In Occupied Palestine

Zionism in practice

Israel’s Daily Toll on Palestinian Life, Limb, Liberty and Property

(Compiled by Leslie Bravery, Palestine Human Rights Campaign, Auckland, New Zealand www.palestine.org.nz) [If you have difficulty with the display of this report, it may be better viewed on our website]

NB: We shall always do our utmost to verify the accuracy of all items in these IOP newsletters/reports wherever possible – but please forgive us for any errors or omissions (not of our own making) that may occur! L & M.

Dear friends,

You may be wondering why there have been no daily IOP Newsletters since that which covered 19 June. We contacted the PMG, stressing our concern at the lack of daily sitreps throughout the past week and received the following response this morning:

Hi,

There is no problem, we have a three day official holiday “Eid Al Fitr” that comes after Ramadan

Reports will continue this Thursday

Regards

. . . And so we sincerely hope that we shall be able to resume our normal service from Thursday onwards ~ and that there will be no individual sitrep days missing. It is now mid-morning on Wednesday here in New Zealand and because we are about half a day ahead of the rest of the world, it is possible we might not receive the necessary sitreps until Friday! Meanwhile, while keeping our fingers crossed, as always, our occasional IOP Reports!!

Warm wishes, Leslie and Marian.

IOP Report {No.5 for June 2017}

Gaza health sector nears collapse

The Gulf Crisis and Palestine

Recent news updates:

A decade under siege: Gaza health sector nears collapse. As the two million Palestinian residents of Gaza enter their eleventh year under a blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt, the many daily hardships they face are having an increasingly adverse effect on physical and mental health, particularly for the most vulnerable. Life for the people of Gaza has become characterised by soaring unemployment, acute fuel shortages, electricity supply for a couple of hours a day, a crippled water and sanitation system, prison-like movement restrictions, and the ever-looming threat of full-scale Israeli aggression on the horizon. The largest potential catastrophe facing public health in Gaza is the latest energy crisis, which has left Gaza's health sector on the brink of collapse. Following the shutdown of the Strip's only power plant after it ran out of fuel, Gaza's 14 public hospitals and 16 health facilities now “face partial or complete closure of essential services”, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). Gaza's hospitals, operating on a limited reserve of emergency fuel, donated most recently by the United Nations, have partially closed a number of services to cope with the fuel shortage. With Israel and the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority (PA) unwilling to supply more electricity or fuel, Gaza's hospitals and health clinics will be forced to stop critical services – this will be immediately life-threatening for newborns in critical care, patients in intensive care units (ICU), and hundreds of haemodialysis patients. It could also compromise refrigerated blood and vaccine stocks. Poverty contributes to poor health, and poor health can lead to poverty – it's a vicious circle. In Gaza, poverty is rife. At 41.1 per cent, the unemployment rate is the highest in the world (youth unemployment is just shy of 64 per cent), over a fifth of the population lives in “deep poverty”, and 80 per cent of the population depends on international aid, primarily for food assistance. Ard el Insan (AEI), a local NGO with centres in Gaza City and Khan Yunis, each year supports thousands of children {aged} five and under, along with their families, in addressing the causes and outcomes of chronic and acute malnutrition. Its executive director, Dr Adnan al-Wahaidi, says that the blockade and war have left Gaza “at the edge of a cliff, absolutely vulnerable”. He says cases of acute malnutrition with signs of severe wasting among young children in Gaza are increasing. But the real public health concern is chronic malnutrition, characterised by stunting and rickets, says Wahaidi, who has seen rates increase by about 50 per cent over the past decade among children aged five years and younger, rising from nine per cent to 13.4 per cent of the population. Fikr Shalltoot is the Gaza director of programmes for a UK-based charity, Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP). She cites a long list of issues caused by the Israeli-Egyptian blockade: the latest fuel crisis; Egypt's closure of the Rafah crossing; obstacles and delays in obtaining travel permits from the Israeli authorities for medical referrals outside of Gaza; chronic shortages of zero-stock drugs and medical disposables; extreme difficulties faced by medical professionals in obtaining permits from Israeli officials to get specialist training outside of the Strip; difficulties in recruiting international specialists to conduct training in Gaza; and outdated medical equipment or equipment requiring spare parts. According to a 2016 WHO report, “nearly 50 per cent of Gaza Strip's medical equipment is outdated and the average wait for spare parts is approximately six months”. Israel holds the keys to Gaza and, as a besieging power, is responsible for what happens, Shalltoot says. "Israel allows the drugs in, but they're responsible for what's happening in Gaza as the occupying power and for imposing the blockade and the consequences of this," Shalltoot says. “The enormous economic impact is Israel's fault, as are the high levels of unemployment. The terrible financial situation in Palestine is a direct result of five decades of Israeli Occupation”. The military assaults have also cost the people of Gaza dearly, not only in terms of life and welfare, but financially: the 2014 hostilities inflicted an estimated $1.4bn in damages and $1.7bn in economic losses, according to the UN. The blockade and three Israeli military assaults have had a profound toll on mental health in Gaza, too. Substance abuse, suicide, domestic violence, depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have increased among adults, as have bed-wetting, low academic achievement, nightmares, fear and anxiety among children, according to Dr Sami Oweida, a psychiatric consultant at the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme (GCMHP). According to a recent study published in PLOS ONE, a multidisciplinary research journal, Palestinians suffer the highest rates of mental disorders among all Eastern Mediterranean countries. The study attributes this to 50 years of Occupation and exposure to related political violence. Dr Oweida says: “Any effective therapy is pointless because of the blockade – that is the root cause. [Abridged – see full article: aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/06/decade-siege-gaza-health-sector-nears-collapse]

The Gulf Crisis and Palestine

Regional rivalry spurs unlikely new partnership between Qatar-backed Hamas and UAE-based Dahlan

By Abdel Bari Atwan | 27 June 2017

http://www.raialyoum.com/?p=699876

Rivalries between Arab states have always had a big impact on Palestinian politics. An unexpected consequence of the month-old crisis between Qatar and its four Arab detractors has been to bring together two Palestinian arch-foes: the Islamist Hamas movement, which controls the Gaza Strip and has long enjoyed the backing of Qatar; and the UAE-based former Gaza security chief Muhammad Dahlan, who has long aspired to leadership of the mainstream Fateh movement which dominates the Palestinian Authority (PA).

Hamas finally acknowledged this week that its representatives had been in talks with Dahlan’s camp for some time, and had reached an apparently far-reaching deal. The disclosure was made by the deputy head of the movement’s political bureau, Khalil al-Hayya, at a press conference in the besieged Gaza Strip. There can be no doubt that it is because of these talks that Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubair withdrew the ‘terrorist’ label he had previously stuck on Hamas, and the movement was excluded from the list of 59 Qatari-backed individuals and organisations designated as ‘terrorist’ by Saudi Arabia and its allies the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain. Senior Palestinian sources confirm that the latest round of meetings were held in Dahlan’s Cairo residence between a Hamas delegation headed by the movement’s leader in the Gaza Strip, Yahya as-Sinwar, and Dahlan’s team. Hamas' political bureau Dr Mousa Abu-Marzouq also took part, and Dahlan attended in person along with his chief lieutenant, former Fateh security official Samir al-Mashharawi. Hayya made a number of important points during his lengthy media appearance:

First, he asserted that Hamas had made serious progress in recent talks with Egyptian officials – which he described as ‘among the best so far’. Egypt promised to take steps to alleviate the suffering of the blockaded Gaza Strip’s inhabitants, including opening the Rafah border crossing on a regular basis and establishing a commercial crossing-point for the passage of goods to and from the Strip.

Second, Hayya declared that Hamas takes a position of neutrality in the current Gulf crisis. ‘We want balanced relations with everyone because we are not part of this crisis and we have been (unfairly) implicated in it,’ he explained. What this means in practice is that Hamas is not standing in Qatar’s trench, despite Doha’s consistent and longstanding backing for the movement. Hamas has learned lessons from the Syrian crisis – in which its loyalties were initially torn between a supportive regime in Damascus and fellow Islamists in the opposition — and is determined not to repeat previous mistakes.

Third, Hayya described his movement’s relations with Iran as ‘balanced and good’, adding that ‘we seek to develop them’ and that ‘we value Iranian efforts in support of the Palestinian cause.’ This suggests that a significant rapprochement between Hamas and Tehran is imminent.

Fourth, he said Hamas was involved in discussions with all Palestinian parties and factions with the aim of forming a so-called ‘National Salvation Front’. The implication is that this body could serve as an alternative or parallel structure to the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).

The sudden openness to Hamas shown by Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia seems aimed at stripping Qatar once and for all of its ‘Palestinian card’. Hamas enjoys widespread Arab public support as the leading force in Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation, and Qatar’s adversaries seem keen to signal that their actions against Doha are not due to its support for the movement. The plan is evidently working, and it has placed Hamas’ Doha-based leaders in an awkward position – specifically its former leader Khaled Mishaal, who opposed the rapprochement with Dahlan in deference to Qatar. The ultimate upshot of all this is that the UAE may end up replacing Qatar as the Gaza Strip’s chief financial and economic backer, with Dahlan acting as conduit and Egypt providing its vital consent, co-operation and facilitation. It increasingly looks like Hamas is willing to provide ample pay-back to the Egyptian side on the security front in exchange. This would include fully securing the Strip’s border with Egypt, including sealing all the existing cross-border tunnels and refraining from digging new ones, as well as handing over 17 wanted men accused of belonging to the Islamic State (IS)’s offshoot in Sinai, notably Shadi al-Mena’i whom the Egyptian authorities insist is hiding in Gaza.

This co-ordination between Hamas and Dahlan – who was Hamas’ nemesis in Gaza prior to its 2007 takeover of the Strip, and was formally expelled from Fateh at its congress last year – amounts to the announcement of a complete break with the PA in Ramallah and its president, Mahmoud Abbas, who also heads Fateh and the PLO. It consolidates the de facto independence of the Strip as a separate entity — or what one might call a ‘de facto emirate.’ Abbas is no great friend of Gaza, and blundered badly by taking the discriminatory step of cutting the salaries of PA employees in the Strip, further alienating its inhabitants and consolidating its separation from the West Bank. He also continues to threaten to withhold payments for fuel for the Gaza Strip’s sole power plant and encourage Israel to cut electricity supplies. I have it on good authority that Abbas even hoped to cause havoc in Gaza via a resumption of missile fire directed at Israel. The aim was to provoke Israel into launching a devastating assault on the Strip which would finish Hamas off once and for all. But, as on previous occasions, this proved to be a losing bet.

Abbas took these measures in the belief that by punishing Hamas he could cause the Gaza Strip’s inhabitants to rebel against the movement and its administration. But he was only punishing his ‘own’ hungry and besieged people, while pushing Hamas into the arms of his sworn enemy Dahlan. Many Palestinians suspect Abbas actually wants the Gaza Strip to secede from the West Bank, and the Hamas-Dahlan deal helps achieve that. But that would only turn him into a ‘one-armed’ president, unable to speak on behalf of the Palestinian people as a whole in any political contacts or peace negotiations. That would be catastrophic for the Palestinians and their cause. Israel too would like to formalise the Gaza Strip’s separation. This would enable it to concentrate on consolidating its occupation of and settlement-building in the West Bank – with the PA’s 40,000-strong security forces playing a facilitating role as it endlessly reiterates its commitment to ‘coexistence’.

As for the Palestinian people, they have no say in any of these manoeuvres and little faith in any of the players. The majority – and most especially in the Gaza Strip – are at present preoccupied with survival and meeting their basic living needs. This does not mean that economic, political and physical strangulation has quashed their will to resist Occupation. Only that when resistance is revived, as it inevitably will be before long, it will take on new forms and be under new leadership, regardless whether it emerges from Fateh, Hamas or elsewhere.

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The Palestine Yearbook 2015

The genocide the world ignores

by Diana Lodge

Everyone should have a copy

of this invaluable resource!

To order the book:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=The+Palestine+Yearbook+2015

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See this In Occupied Palestine newsletter at: the PHRC website: www.palestine.org.nz

- and you can check out previous editions by clicking on In Occupied Palestine listed under Contents

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