Revolution #59, September 3, 2006
Israel’s Hidden War on the People of Gaza
For the last two months, as Israel has been waging its slaughter of the people in Lebanon, it has also been carrying out a brutal offensive against the Palestinian people of the Gaza Strip. There has been almost no reporting in the mainstream media on the situation in Gaza, despite Israel’s firing of an average of 200-250 artillery shells on the people of Gaza every day (according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs). Since the start of Operation Summer Rain—the Israeli military’s name for the Gaza offensive—202 Palestinians, including 44 children, have been killed.
The offensive against the people of the Gaza has continued even after the so-called ceasefire in Lebanon. Between August 8 and August 23, 18 Palestinians were killed, two of them children. Israel has destroyed many houses in Gaza in the last two weeks. On August 19 the Israeli forces also seized the Palestinian Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of the Palestinian Legislative Council in the West Bank on August 19—this is on top of the arrest of over 64 Hamas officials by Israel on June 29.
Gaza remains under siege by Israel. No Palestinians are allowed to leave the Gaza Strip either into Israel or into the West Bank. The Rafah crossing between the Gaza and the Egyptian Sinai has been opened briefly several times but remains closed for regular movement. Israel refuses to allow even humanitarian aid and needed construction supplies for the repair of crucial infrastructure like sewage treatment facilities.
The main power plant in Gaza, bombed by Israel two months ago, remains shut down, and Israel has refused to let supplies in for its repair. People in Gaza receive on average only between 6-8 hours of electricity per day, and most families in urban areas receive only 2-3 hours of water per day. Food and other necessities are in very short supply.
The mayor of As Shoka (which contains 15% of the agricultural land in Gaza) said that an incursion by the Israeli Army demolished all the greenhouses and destroyed water and electricity networks.
Palestinian journalist Mohammed Omer reported from Gaza on August 25 that Israeli soldiers backed by helicopter shelling, tanks and armored personnel carriers, moved into Palestinian-controlled areas near the main Israeli crossing at Karni. "They took two of my cousins and asked them about militants and tunnels that we don’t know about at all,” a 65-year-old farmer, told Mohammed, while cleaning the remains of his green houses, as the Israeli bulldozers demolished all his olive trees. ”We will stay strong and survive until we die in our land,” the farmer added.
According to Amnesty International, "Deliberate attacks by Israeli forces against civilian property and infrastructure in the Gaza Strip violate international humanitarian law and constitute war crimes." The group said Israeli bombardment of "the Gaza Strip's only electricity power station, water networks, bridges, roads and other infrastructure is a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention."
Israel claims that their offensive is justified by the seizure of an Israeli soldier by Palestinian forces on June 25. But, as Noam Chomsky has pointed out, Israeli forces abducted two Palestinian civilians, a doctor and his brother, from Gaza, in an incident scarcely reported anywhere in the media. The following day was when Palestinians took an Israeli soldier prisoner—and proposed a negotiated exchange against the approximately 10,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
Israel also claims that its actions in Gaza are in self-defense because Hamas has fired their home-made Qassam missiles at Israel. A look at some basic facts shows that this is a lie. In the period starting from when Israel withdrew its military forces and settlements from Gaza in September 2005 until the start of Israel’s recent offensive, Palestinian missiles had not killed a single Israeli. Meanwhile it is estimated that Israel has fired between 7,000 and 9,000 heavy artillery shells into Gaza, killing an estimated 80 Palestinians.
As the Israeli tanks rolled into Gaza and Israeli missiles rained down death from the sky in late June, the U.S. gave its blessing and a green light to Israel. "Israel has the right to defend itself and the lives of its citizens…in any actions the government of Israel may undertake,” said White House press secretary Tony Snow. The U.S. vetoed a resolution condemning Israel’s attack on Gaza in the UN Security Council. And, of course, Israel’s weapons are mostly made in the USA and purchased with billions of dollars in military aid that the U.S. gives to Israel every year.
A recent open letter from prominent international writers, including, John Berger, Noam Chomsky, Harold Pinter, Arundhati Roy, Jose Saramago, Gore Vidal, Howard Zinn and others cut through the imperialist obfuscation behind the war in Gaza exposing the real reasons for the war: “Each provocation and counter-provocation is contested and preached over. But the subsequent arguments, accusations and vows, all serve as a distraction in order to divert world attention from a long-term military, economic and geographic practice whose political aim is nothing less than the liquidation of the Palestinian nation.
“This has to be said loud and clear for the practice, only half declared and often covert, is advancing fast these days, and, in our opinion, it must be unceasingly and eternally recognized for what it is and resisted.”
