazans shouldn't be held
hostage to the actions of militants.
"International law, which regulates all these issues even
during conflict, requires that civilian populations have
access to the goods and services that they need to survive,"
he said.
Besides providing food aid in Gaza, the U.N. Relief and Works
Agency runs more than 220 schools and provides health care to
more than 1 million Palestinians.
The U.N. distributes food aid to Gazans in cycles. Families
are categorized by size and each group has a window every two
or three months when it can pick up its food.
When the U.N. is forced to stop distribution, the tens of
thousands of people eligible to get their food during that
period will get nothing, said U.N. officials. This will delay
the cycle, meaning that all food recipients will have to wait
longer for their next installment.
"If there's nothing there it will be a disaster for people
here," said Adil Adwalla, 35, pointing to the distribution
center in the Shati refugee camp, where he lives. He can't
find work as a construction worker because the blockade has
make building materials scare, he said. That makes the food
aid even more important to his wife and six children, he said.
"Most people here depend on the aid," he said. "If the
crossing are closed where else can get we food?"
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/ML_PALESTINIANS_GAZA_BL
OCKADE?SITE=MABOC&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2008-11-
13-10-53-42
--
A government, of, by, and, for: Rich, Elite, Freemasons.
But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the
light:
for whatsoever doth make manifest is light.
The light shineth in darkness;
and the darkness comprehended it not.
The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be
single,
thy whole body shall be full of light.
But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of
darkness.
If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great
is that darkness!
Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead,
and Christ shall give thee light.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. |
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Michael Dobony
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Nov 19, 2008 8:39 am Post subject: Re: Israel: Starving them out. International law requires th |
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On Fri, 14 Nov 2008 00:36:00 -0600, My Name wrote:
| Quote: | The Christian Science Monitor Nov 13, 10:53 AM EST
UN: Israel's border closures halting Gaza food aid
By BEN HUBBARD Associated Press Writer
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) -- A United Nations flour warehouse
in Gaza that was full early last week now stands empty - the
guttural sounds of trucks replaced by the chirping of pigeons
in the rafters.
Another warehouse holds just a few crates of lunch meat and
space usually filled with oil and powdered milk is taken up by
air conditioners for medical centers yet to be built.
Israel has kept its borders with Gaza shut for nine days in
response to Palestinian rocket and mortar fire. On Thursday,
the U.N. warned its stocks had run so low that it would not be
able to make its next delivery of food to 750,000 needy Gazans
on Saturday.
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Conveniently neglected in this article is the fact that Palestinian
authorities have continuously forced people to stay in "refuge camps" as
part of their propaganda. It is the Palestinian authorities who are
inventing a crisis for the purpose of getting world sympathy. |
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