Thousands of Palestinians demonstrated in Nazareth against the inhumane blockade imposed on Gaza by Israel. The Nov. 29 protests happened just as Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai warned that Israel was getting closer to a wide-scale military operation in the already battered region.
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Israel continues to exercise near-complete control over everyone and everything coming out of and going into Gaza. This reality demonstrates that the idea Israeli occupation has ended, and Gaza has gained anything resembling true sovereignty is nothing but a myth.
The Israeli government has maintained a blockade on Gaza in various forms since Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement) took control of the area in June 2007, and even before. The total blockade now in place poses a grave threat to the population, the majority of whom live in refugee camps and are dependent on imported medicine, food and other necessities of life.
Much of those supplies are delivered by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. UNRWA has had responsibility for providing food, health care and education for Palestinian refugees since their expulsion to make way for the creation of the Israeli state in 1948.
The U.N. General Assembly played a key role in the creation of Israel. In November 1947, under heavy U.S. pressure, it passed a resolution illegally partitioning the British colony of Palestine and triggering the war that followed. By the end of 1948, three-quarters of the Palestinian population—some 780,000 people—had been expelled. Today, there are more than six million Palestinian refugees.
The Israeli blockade has been widely condemned by such figures as U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. On Nov. 18, Ban said the restrictions were depriving Palestinians of “basic human rights” and stated his “deep concern over the consequences of the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza.”
Riyad Mansour, the permanent Palestinian observer to the United Nations, told a hastily scheduled session of the U.N. Security Council the situation was “absolutely untenable.”
“The Israeli policy of brinkmanship is creating a humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip, heightening fears and tensions, inciting, provoking and fueling the vicious and dreaded cycle of violence,” Mansour said.
With Washington threatening a veto, the Security Council members backed away from passing any resolution on the crisis, issuing instead a toothless “presidential statement” of concern.
Palestinian leaders criticized not only the Israeli and U.S. governments, but many of the Arab regimes that are complicit with imperialism. Speaking at a meeting in Syria on the right of return for Palestinian refugees, Said Khalid Meshaal, the exiled leader of Hamas, said: “What is happening in the Gaza Strip is a tragedy. Shame on those who stay silent on the criminal blockade that has been imposed on Gaza. Shame on Arab and Islamic regimes and on the international community.”
“Every Arab country could send a boat to Gaza to break the blockade,” Meshaal added. A ship set sail from Libya to Gaza on Nov. 26 in order to deliver 3,000 tons of humanitarian aid, marking the first challenge by an Arab government against the Israeli blockade.
Palestinians demonstrated at the Egypt-Gaza border on Nov. 23, demanding that the U.S.-backed regime of Hosni Mubarak open the border and end the siege—a demand that, so far, has gone unmet.
In a statement issued on Nov. 29, the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, Ahmed Saadat, the imprisoned general secretary of the Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine, called for an end to the blockade:
“We pay tribute to the steadfastness of our people in Gaza in the face of the barbaric siege, and at the same time, we salute all of the international and popular Arab solidarity with our people in confronting the siege and demanding an end to the blockade, particularly the efforts to physically break the siege, and all of the parliamentarians who supported this work and expressed their support for our people and their just struggle for independence and freedom.
