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UK Rights Groups: Gaza in Severe Crisis •
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West Bank Barriers Keep Rising Despite Promises of Relief
By Griff Witte
The Washington Post
Thursday 06 March 2008
Commute becomes "daily humiliation."
Azun, West Bank - Karim Edwan's skepticism about the U.S.-backed Middle East
peace process is rooted in his morning commute.
To travel from his home in this West Bank village to his job as an emergency
room doctor, the 35-year-old must take at least two cabs, skirt a barbed-wire
fence, climb a dirt mound, talk his way through multiple Israeli checkpoints
and remove his shoes for a full-body security check.
Before the obstacles were imposed, the trip to his hospital in the West Bank
city of Nablus took 30 minutes. Now it takes two hours.
"It's my daily humiliation," he said.
It's also part of the explanation for why there is little enthusiasm in the
West Bank for negotiations with Israel, and why Palestinian Authority President
Mahmoud Abbas is in a bind over how to proceed.
The hope of Abbas and other participants in the Annapolis peace talks last
November was that the Israeli-occupied West Bank would become a model for what
negotiations could bring.
They envisioned the residents of Gaza suffering under the radical Islamic group
Hamas, which opposes Israel's right to exist and is not participating in the
talks. Meanwhile, the West Bank, where Abbas holds sway, would be rewarded with
a reduction of the internal barriers that Israel has imposed in the name of
security. Checkpoints, barbed wire, roadblocks and trenches slice through the
territory, cutting areas off from one another and causing economic hardship.
But in the more than three months since the Annapolis talks, more barriers
have gone up than have come down.
"There has been no significant improvement in movement or access. And
in fact, there's been an increase in the number of physical obstacles since
Annapolis," said Allegra Pacheco, head of information and advocacy for
the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Jerusalem.
The organization's latest count of barriers in the West Bank is 580, up from
563 recorded in November and about 50 percent higher than it was 2 1/2 years
ago.
To senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, the barriers represent a breach
of trust. He said he has been assured repeatedly by Israel that a significant
number of the blockades would come down.
"It's ridiculous to talk about anything involving economic development
when this system of suffocation continues," he said.
But Israel contends that the Palestinian Authority has not upheld its end of
the bargain by improving its security services.
"The Palestinian Authority could help us move on this issue," said
Mark Regev, spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
"The goal is to have a situation where a Palestinian can go from one part
of the Palestinian Authority to another part of the Palestinian Authority without
a roadblock," and reaching that goal is important for the peace process,
he said.
But for now, the Israeli military says the barriers remain necessary. They
are "designed to minimize inconvenience to the Palestinian population while
preserving the safety and lives of Israelis," said Capt. Noa Meir, a military
spokeswoman.
In Azun, for instance, the military said it installed new barriers after a
recent surge of incidents in which Palestinians hurled rocks and molotov cocktails
at cars traveling to and from a nearby Israeli settlement.
To Azun's residents, however, that's just an excuse for a policy of harassment
designed to protect the settlers' interests and drive the Palestinians away.
This village of 10,000 is ringed by olive trees and is home to a couple of
dozen small shops. For the past month, residents have had to contend with coils
of barbed wire and a freshly deposited dirt mound in the center of what was
once a busy street. Both obstacles are designed to keep cars and people from
easily accessing a primary road along the edge of town that is used by the settlers.
"This crossing was the life of the town," said Khalid Hammed, 40,
a laborer who spoke from behind the coils of wire. "Now our life has stopped."
The road closures are not the only problem. The army has frequently imposed
curfews in recent weeks, residents say, effectively shutting down not just individual
roads but the entire town. The curfews often extend throughout the day, making
it impossible for the people of Azun to get to their jobs or buy food at the
market.
If a curfew is imposed while Edwan is at work, the doctor has to return stealthily
- creeping from house to house until he reaches his home, all the while on
the lookout for patrolling Israeli troops.
"It's like a big jail," Edwan said. "Nothing is in our hands."
One day this week, all of the shops were locked tight at noon. The streets
of Azun were empty of vehicle traffic, and children who occasionally peaked
out from side streets ran for cover at the sound of a vehicle approaching down
the desolate main road.
Three soldiers in an armored jeep were stationed in the center of town, stopping
anyone in sight and asking for identification.
Residents were instructed to go home immediately. Outsiders were ordered to
leave.
"The village," one of the soldiers said, "is closed."
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UK Rights Groups: Gaza in Severe Crisis
By Aron Heller
The Associated Press
Wednesday 05 March 2008
Jerusalem - A human rights coalition charged Thursday that the humanitarian
situation in the Gaza Strip has reached its worst point since Israel captured
the territory in 1967.
In a scathing report, eight British-based rights organizations said that more
than 1.1 million people, about 80 percent of Gaza's residents, are now dependent
on food aid, as opposed to 63 percent in 2006. It said that overall unemployment
is close to 40 percent.
It also said that hospitals are suffering from power cuts of up to 12 hours
a day, and the water and sewage systems were close to collapse.
The report follows strident international condemnation of Israel after it struck
hard against Palestinian militants in Gaza, killing more than 120 in the past
week, including many civilians, after Palestinians militants escalated their
daily rocket fire at Israel.
The Palestinian rockets have killed 13 people, wounded dozens more, traumatized
thousands and caused millions of dollars in damage.
Israel's Defense Ministry rejected the report, blaming the militant Hamas rulers
of Gaza for the hardships.
"The main responsibility for events in Gaza - since the withdrawal of
Israel from the territory and the uprooting of the settlements there - is the
Hamas organization, to which all complaints should be addressed," read
a statement by spokesman, Maj. Peter Lerner.
Amnesty International UK Director Kate Allen said Israel must protect its citizens,
"but as the occupying power in Gaza it also has a legal duty to ensure
that Gazans have access to food, clean water, electricity and medical care."
Israel removed all 21 settlements and withdrew its forces from Gaza in 2005.
Israel maintains that ended its occupation, but rights groups say that since
Israel still controls Gaza's land, sea and air access, it is still the occupier.
After Hamas militants seized control of Gaza in June, Israel closed its crossings,
allowing only shipments of vital goods into Gaza.
The 16-page report - sponsored by Amnesty, along with CARE International UK,
CAFOD, Christian Aid, Medecins du Monde UK, Oxfam, Save the Children UK and
Trocaire - calls on the British government to exert greater pressure on Israel
and to reverse its policy on not negotiating with Gaza's Hamas rulers.
Israel and the West shun Hamas and label it a terrorist organization. Hamas
does not accept the presence of a Jewish state.
Replying to the report, Israel's Defense Ministry said it was misdirected.
The Israeli Defense Ministry also said medicines and medical equipment are
shipped into Gaza with no limitation. On Wednesday, a typical day, the military
said it allowed 69 truckloads of supplies into Gaza, including basic food and
baby formula.
This week NGO Monitor, a Jerusalem-based watchdog, called on human rights groups
to end what it called their political use of international law. It cited an
Amnesty International press release that it said made unsubstantiated accusations
that Israeli responses "are being carried out with reckless disregard for
civilian life".
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On the Net:
http://www.amnesty.org
http://www.ngo-monitor.org
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