NOVANEWS
1. Between 2009 (after Operation Cast Lead) and 2012 (before Pillar of Defence) Israel killed 271 Palestinians in Gaza. During this period 3 Israelis also died.
2. Gaza is 40km by 10km with a population of nearly 2 million. It is the most densely populated area in the world. There are are no bunkers, or safe places for Palestinians in Gaza to take cover when Israeli bombs drop.
3. David Cameron on 10 July 2010 referred to Gaza as a “prison camp” and “some sort of open-air prison”.
4. Israel has held an iron fist siege around Gaza from land, air and sea since 2000. Since the withdrawal of its troops and settlers from the Strip in 2005, Israel continues to control Gaza’s airspace, territorial waters and border crossings. Thus, it is defacto still occupying Gaza.
5. The Gaza crossing with Egypt (Rafah) is operated under strict Oslo Accords. It is monitored by the EU, and restricts movement of goods and is only open to people and specified goods. The tunnels dug by Palestinians beneath the border with Egypt provide the only avenue for the import of materials for building and other essentials including food and medicines, and even livestock.
6. Since Palestinians elected Hamas as their government in 2006 the siege has intensified and most international lawyers, as well as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), consider the blockade to be illegal under international humanitarian law. In 2009, a UN panel, led by distinguished South African judge and self-confessed Zionist Richard Goldstone, accused Israel of imposing “a blockade which amounted to collective punishment”.
7. In 2006, Dov Weissglass, the then chief of staff to Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon summed up his government’s approach to Gaza and its residents when he confessed: “The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger.” ‘Red Lines’: The official Israeli document for food consumption in Gaza under siege shows how Israeli officials worked out that they must allow only 2,279 calories per person to be imported into Gaza to avoid total starvation.
8. Over 50 per cent of Gaza’s population are children under the age of 16. Some 10% of children under five in the Gaza Strip have stunted growth due to prolonged malnutrition. The unemployment rate in Gaza is 40% – and stands at 58% among young people.
9. On 18 November 2012, the World Health Organisation warned of “severe shortages” in medical facilities in Gaza with some medicines running out.
10. Israel has given varied reasons for its attack on Gaza. Ehud Barack said it was to boost Israeli “deterrence”; while Israeli deputy prime minister, Eli Yishai, said: “The goal of the operation is to send Gaza back to the Middle Ages. Only then will Israel be calm for forty years.” And the Chief Rabbi in England was caught on air stating that the Gaza attack actually ‘had something to do with Iran.’
