The Gaza siege myth

Jacob Shrybman
Israel Opinion/Ynet
18 March '10

(Note:The fifth rocket attack from Gaza in the past 48 hours, killed a 23-year old Thai foreign worker, Monny, late Thursday morning, March 18. The Qassam rocket struck the greenhouses area in Netiv Ha’asara located just north of the Gaza Strip. Medics at the scene said there wasn't much they could do to save him.Over 325 rockets and mortars have been fired into Israel during the third Hamas-Israel ceasefire that began on January 18, 2009 following Operation Cast Lead.)

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is set to arrive in Israel to visit the Gaza Strip amidst demands to end a so-called siege on the terrorist-controlled territory. Yet one has to ask what siege, or blockade, he is referring to, with 738,576 tons of humanitarian aid being transferred into the Gaza Strip in 2009.

Moreover, the UN has provided $200 million in Gaza Strip aid following a military operation that reportedly claimed 1,300 fatalities amongst a population of less than 1.5 million – meanwhile, notwithstanding plans to raise more funds, it has provided only $10 million to natural disaster victims in Haiti as of the end of January, an earthquake that claimed the lives of over 230,000 people and affected over 3 million. Of course, that is without mentioning that Haitians have not been attacking an innocent nearby civilian population for a near decade.

The international community has bought into a bold-faced lie about an Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip while ignoring the facts on the ground. International humanitarian aid has been flowing rapidly into the Gaza Strip for years and in no way stopped after Operation Cast Lead, as 30,576 aid trucks entered the territory in 2009. In 2009, 4,883 tons of medical equipment entered the Gaza Strip. Just last month, a new CAT scan machine was brought into the Strip.

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