Video: Palestine Latest - Settlements and Blockades but No Reconstruction

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After The Obama-Abbas Meeting: A Palestinian Stuck between Washington and Tel Aviv
Video and Full Transcript of Obama-Abbas Meeting (28 May)

Maxwell Gaylard, the Deputy Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process and UN Coordinator for Humanitarian and Development Activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, appeared on Enduring America the day before the end of Israel's Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, announcing that Tel Aviv “deliberately blocked the United Nations from building up vital food supplies in Gaza that feed a million people daily”.

Gaylard is back, declaring on Thursday, “Blockades continue in order to protect Israeli settlements.” There are now 630 blockades in the West Bank for 139 outposts with more than 400,000 Israelis.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXV2MxUgrD8[/youtube]

Gaylard added that 80 percent of civilians in Gaza now rely on some sort of assistance either through the United Nations or other international aid institutions. No cement, wood or other housing items have been allowed in, even though more than 40,0000homes were damaged or destroyed by missiles and gunfire in December and January.

Gaylard concluded that, although donor countries had pledged billions of dollars for Gaza’s reconstruction, this could not begin because of the blockade. The only "solution" is the words of Gaylard's UN colleague, Robert Serry: “We will wait and see…”

Gaza: Israel's Destruction of Agricultural Land Continues

On 4 May, Israeli troops set fire to Palestinian crops along Gaza’s eastern border with Israel. According to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, 200,000 square meters of crops were destroyed. Wheats, barleys, vegetables, and the olive and pomegranate trees of local farmers were wiped out.

Why?

Was this a continuation of the war of Operation Cast Lead in December-January, punishing Gazans so would they give up support of Hamas? Is it part of a broader political plan to make Gazans suffer, rendering this more dependent to the West Bank economy which is to be improved with Israeli investment in cooperation with Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas?

This is not the first time Israeli forces have carried out this type of operation. The report of the fact-finding Committee, supported by the Arab Human Rights Commission, documented the destruction of Gazan agricultural lands by the Israeli Defense F:orces. Amongst the findings:

The Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Mr. Olivier De Schutter (Belgium), reported, "An estimated 80 percent of agricultural land and crops has been damaged during recent hostilities, as evidenced by 395 impact craters resulting from shelling. Arable land has been contaminated by spills of sewage and toxic munitions."

The Palestinian National Early Recovery and Reconstruction Plan for Gaza reported that the agricultural sector was damaged extensively during the conflict. A preliminary damage assessment estimated the direct losses at more than $180 million.

Human rights commssions have reported that, following the bombardment of an agricultural area, cows which ate grass from the area shortly after the attack died.

It is hard to imagine the extent of the damage --- economic, political, and psychological --- in cold numbers. So perhaps the testimony of Safadi, a local farmer in the Gaza Strip, brings home the impact:

The Israeli soldiers fired from their jeeps, causing a fire to break out on the land. They burned the wheat, burned the pomegranate trees ... The fire spread across the valley. We called the fire brigades. They came to the area and put out the fire. But in some places the fire started again.

According to Safadi, he lost 30,000 square meters in the blaze, including 300 pomegranate trees, 150 olive trees, and wheat.

As for Israel's political aims, it is unknown what position Safadi holds, or has ever held, on the legimitacy of Hamas.

Gaza: Scientific Mission Finds Evidence of Israeli Use of Depleted Uranium and White Phosphorous

In April 2009 a four-person mission including Jean-François Fechino, an international specialist in the effects of banned weapons upon the environment and sustainable development, visied Gaza under the auspices of the Arab Commission for Human Rights. The samples of earth and dust that they brought back from Gaza were analyzed by a specialist laboratory.

While a United Nations committee under Richard Goldstone, the former International War Crimes Prosecutor, has not been authorized by the Israeli government to investigate such incidents in Gaza, the findings of the ACHR team raises the possibility that the use of depleted uranium, in addition to white phosphorous bombs, by the Israeli military during Operation Cast Lead will be confirmed.

The report concluded that Palestinian fighters had only unsophisticated weapons, such as Qassam and Grad rockets, while Israel was able to employ the most modern weaponry to bombard the population of Gaza from the air, land, and sea.

Israel initially denied it had used white phosphorous in the offensive; it later admitted its use but denied this was unlawful. The Committee was satisfied on the available evidence that white phosphorous was used as an incendiary weapon in densely populated areas.

The Committee found that the Israeli Defense Forces were responsible for the killing, wounding, and terrorizing of civilians. The Committee based this finding on the number of civilians killed by 22 days of intense bombardment by air, sea, and land. The Committee also found the weapons used by the IDF, particularly white phosphorous and flechettes, caused superfluous and unnecessary suffering.

The Committee echoed the assertions of other reports on white phosphorous, for example, the Amnesty Report which several instances of its use in carrier shells “throughout Gaza”, including:

The United Nations Relief and Works Administration primary school in Beit Lahiyeh, where approximately 1,600 people were seeking shelter from the ongoing fighting. Two brothers, aged 5 and 7, were killed and 14 others were injured when a white phosphorous shell landed in a second-floor classroom;

The UNRWA field operations headquarters where tens of tons of medicines, food and non-food items were destroyed;

The residential areas in and around Gaza City and in the north (at Jabalya refugee camp) and the south (at Khuzaa, east of Khan Younis) of the Gaza Strip.

In March 2009, Human Rights Watch (HRW) published a report entitled “Rain of Fire. Israel’s Unlawful Use of White Phosphorous in Gaza.” The report detailed the confirmed uses of white phosphorous in Gaza during the conflict “in densely populated areas”, at the “edges of populated areas", and “in open areas.”

HRW reported six cases where white phosphorous was allegedly used in urban and outlying areas.

• In the Tel al-Hawa Neighborhood, Gaza City on 15 and 16 January 2009;
• At the Al-Quds Hospital, Tel al-Hawa Neighborhood, Gaza City on 15 January 2009;
• At the UNRWA Headquarters Compound, Gaza City on 15 January 2009
• At the Beit Lahiyeh UNRWA School on 17 January 2009;
• Siyafa Village, Beit Lahiyeh on 10 January 2009;
• Khuza’a Village, between 11 and 13 January 2009.

HRW concluded that the use of white phosphorous in “densely populated neighborhoods, including downtown Gaza City, violated international humanitarian law (the laws of war), which requires taking all feasible precautions to avoid civilian harm and prohibits indiscriminate attacks.”