Palestine: Gaza Under Seige
Bloggers around the region are adding their voices to an international outcry as the Gaza Strip falls into darkness. A four-day Israeli blockade on the strip has led to the closure of the territory's only power station because of the lack of fuel.
Jordan:
From Jordan, Khalida explains the situation on the ground:
Sometimes there aren’t enough words to describe what we are witnessing and what the news keep shoving down our throats every morning till we reached a point that nothing surprises us anymore, but what is happening in Gaza comes as a shock that leaves the majority of us speechless and helpless …
In a time and life that human rights are becoming a major factor in how societies are governed … in a world that the international community is judging the backward Middle East because of honor crimes, poverty, violence against women and primitive culture … the same community is standing still to watch as Gaza is being crucified and executed … it is cold and they don’t have heat … they are cut out from the rest of the world … and as well as they are dying by bullets and military attacks; they are also being killed by hunger and cold …
I choose to raise my voice to say STOP … ENOUGH … Life is not a game and just because they reside in Gaza … it does not make their lives of any less value than any other human in any part of the world …
Palestine:
Umm Khalil, from Palestine, posts links to news coverage about the crisis here. She also posts photos of the Israeli bombing of the Palestinian Interior Ministry, where a woman was killed and 46 people, who were attending a nearby wedding, were injured.
Egypt:
Hossam Al Hamalawy, from Egypt, posts an email he received from Mohammad Omar, in Palestine.
The message says:
Where to start…, what to talk about…? The crippling electricity shortages, affecting hospitals as well as civilians? The air strikes & on-going, daily bombings by the Israeli army, their indiscriminate targeting of civilians and police stations…? Israel ’s non-accidental, enforced starvation of 1.5 million people by closing off ALL borders and not allowing in even UN aid, let alone basic medicinal, food, and construction needs…?
Shortages of fuel have re-surfaced in Gaza : most of Gaza has no electricity and even more importantly, the shortage of medicine in Palestinian hospitals continues to increase, with the Ministry of Health reporting a looming humanitarian catastrophe.
Or should I begin with the bomb which just hit a wedding close to the Ministry of Interior building in Gaza City , with 15 apartment buildings within the bomb’s target range? One woman was killed and 47 others were injured –mostly children and women who had been inside their homes or playing on the street!!
Still in Egypt, Zeinobia laments Egypt's role (or lack of) in dealing with the crisis. She complains:
I will start with the bitter fact that the Egyptian role as leading country in the Arab world , as if Egypt does not care I found today that Saudi Arabia is calling for immediate urgent Arab summit in Cairo to discuss what is going in Gaza for Siege , the Saudi Arabia is the one that is calling for immediate summit , not Egypt , Egypt is the one that should call for this summit immediately , with my all respect to Saudi Arabia.
On Gaza, the blogger writes:
Now let's go to Gaza , one of the worst things ever in the problem is that Egypt is exporting natural gas to Israel for the cheapest price ever that created a loss to us where the people in Gaza are in terrible siege
Already the least thing Egypt can do is to open the borders and send immediate medical aids to the Great people of Gaza who hided our soldiers and officers in 1967 ..
People shame on the world and shame on us .
Gaza has no light or power in the middle of terrible winter. This is a conspiracy to get rid not only from Hamas but from the people of Gaza ,these people are suffering in the worst way ever.
Lebanon:
From Lebanon, Green Resistance, calls for just that.
Resistance. What does that mean? “the act or power of resisting, opposing, or withstanding” … and “the capacity of an organism to defend itself against harmful environmental agents”
Gaza is in darkness. Where is our cry? Where is our resistance?
Still in Lebanon, Ibn Bint Jbeil posts a number of paintings and cartoons to drive home the suffering in Gaza. He also writes:
Gaza, Palestine, the largest concentration camp on Earth, is today under the most brutal, inhumane, genocidal siege. May God protect and bless them.
22 comments
Thank you to K Shamash and Maya for your input.
It is importnat to know that the Rafa crossing between Gaza and Egypt is CLOSED (here is a wall that was broken down this morning, a wall that the international media is not is CRYING OUT about) – and that the Egyptian government is “causing a humanitarian crisis” in just the same manner as the Israeli government, if this is how one prefers to see it.
The BBC did an excellent report on this very issue interviewing both the Egyptian and Israeli sides and showing how utterly hypocrtical the Egytians are. To read about how Mubarak has called the Israelis and asked them to aliviate the suffering of the people in Gaza, is nothing but pure charade – if he was really interested in helping Gaza he would open the Gaza boarder crossing.
“Is the rocket fire by Hamas not the catalyst for the Israeli response?
Since two years ago, avg 240 Kassams per month- at Civilian targets, and escalated in the past 6 days to 160 rockets and 100 mortar rounds.”
Yes, and many of those rockets were in response to Israeli attacks. As Robert Malley of the Intenational Crisis Group says in the Boston Globe, “Over recent weeks, Hamas officials in Gaza made clear they were prepared for a mutual cease-fire, entailing an end to rocket launches, a cessation of Israeli military attacks, and an opening of Gaza’s crossings.” So Israel has the option of ending the conflict in Gaza, if it’s willing to deal with Hamas.
And, by the way, that Lebanese blogger whom Maya & Shamash call a hypocrite did criticize the Lebanese army’s campaign in Nahr el Bared.
Dear Peter H,
Correction–
Nowhere in this post did you see me call another blogger a hypocrite. If I criticized the policy or action of a national government, that is something different than individual name calling, which I try to avoid at all times.
Maya
You have to see this video with a ‘Western’ Arabic singer – Aldo – singing for Palestine…wow! Say’s just how we all feel!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4S1eEX1m75g&feature=related
Samira
people thought that when hammas wins the elliction it will make gaza a better place for living, and more peaceful place , but unfortunately when hamas ruled gaza nothing stayed the same it made gaza worse……
people thought that when hammas wins the elliction it will make gaza a better place for living, and more peaceful place , but unfortunately when hamas ruled gaza nothing stayed the same it made gaza worse. And know from them we are living under a seige,they always throw qassam boms on Israel that doesn’t even touchs them, and that makes Israel to reply it by killing people from Gaza and closing the borders, no one can feel realy the pain unless they live in gaza and try it, and iam one of them.man that sucks……..
MN KODS AL AKDAS ELA KL ABNAA AL 3RB GAZA STNTSR BEZN ALAH
it seems to me that when israel gave gaza to the palestinians that only palestinains were supposed to live thier.it is thier country and it doesnt belong to islamic groups that have grafted themselves in illegally.the plo was on good stamding with israel.all the new groups that have popped up like weeds dont belong in gaza.international pressure should be on cleansing gaza of all groups that the origional truce didnt include. send them all back to the malignant countries that sent them to gaza.then peace an be maintained.
Do you have any idea why the seige on Gaza was started? How many rockets have been fired FROM GAZA indiscriminately at Israel towns in the south? What do you expect Israel to do about it? Just sit there like sitting ducks waiting for the bombs to fall? The truth is that the Gazans either supported or allowed Hamas to take control there. As regretable as the situation is in Gaza right now, really, what do you expect?