this was the basis of a speech to a public meeting on 7 Feb in New Brighton, organised by the Green Party and addressed by Liverpool Friends of Palestine. Anne Candlin reported on her visit to the Bethlehem area and I spoke on the current situation in Gaza.

Two weeks ago, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians poured over the southern border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt after the wall at Rafah was breached with co-ordinated explosions. This mass direct action aimed to break the Israeli siege of Gaza, which had intensified into a total blockade in the preceding weeks. It was a brief, exhilarating expression of popular power and an intelligent use of violence against property. It was also a political move by Hamas, the Islamic movement which now controls the Strip and whose militants blew up the wall, to outflank the boycott imposed by Israel, the US, Britain and the EU. Last Sunday, Egypt resealed the border while frantic diplomacy between the EU, Israel, Egypt, and the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority sought to re-establish border controls excluding Hamas, who in turn pursued their own diplomacy with Egypt. Egypt responded to Israel and the US, not to Hamas. Israel intensified the siege.

The siege restricts all aspects: imports, exports, electricity, sewage, healthcare, UN relief work, travel. It is collective punishment of some 1. 6 million people crammed into just 360 square kilometres. Nearly 500, 000 Gazans are classed by the UN as refugees, living in 8 large camps.

The economic conditions were already stark last summer. Overall unemployment was 75%, and 80% of people lived on under $2. 41 a day, according to the World Bank. 1. 1 million people were directly dependent on UN food aid. The UN halted construction projects for lack of building materials. Their Gaza director, John Ging, appealed for the Quartet to “take political decisions to open all the crossings.” Since then, things have deteriorated into catastrophe. The World Food Programme recently stated that 85% of Gaza now depends on humanitarian aid. Even UN relief is affected by the blockade.

Four snapshots:

1) from an editorial of 10 Jan in Ha’aretz – the Israeli equivalent of the Guardian: source

The scene shown Tuesday night on television was one of the most harsh and shameful seen here in recent times: a two-and-a-half-year-old boy, Ahmed Samut from Khan Yunis, and a nine-and-a-half-year-old girl, Sausan Jaafari, of Rafah, as they entered the Erez crossing [at Gaza’s northern border with Israel] alone, after being torn from the arms of their weeping parents.

The two children have heart conditions and need urgent surgery to save their lives. Wolfson Medical Center in Holon [in Israel] agreed to care for them.

The parents of the two children, both fathers and mothers, were not permitted by the Israel Defense Forces’ coordination and liaison administration to accompany their children to the fateful surgery. They are “denied entry” to Israel. The fact that Sausan’s parents had accompanied her to previous operations at Wolfson did not change the evil decree. Only the elderly uncle of one of the children was allowed to go with them.

In the state of siege it has imposed on Gaza, Israel bears heavy moral responsibility for the welfare and health of the besieged. The siege is preventing Gaza’s Shifa Hospital from expanding its departments as planned, due to lack of building materials in Gaza. But the decision not to allow parents to accompany their children, which is also made in many other cases in which patients are denied entry to Israel for life-saving treatments, is insufferable.

2) from a UN news agency IRIN report source

JERUSALEM, 28 January 2008 (IRIN) - The Israeli-imposed restrictions on imports to the Gaza Strip are threatening the lives of vulnerable patients, the Oxfam aid agency has said.

“Oxfam International is gravely concerned about the life and safety of the civilian population residing in the Gaza Strip. In Shifa hospital in Gaza city, 135 cancer patients are currently unable to receive treatment due to the lack of basic medications,” Oxfam said.

When the Rafah border was breached, one of the items people bought was medicines, though the amount purchased does not solve the overall problem.

The World Health Organization reported a shortage of at least 88 drugs and 204 essential medical consumables in the Gaza Strip. WHO called for the lifting of restrictions on medicine imports and patient movements, and said it was concerned by power cuts.

There is a 30 percent drop in the water supply due to the power and fuel cuts, and the Coastal Municipalities Water Utility has been forced to dump daily some 40, 000 cubic metres of raw sewage into the sea.

The power cuts are affecting hospitals and health clinics, forcing them to rely on generators for many hours each day.

“We use generators at least six hours every day,” Jamal Hawajri from the Union of Health Workers’ Committees, a local health non-governmental organisation in Gaza city, told IRIN. “This is costing us extra money, while we still can’t operate at full capacity and have to cancel elective surgeries.”

3) Ten Israeli and Palestinian human rights organisations petitioned Israel’s Supreme Court to reverse the electricity and fuel cuts. On the eve of last week’s hearing, Israel announced it would relieve the fuel shortage. Today Israel announced it would cut 5% of the electricity supplied on each of 10 lines, cutting one new line each week. Gisha, one of the Israeli organisations, commented on 28 Jan when only 3 lines were to be cut: (source, also material from a Gisha Briefing on the court decision)

Israel told the court it would permit Gaza residents to purchase diesel, petrol and industrial diesel but only a small percentage of what they need. The State also said it would reduce the electricity that Israel’s Electric Company sells directly to Gaza by 5% on three lines (a total of 1. 5 MW), beginning February 7.

Before the cuts, Gaza residents were ordering approximately 1. 4 million liters ordinary diesel per week – yesterday the state announced it would allow only 800, 000 liters/week – a reduction of 43%.

Before the cuts, Gaza residents were ordering approximately 350, 000-400, 000 liters petrol per week – yesterday Israel announced it would allow only 75, 400 liters per week – a reduction of 78%-81%.

Israel began fuel cuts on October 28, 2007.

The shortage of industrial diesel crippled Gaza’s power plant, whose reserves ran out on Jan. 5. The plant reduced production and even shut down for two days. Currently it is producing 45 MW electricity – instead of the 80 MW it could produce were it allowed enough industrial diesel.

Gaza has an electricity deficit of 24%, and rolling blackouts are as long as 12 hours per day in some areas. The electricity shortage has increased the dependence on diesel-powered generators – just as Israel cut diesel supplies.

Israel also announced it would allow Gaza residents to purchase 2. 2 million liters industrial diesel/week, but the plant now needs 3. 5 million liters/week plus at least 2 million additional liters to replenish reserves.

Gaza needs 240 MW electricity in the current peak winter season. Israel supplies (before the planned cut) 120 MW, Egypt supplies 17 MW, and Gaza’s power plant is currently producing only 45 MW – meaning that there is a deficit of 58 MW, or 24% - even before the February 7 cuts.

The deficit had forced Gaza’s Electricity Distribution Company (GEDCO) to institute rolling blackouts across Gaza, which affected everyone, hospitals, water wells, and ordinary buildings, without differentiation. An affidavit from Nedal Touman of GEDCO explained that the electricity system in Gaza was not capable of distinguishing among users in coping with the deficit and for that reason, GEDCO was forced to cut electricity along main lines that affected hospitals and other humanitarian institutions.

4) Meanwhile Israel continued air bombardment and so-called “targetted assassination” missile attacks. The Palestinian Center for Human Rights produces weekly reports. www.pchrgaza.org

In the week before the Rafah wall came down 16 Palestinians were killed in Gaza:

On 17 January, 7 Palestinians, including 2 women, were killed by the Israeli Occupation Forces [as Palestinians call them]. Four of the victims, including 3 civilian bystanders, were extra-judicially executed by air strikes. An 8th Palestinian died from a previous injury. On 18 January, IOF launched an air strike against a governmental building in Gaza City. The building was destroyed. A woman in a nearby wedding party was killed by the blast, and 46 civilians, including 19 children and 3 women were injured. On the same day, a Palestinian died from a previous IOF injury. On 19 January, IOF killed 2 Palestinians during an incursion into Jabaliya town in the northern Gaza Strip. On the same day, an IOF air strike killed one Palestinian and wounded another in Gaza City. On 22 January, IOF killed a Palestinian in al-Shouka village, east of Rafah. On 23 January, IOF killed a Palestinian farmer in Beit Lahia town in the northern Gaza Strip. On 21 January, a Palestinian died from a previous IOF inflicted injury.

The previous week, the Israeli military killed 26 Palestinians in Gaza, including 8 civilians. The week before, it was 20 Palestinians. A total of 95 Palestinians were killed in the last 5 weeks, including 40 unarmed civilians of whom 3 were children and 7 women.

This morning I spoke with Jamal Hawajri of the Union of Health Work Committees in their office in Jabalia Refugee camp, in northern Gaza. The situation is getting worse and worse, with Israeli military attacks intensifying after Monday’s suicide bombing in Dimona. Today Jamal had intended to meet with a representative from Oxfam Belgium, but they were refused permission to cross as Israel has placed the north of Gaza under military order and is said to be preparing a ground invasion. 7 Palestinians were killed in the north this morning. [PCHR reports that one of these was a teacher at the Beit Hanoun Secondary Agricultural School, killed by an Israeli rocket. 3 students were seriously injured.] The electricity cuts are increasing. Jamal lives in the mid-Gaza area, where yesterday they had 16 hours of cuts. The Union of Health Work Committees are still waiting for shipments of medical equipment and drugs, funded by international organisations, which are held up by the siege. Jamal called for more advocacy and lobbying on governments to put pressure on Israel to relieve the restrictions, to allow foods and basic needs into Gaza.

For more on the siege see www.end-gaza-siege.ps.

How does Israel justify such actions?

It claims the siege is necessary to halt the firing of homemade Qassam rockets by militants within Gaza, rockets which mainly land on the Israeli town of Sderot near the border. Last May, two Israeli civilians were killed by Qassams, the only Israeli fatalities from rocket fire in 2007. There were another 2 fatalities in 2006. As the siege and bombardment of Gaza escalated last month, so did the rocket fire – causing Israeli casualties but no deaths, although some rockets landed near a kindergarten. A recent survey of Sderot children found 75% of those aged 4 – 18 suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Israel told the Supreme Court that Gaza is controlled by a terrorist group intent on destroying Israel, and the military is responding to an existential threat. They argued that the fuel cuts are economic sanctions taken against Gaza as part of “economic warfare”, described as a life-saving alternative to a large-scale ground operation.

If the siege is a response to the rockets, it is wholly disproportionate – affecting the entire population while the rockets are fired by a tiny minority. As collective punishment, it violates international law including the 4th Geneva Convention, adopted at the end of the 2nd World War. Article 33 refers to “protected persons” – meaning persons in Occupied Territory who are not nationals of the Occupying Power – and states:

No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.

The Israeli Supreme Court declined to consider international law, but the State also argued that Gaza is no longer occupied territory. In fact, the highly publicised “withdrawal” from Gaza in August 2005 left Israel in complete control of the borders, airspace, seacoast, telecommunications, gas, electricity etc. In terms of international law, Gaza remains occupied territory (see source)

Israeli Defense Ministry spokesman Shlomo Dror had claimed the Gaza power cut was a Hamas propaganda decision and that reports of suffering were exaggerated. However, Palestinian Health Ministry official Dr. Moaiya Hassanain warned that the fuel cutoff would cause a health catastrophe. “We have the choice to either cut electricity on babies in the maternity ward or heart surgery patients or stop operating rooms.” (source)

In reality, it is hard to believe the siege is even intended to defend those Israelis living within the Qassam rockets’ range. As the veteran Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery pointed out last week (source):

What is being hidden from the embittered public is that the launching of the Qassams could be stopped tomorrow morning.

Several months ago Hamas proposed a cease-fire. It repeated the offer this week.

A cease-fire means, in the view of Hamas: the Palestinians will stop shooting Qassams and mortar shells, the Israelis will stop the incursions into Gaza, the “targeted” assassinations and the blockade.

Why doesn’t our government jump at this proposal?

Simple: in order to make such a deal, we must speak with Hamas, directly or indirectly. And this is precisely what the government refuses to do.

In simple and blunt words: the government sacrifices the fate of the Sderot population on the altar of a hopeless principle.

On 4 Feb Haaretz (source) reported a comprehensive ceasefire proposal drafted by West Bank Rabbi Menachem Froman and Hamas-aligned journalist Khaled Amayreh, submitted to the Israeli Cabinet and Hamas government in Gaza. Hamas welcomed the proposal, which received no response from the Israeli Cabinet.

Far from considering a ceasefire, Israeli strategy has aimed to provoke an escalation in Palestinian violence, and sadly, it seems to have succeeded.

How does the British government regard the siege?

On 28 Jan, Lord Hylton asked Her Majesty’s Government:

What action they and the quartet will take to prevent the closing down of the electricity plant in Gaza; what is their assessment of the humanitarian consequences of the absence of electricity there; and whether, following 72 deaths of patients unable to leave Gaza for medical treatment elsewhere, they will secure exit permits for all urgent cases. [HL1535]

The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Malloch-Brown) : The Government continue to believe that Israeli security and Palestinian suffering and hardship need to be addressed together, and they can be addressed only through mutual recognition, which will be vital to long-term stability in the area.

So Malloch-Brown began with Israeli security and called for mutual recognition as if there had been no Palestinian ceasefire offer, spurned by Israel. He then quoted the Foreign Secretary David Miliband and Secretary of State for International Development Douglas Alexander, speaking on 21 January:

“The recent escalation of violence between Gazans and Israelis is extremely grave.... The rising number of rocket and sniper attacks from Gaza into Israel is unacceptable, as is the number of Palestinian civilian casualties.”

Again, Miliband and Alexander began with the rocket attacks which had killed no-one, putting them on a par with escalating Palestinian civilian casualties. The two are not equal. Only after creating an illusion of balance, a conflict with two equal sides, did Malloch-Brown quote the Foreign Secretary on the siege.

“ We do not support Israel’s decision to close all crossings into Gaza, preventing the delivery of vital humanitarian supplies as well as fuel to the Gaza power station. Reports that electricity has been cut due to fuel shortage are particularly alarming and require urgent attention. Continued fuel shortages will have immediate humanitarian consequences, including on the supply of clean water”.

Eventually, Malloch-Brown turned to Hylton’s question.

On 17 December 2007, the quartet called for the “continued provision of essential services, including fuel and power supplies”. Israel allowed limited fuel and humanitarian supplies to resume on 22 January. Some Palestinians have also been allowed to leave for medical treatment. We continue to call on Israel to fulfil its obligations to provide essential services, including medical treatment.

In other words, no action to prevent the electricity cuts or to ensure exit permits for medical treatment.

Foreign Office Minister Kim Howells delivered much the same script on 30 January when replying to a Commons debate initiated by Jeremy Corbyn.

Strategy behind the Siege

The current siege was imposed from June 2007 but continues a strategy launched in January 2006 and shared between Israel, the US, Britain, and the EU. Tragically, it has also split the Palestinian political movements.

The strategy is diplomatic isolation, economic and military destabilisation after Hamas unexpectedly won free and fair elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council, and formed the government. President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah was elected a year earlier and Hamas had won municipal elections. All three votes were democratic and no-one claimed electoral fraud.

Voters had rejected the ongoing failed “Peace Process” and endemic corruption within the Palestinian Authority. Many non-members voted for Hamas not in order to create an Islamic state, but to show their anger with the diplomatic dead-end ever since the 1993 Oslo Agreement. Fatah members openly acknowledged why their party had fallen from power. It sounded healthy. But it was immediately sabotaged.

Israel simply refused to deal with the new government, demanding that Hamas first recognise Israel – by which they mean Israel as a Jewish State – cease all violence, and pledge to honour all previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements. Hamas had been on ceasefire for a year and their leadership quickly declared that if Israel withdrew to the 1967 borders and honoured UN resolutions including the right of return, the truce would become indefinite. Israel ignored this opening, witheld tax revenues illegally deducted from the Palestinian Authority and easily persuaded the US and EU to impose full economic and diplomatic sanctions on the PA. These measures took force in March 2006 and directly caused the abject poverty engulfing Gaza.

Israel then launched military incursions whose scope and death toll matched the 2006 invasion of Lebanon. The Gaza electricity plant was heavily bombed. But the war in Gaza was poorly reported until a brief moment when Israel slaughtered 16 Palestinians asleep in their beds. The Beit Hanoun massacre reached the UN Security Council, where the US vetoed a resolution to investigate it.

Meanwhile, another scenario unfolded in secret.

In February 2006, Bush Administration officials made plans for a Palestinian civil war with the US backing Fatah. Elliot Abrams is Deputy National Security Advisor, and the civil war is his brainchild. Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfield thought it was bonkers. But Condoleezza Rice approved, and Bush instructed the CIA to proceed against their own advice.

Most Palestinians dismissed a civil war as inconceivable. But the money was already flowing to Muhammad Dahlan, the Fatah security strongman in Gaza, and to the Abbas-affiliated “Presidential Guard”. In February 2007, open war erupted on the streets.

The factional violence ended with the formation of the National Unity government after the Mecca summit in February. But plans to integrate the Fatah and Hamas security forces under the neutral Interior Minister Hani al-Qawasmeh foundered as Fatah unilaterally deployed their security forces on the streets. Qawasmeh resigned and renewed fighting escalated in May.

When the UN Special Co-ordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Alvaro de Soto resigned that month, he warned the UN to pay special attention to US plans for a Palestinian civil war. De Soto also revealed that under US pressure Abbas had turned down Hamas offer to form a government of national unity soon after the January 2006 election.

Israel arrested scores of Hamas MP’s, tilting the balance towards the coup plans. But in the event, Dahlan was out of the country when his men were routed and his house ransacked.

Once Hamas had physical control of Gaza, Abbas checked with Condoleezza Rice and then dismissed Hamas from government, appointed a new Cabinet, and received the tumultous diplomatic and financial support of Israel, the US, and EU. His move had no basis in Palestinian law, which is full of checks and balances to guard against a President assuming dictatorial powers. Abbas struggled to find a legitimate basis for his de facto government, approved by Bush, Blair and later Brown without any mandate from the Palestinian people. The EU pulled their monitors out and the Rafah border was sealed.

Not all Fatah members support the alliance between Abbas, Israel, and the US. The potential remains for an eventual return to Palestinian national unity, even if the route is currently buried.

And what of Hamas? On the one hand, they resisted the Israeli / US plot. They pledged pluralism and respect for varying Palestinian lifestyles. They intervened to free the BBC journalist Alan Johnston, kidnapped by the Army of Islam group. They continued to call for a return to national unity.

On the other hand, there are human rights violations including torture of Fatah members detained by the Hamas Executive Force, as documented by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights and others. Hamas gunmen have also attacked the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions. The PGFTU have also been attacked by Fatah gunmen for being insufficiently anti-Hamas, and less surprisingly, by Israeli forces.

The latest news indicates Hamas returning to the military strategy which had been on hold since 2004, a strategy which is very unlikely to succeed.

Finally, the siege of Gaza did not start in 2006, but during the first Gulf War in 1991. It reappeared in the mid 1990’s after Oslo, and again during the 2nd Intifada. I see the siege as aimed at splitting Gaza from the West Bank, seeking to destroy Palestinian unity whatever political party wins an election.

Nevertheless, to boycott Hamas as if they had not won free and fair elections in January 2006 only to face economic sanctions and invasions is an outrageous policy. The Foreign Affairs Committee came to the same conclusion last year, but there is no sign yet that Britain will break from the Israeli position. Likewise Britain will not compel Israel to lift the siege or stop the bombardment and invasions of Gaza, where Israel has killed over 1800 Palestinian civilians in the last 7 years.

I will end here, but hope that discussion may include the question of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions directed against Israeli apartheid, the strategy called for by Palestinian civil society.