Gaza starves as the world does a Pontius Pilate?

"The collective punishment of the population of Gaza, which has been instituted for months now, has failed" (UN Special Coordinator, Robert Serry)

Fuel and medical shortages, unbridled Israeli military attacks, trade embargoes, travel restrictions and now the food crisis has brought Gaza to the edge of an all out humanitarian crisis: out of a population of 1.4 million, the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), last Thursday, due to the Israeli fuel blockade has halted food aid to 700,000 refugees and the World Food Programme to another 127,000. Michael Jansen in last Friday's Irish Times http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/breaking/2008/0306/bre....html states that: "Due to the grounding of its vehicles, UNRWA also reduced operations at 214 schools serving 200,000 children and 19 health centres as well as refuse collection in eight refugee camps housing 500,000"

John Ging, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA in Gaza, on 24th April 2008, confirmed that flour mills were set to run out of fuel and that many ambulances had been forced to remain idle as they lacked petrol, the central pharmacy was in dire need of fuel for refrigeration with vaccines for 50,000 infants at risk of spoiling because of lack of refrigeration and that rubbish continued to pile up in the streets as refuse trucks were unable to move. Ging said that: "People are desperate. Everybody needs fuel. If the farmers can't get fuel, they can't pump water to irrigate their crops. About 70,000 people are without water in their homes; 25 per cent are getting water once every four days because of electricity cuts. All the hospitals are below the critical mark in their fuel resources. The laundry service in Gaza's biggest hospital has been reduced by 50 per cent, with all the unhygienic consequences. Teachers have no fuel to drive to their schools. It's not the distributors' responsibility to decide between hospitals and municipalities, or whether a doctor should get fuel."

Following Ging’S announcement, the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Robert Serry, called on Israel to restore sufficient fuel supplies to Gaza and allow the passage of humanitarian and commercial goods. Serry said."The collective punishment of the population of Gaza, which has been instituted for months now, has failed."

Aid groups and legal experts have called Israel's blockade illegal under international law because it constitutes "collective punishment" of the entire population which voted the wrong way, as it were, in democratically electing Hamas to power, in their 2007 publication: Perilous Power; The Middle East and US Foreign Policy, Noam Chomsky and Gilbert Achar say: "The pretext for punishing Palestinians is that Hamas refuses to accept three demands; to recognize Israel, cease all acts of violence, and accept earlier agreements. Unmentioned is that Israel and the United States flatly reject all of these conditions. They do not recognise Palestine; they refused to end their violence even when Hamas observed a unilateral truce for a year and a half and called for a long-term truce while negotiations proceed for a two-state settlement; and they dismissed with utter contempt the 2002 Arab League call for normalization of relations, along with all other proposals for a meaningful diplomatic settlement. Even when it accepted the “Road Map” that is supposed to define US policy, Israel added fourteen “reservations” that rendered it entirely meaningless, eliciting the usual tacit approval in Washington and silence in commentary".

* Almost 18 per cent of patients seeking emergency treatment outside Gaza, last year, were refused permits to leave.

* All exports from the Gaza Strip are banned by the Israelis, which, combined with the prohibition on
importing raw materials, has brought the private sector to its knees.

* Last week, at the UN in New York, the United States, Britain and France walked out of a closed meeting of the Security Council after Libya compared the situation in Gaza to Nazi concentration camps. The council's South African president, Dumisani Kumalo, closed the meeting.

* The aid halt comes after Israel rejected Hamas's offer for a six-month truce in the Gaza Strip on the basis it was a "ruse". On Thursday, Hamas Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar said the deal could also extend to the West Bank.

* The human rights organisation Al-Haq has stated that: "This is the first time in history that sanctions have been imposed on the victims of an oppressive regime rather than on the regime itself.”

* At least 4,719 Palestinians and 982 Palestinian children have been killed by Israelis since September 29, 2000.

* 32,213 Palestinians have been injured since September 29, 2000.

* During Fiscal Year 2007, the U.S. gave more than $6.8 million per day to Israel and $0.3 million per day to the Palestinians

* 18,147 Palestinian homes have been demolished by Israel since 1967

* 1 Israeli is currently being held prisoner by Palestinians, while 10,756 Palestinians are imprisoned
by Israel

* Israel currently has 223 Jewish-only illegal settlements and 'outposts' built on confiscated Palestinian land.

Cartoon by the Brazilian artist, Carlos Latuff (see link)