Gaza enters 10th year of Israeli-led blockade

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Gaza enters 10th year of Israeli-led blockade

The start of 2016 sees the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip entering the 10th year of the Israeli-led and internationally-backed blockade of the territory, which is exacerbated by Egyptian support. The blockade started in the wake of the 2006 Palestinian elections, which the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, won with an overwhelming majority.

Local and international monitoring organisations described the Palestinian poll as one of the most transparent ever recorded. In Palestine, though, it is remembered with sadness as the election marked the internal political split and the start of the siege of Gaza.

The Israeli authorities closed all crossings into the territory, keeping only the Erez Crossing open for occasional pedestrian traffic (and it has been used to entrap people trying to cross), and Kerem Shalom for a few classified and highly-regulated goods. Egypt has been keeping the Rafah Crossing closed for most of the time. In 2015, the crossing was only open for 21 days; just 10,000 Palestinians were allowed through, among them pilgrims, patients and students.


The Israeli authorities imposed severe restrictions on patients and their companions travelling through Erez. Human rights groups have recorded the arrest of several patients or their companions while using the crossing into Israel. Attempts are made by the Israelis to blackmail people into becoming informers in exchange for being allowed to cross.

Gaza: The Brink of Collapse Triggers War

Quds Press has reported the chronic shortages of medicines and hospital disposables. The Palestinian ministry of health spokesman in Gaza, Ashraf Al-Qidra, says that shelves are empty due to the restrictions imposed by the Israelis on people and goods going in and out of the coastal enclave.

Independent MP Jamal Al-Khodari, who has been heading a popular committee working to end the siege, told Quds Press that Israel has been trying to “legalise” the blockade and make it last as long as possible, using all means to do so.

The plight of the Palestinians in Gaza has aroused widespread popular support across the world and many attempts have been made to break the siege by sea. Although a few small boats made the trip in the first few years, later and more ambitious attempts were stopped in international waters by the Israeli navy, often violently. In May, 2010, for example, Israeli commandos intercepted the Freedom Flotilla. Nine Turkish citizens were killed in the assault and a number of others were wounded; one died in 2014 as a direct result of his wounds. The ships were towed into port in Israel and everyone on board was arrested.

During the siege, Israel has launched four major military offensives against the people of Gaza, in 2006, 2008/9, 2012 and 2014; the latter was the most destructive. It lasted for 51 days and whole areas of Gaza were flattened by Israeli bombs; tens of thousands of people were displaced.

The strict siege and wars have shattered the Palestinian economy in Gaza, economic commentator Maher Al-Tabaa told Quds Press. “The unemployment rate in Gaza stands at 42 per cent, with the blockade deepening the economic crisis,” he explained. According to the International Monetary Fund, the unemployment rate in Gaza is the highest in the world and there are more than 200,000 unemployed people in Gaza.

Al-Tabaa warned that if the siege of Gaza continues, normal life would not be viable in the territory in 2016. Many international organisations have issued similar warnings due to the effects of the oppressive Israeli measures, which are regarded as collective punishment and are illegal in international law.

Read:

• UN stops cement supplies for 70 factories in Gaza
• Israel imposes new rules for taking goods into Gaza
• Turkey demands end of Gaza blockade to reconcile relations with Israel

Israeli Soldiers Shoot 7-Year-Old Palestinian Girl In Face For No Reason At All (VIDEO)

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Israeli Soldiers Shoot 7-Year-Old Palestinian Girl In Face For No Reason At All (VIDEO)

Israeli soldiers shot a Palestinian child in the face while she played on the balcony of her family home in the West Bank, this month. The case exemplifies the growing and increasingly lawless violence meted out across the West Bank by Israeli occupation forces.

On Friday September 25, seven-year-old Maram Abed al-Latif al-Qaddumi was standing on the balcony of her family home in Kafr Qaddoum, when Israeli soldiers shot her in the face with a rubber-coated bullet. Maram is not the child of a suspected terrorist (and would not be “fair game” even if she were), she is the daughter of Nablus Police Chief  Colonel Abdul-Latif al-Qaddoumi.

Her father was home when the bullets were fired at his daughter and raced to his car with the girl in his arms, planning to take her to hospital for treatment. But as he drove from the house, Israeli forces opened fire on the vehicle. The pair were later taken to the Rafidia Governmental Hospital in Nablus with head injuries, where they remain in a stable condition.

The shooting comes amid a wave of Israeli reprisals against the town for its continued non-violent protests against the expansion of the Apartheid Wall which encircles and imprisons Palestinians, while cutting them off from their farms, workplaces and neighboring towns.

Israel has injured an average 39 Palestinian civilians every week of 2015, the vast majority of them injured at non-violent protests. Israeli soldiers have repeatedly deployed live fire on peaceful protesters. Amid growing international criticism, Israel has taken an astonishing approach to avoid future condemnation. Instead of ceasing to kill and injure unarmed civilians, they have instead opted to legalize such shootings.

“The Israel Police will be expanding their use of firearms against stone-throwers in the south of the country, as authorities struggle to contend with the rise of riots and violence,” Israeli daily Haaretz reported Monday.

“Legal and police sources say that the decisions on how to deal with stone-throwers in Jerusalem will also be applied to rioters in the south, particularly those who throw stones at vehicles,” it adds.

But as Electronic Intifada points out, what Israel describes as “riots,” is all too often a peaceful protest against the illegal occupation and land confiscation in the West Bank.

To understand how the majority of Israeli citizens react to such shootings, we can look at the reaction to another shooting recently:


Electronic Intifada reports:

The status accompanying it says: “This is the only way it will work. You throw a rock? You get a bullet. Share it, friends!”

The post has been shared more than 3,000 times and hundreds of comments express sadistic joy at the sight of soldiers shooting a Palestinian who has no rights because he lives under military rule.

A common complaint is that the youth was not shot in the head or heart and killed outright.

“I’m proud of our warriors!” declares Angela Vainer. “What fun to see such a video,” writes Maria Kogan.

“Well done!!! Next time, hit the testicles,” suggests Karin Kazav.

Israel is becoming increasingly belligerent and they have been killing Palestinians in cold blood, outside any pretext of lawfulness. Whether a local lawmaker at a peaceful protest, a teenager throwing stones at tanks, a seven-year-old playing on your family balcony, or a toddler sleeping in your bed — you could be killed by an Israeli soldier or civilian with impunity.


There is no safe place for Palestinians in what has become Greater Israel. It is their very existence that so offends the racial supremacist, theocratic state of Israel. Until this rogue state’s backers in the U.S. and the West get on the right side of history, the Palestinians will continue to suffer this cruel and arbitrary punishment for being the “wrong” race, from point of view of their occupiers.

ND WHEN PALESTINIAN CHILDREN STOP RUNNING FROM ISRAELI VIOLENCE?

 AMERICANS ARE FULLY RESPONSIBLE AND CULPABLE FOR EACH OF THESE JEW WAR CRIMES THE PASSPORT FOR NAZI JEW FROM HIS REAL HOMELAND; PERFECTLY MATCHES THE BEHAVIOUR, zionism doesn’t look too pretty on film, does it? Help us protect our children …. Help us END APARTHEID NOW!