Trying to save lives in Gaza while Hamas is trying to end them - by Elder of Ziyon

Parents in the US are worried about when to first expose their children to cow's milk and peanuts (and even water!) at that age. At least one set of Gaza parents enthusiastically bring their baby to be exposed to tear gas.

Elder of Ziyon..
15 May '18..

Times of Israel reports a sad story, if true:

The Gaza Strip’s Hamas-run health ministry said Tuesday morning that a baby was among those killed during violent border clashes along the territory’s border with Israel the previous day, bringing the overall death toll in the day’s bloody events to 58.

The baby died from inhaling tear gas fired at Palestinian protesters, the health ministry said.

Eight-month-old Leila al-Ghandour was exposed to gas fired by Israeli forces east of Gaza City, it said. It was not immediately clear how close to the border fence Ghandour and her family were.

It is entirely possible that Leila died from some other cause and the Hamas-run Health Ministry blamed Israeli actions because Hamas has been desperate to find a child to die at the protests that they can turn into another Mohammed al-Dura. Palestinians know the propaganda value of a dead child, mentioning their names constantly in articles and speeches years after their deaths, while you won't find Israeli leaders and media nowadays mentioning Shalhevet Pass, also eight months old, deliberately murdered in 2001 by a sniper's gunshot to her head while in her baby carriage.

Assuming the baby indeed died from inhalation of tear gas, though, the fault is entirely Hamas - and her parents.

Who would knowingly take a baby to a war zone where hundreds of people have already been shot?

Who would knowingly take a baby to a place where one knows with 100% certainty that there will be tear gas?

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Actually the stats defy the BBC’s repeated portrayal of a ‘siege’ on Gaza - by Hadar Sela

...in 2017 there was a rise of 15% in the amount of goods transported and in the number of people using the various crossings to the Gaza Strip and Judea & Samaria administered by the authority, with 15 million crossings by Palestinians recorded. Obviously a media organisation seriously committed to accurate and impartial reporting would not portray, or facilitate portrayal of, 160,000 truckloads of supplies in one year as a “siege”. The BBC, however, continues to do just that.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
25 January '18..

When, in the summer of 2014, the BBC began describing the counter-terrorism measures employed by Israel along its border with the Gaza Strip as a “siege” we noted that the definition of that term is “a military operation in which enemy forces surround a town or building, cutting off essential supplies, with the aim of compelling those inside to surrender” and commented:

“A besieging army does not ensure and facilitate the provision of humanitarian aid including food and medical supplies to those it surrounds. It does not supply them with 50% of their electricity supply, with oil and diesel or with cooking gas. It does not help them export their produce and give their farmers agricultural training. It does not evacuate their sick and treat them […] in its own hospitals.”

The use of that inaccurate terminology is however still evident in BBC content – both by unchallenged interviewees and by BBC journalists. For example:

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Surprise? No BBC follow-up on story used to mislead on Gaza medical services - by Hadar Sela

...If the BBC was interested in this story per se (and not just as a hook for inaccurate and misleading messaging concerning Israeli counter-terrorism measures) we would of course have expected to see a follow-up article. No such BBC reporting has been seen to date.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
24 December '17..

Two months ago the BBC News website used the story of conjoined twins born in the Gaza Strip and needing medical treatment abroad to amplify misleading, and politically partisan messaging on the topic of Israel’s counter-terrorism measures.

Promoting links to the website of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs – UN OCHA – despite the less than neutral and impartial stance taken by that body – the report told BBC audiences that:

“Israel and Egypt have maintained a land and sea blockade on Gaza for a decade in an attempt to prevent attacks by militants based there.

The restrictions, repeated cycles of armed conflict, Palestinian political divisions and budget cuts have led to a serious deterioration in the availability and quality of health services in the territory, according to the UN.

Severe power shortages earlier this year forced hospitals to postpone elective surgeries, discharge patients prematurely, and reduce cleaning of medical facilities.”

As was noted here at the time:

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Reuters’ Leaky Water Story - by Simon Plosker

...Update 2: Despite the Reuters story being debunked and failing to include any Israeli response, Haaretz has republished it on its website. Out of all the media outlets to run the story, Haaretz had the ability to follow up with Israeli sources to verify the credibility of the story. It chose not to, preferring to run with an anti-Israel piece. Disgusting but, sadly, not surprising.

Simon Plosker..
Honest Reporting..
03 November '16..

The issue of water rights and claims that Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are going thirsty, are repeatedly used as a stick with which to beat Israel. But these claims are also more often than not false. The latest is a story from Reuters headlined: “As water dries up, West Bank village thirsts for a less precarious supply.”

A mountainous Palestinian community in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Al Jab’a differs in many ways from surrounding Israeli settlements but it shares one worry with its neighbors – a shortage of water. …

Residents of Al Jab’a, who once had to walk for hours daily to fetch water, do have limited access to Israeli water supplies in their concrete homes due to a reservoir, pipeline and a pump built in 2013 by an Italian non-governmental organization.

But the water provided is not enough, according to families in Al Jab’a, a village of about 150 houses 12 km (7 miles) southwest of Bethlehem. They also fear their system could be demolished as it was not officially approved.

The story continues with alleged restrictions on the village’s water supply:

But numerous rural and Bedouin communities in the West Bank are not connected to a network run by Israel’s national water company, Mekorot, which is responsible for supplying water to Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territory.

Except that Mekorot is not responsible for supplying Palestinians with water. This is the responsibility of the Palestinian Water Authority. As NGO Monitor points out, water issues are dictated by the mutually agreed 1995 Oslo II Interim Agreement:

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Shocking! We Israelis Can’t Even Get A Darned Blockade Right! - by Sheri Oz

...Anyway, here is what is boring about the siege Israel is mismanaging

Sheri Oz..
Israel Diaries..
27 August '16..

I’m going to show you in a moment why watching the Israeli blockage of Gaza is an irritating example of Jewish ineptitude. Jews pride themselves on their inventiveness and on being a start-up nation. I guess we are too busy thinking up new apps and medical miracles and the mundane business of running a blockade just gets overlooked. Either that, or our hearts just aren’t in it. The result is a boring litany of blockade incompetence.

But first I want to show you how the idea of a blockade and siege is used for propaganda.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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There are no Israeli restrictions on medicine to Gaza (contrary to Guardian claim)

...contrary to Whitford’s suggestion about Israel’s responsibility for the shortage of chemotherapy drugs, there are no Israeli restrictions on medical supplies entering Gaza. Thousands of tons of medical supplies arrive in Gaza each year. Further, more than 25,000 Gazans are granted permits annually to receive medical care in Israel, the West Bank or Jordan.

Adam Levick..
UK Media Watch..
19 May '16..

When you come across a Guardian article about healthcare issues in Gaza, you pretty much know for certain what to expect. Regardless of the details, the story will ignore Hamas’s role completely, and inevitably leave readers with the impression that Israel restrictions are preventing vital medicine and medical supplies from reaching Gaza.

A May 18th article in the Guardian, written by Philippa Whitford (A breast surgeon and Scottish National Party MP) represents a case in point.

Whitford describes her recent visit to Gaza in the context of recollections of volunteer work she did in the territory 25 years ago, and comes to the conclusion that – despite Israel’s withdrawal in 2005 – the situation for patients has gotten worse, not better, due to Israeli restrictions.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work as well as a big vote to follow our good friend Kay Wilson on Twitter.

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Who cares about rebuilding Gazan lives?

...A strange form of warfare, no? But it tells a reasonable person something about the relative values of the human societies on the two sides.

Kerem Shalom crossing seen from the Israeli
side, August 2014 More than an ordinary
stream of trucks; a lifeline [Image Source]

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
23 November '14..

If you have not already seen our post from earlier today (including video) of Hamas trumpeting the tunnels they are busy digging and/or repairing in order to murder more Jews ["23-Nov-14: Gaza's wealth and where it is - and is not - going"], please do that before reading on. It's at the top of the list of messages Hamas is delivering to its captive population and the larger Arabic-speaking world.

Back? OK, so if it's not the thugs of Hamas (and it is surely not), who is taking seriously the need of the Palestinian Arab Gazans for repaired houses and a better life? From the Jerusalem Post:

Under an arrangement reached last month to ensure that building materials needed to rebuild the thousands of homes destroyed in the seven-week Operation Protective Edge are not diverted to build terror tunnels or manufacture rockets, the UN is to present Israeli engineers with construction plans, and the engineers will determine how much cement is needed. That cement then will be allowed into Gaza in stages, to enable inspection to ensure that it is being used for the designated purpose. If it is determined that the cement is being stolen and used for other purposes, the supply will stop. A recent assessment conducted by the UN found that more than 100,000 homes in Gaza remained damaged or destroyed. The first batch of construction materials since the Gaza military operation in the summer entered the Strip from Israel in September... ["25,000 Gazans to get access to construction materials to rebuild homes", jpost.com, November 22, 2014]

Keep in mind the mentality of the parties concerned.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work as well as a big vote to follow our good friend Kay Wilson on Twitter, 
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Could Gaza get lots more goods through Israel? Yes, but they choose not to

People and businesses in Gaza don't need that many imports from Egypt - but Hamas does.

Elder of Ziyon..
16 August '13..

This week I had an email conversation with the COGAT Gaza spokeswoman about the precise process of how goods get transferred into Gaza.

Here is how it works. (These are mostly COGAT's words, I edited them from multiple emails):

When a Gaza businessman wants to order goods from Israel privately, his first stop would be at the PA offices. There, there's a committee that is in charge of integrating all the requests and putting them in order, the Civil Committee of the PA, according to the format that is familiar to both sides. After that, it is that committee's job to pass a list of trucks that are to cross the next day. The head of the civil committee is in direct contact with the Gaza Coordination and Liaison Administration (CLA) and they work with him closely every day, through phone calls and meetings, in order to make the work process efficient. The PA committee is the CLA's POC, but it is not the one ordering the goods.

When the lists are received at the Gaza CLA, they get to the approval process, and once they are approved they are passed to the CLA's representatives at Kerem Shalom, who are the first to receive the truck drivers the next morning.

As of today, the capacity of Kerem Shalom is 400 trucks per day. Due to the number of requests from the PA Civil Committee the number of trucks crossing per day never reaches 400. It can go up to 300 trucks on a good day.

Of course, if the Palestinian side would like to add more trucks to cross at Kerem Shalom, they're free to do so. The Israeli side will make its arrangements to meet the demands.

Unfortunately, many trucks are a no show at the crossing, for Palestinian personal matters. The trucks are coordinated, and are on the list, but every day the CLA sees a large number of blank forms for trucks that never crossed. That depends almost entirely on the Palestinians. Should they decide to cancel a truck for whatever reason, the CLA only knows about it at the end of the day, when they sum up the merchandise that went through. (It appears possible that the Israeli seller might renege sometimes as well, but that doesn't appear to be the normal case.)

The Palestinian businessmen do their coordination with Israeli private companies on their own. They only interact with COGAT (through the PA) when it comes to making sure the goods actually cross.

My comments:

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Check-it out!

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Dear Reuters - Actually, Israel is in the forefront of trying to fix Gaza's water woes

This is a perfect example of how anti-Israel propaganda gets inserted by reporters with an agenda. They have the conventional wisdom of Israel as the oppressor, and it is assumed to be true without any fact-checking.

Elder of Ziyon..
26 June '13..






Nidal al-Mughrabi at Reuters has a good sized article about Gaza's water woes.

A tiny wedge of land jammed between Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean sea, the Gaza Strip is heading inexorably into a water crisis that the United Nations says could make the Palestinian enclave unliveable in just a few years.

With 90-95 percent of the territory's only aquifer contaminated by sewage, chemicals and seawater, neighborhood desalination facilities and their public taps are a lifesaver for some of Gaza's 1.6 million residents.

But these small-scale projects provide water for only about 20 percent of the population, forcing many more residents in the impoverished Gaza Strip to buy bottled water at a premium.

"There is a crisis. There is a serious deficit in the water resources in Gaza and there is a serious deterioration in the water quality," said Rebhi El Sheikh, deputy chairman of the Palestinian Water Authority (PWA).

There's nothing wrong with this topic, and this is accurate. But when the question comes up as to what is causing the problems, we read (paragraph 11):

Further complicating the issue is Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip, which activists say has prevented the import of materials needed for repairs on water and waste facilities. Israel says the blockade is needed to prevent arms from reaching Hamas, which is opposed to the existence of the Jewish state.

Notice how the second sentence seems to support the first, as if Israel's blockade is aimed at water infrastructure.

Has Israel ever stopped any water projects in Gaza?

Not that I am aware of.

COGAT's list of projects from 2010-2012 lists a Rafah wastewater treatment plant, pumps for a sewage station, re-activation and upgrading of Deir al Balah desalination plant, improving capacity of CMWU to monitor quality water supply, building the Tel Sutlan sewage pumping sttaion, sewage projects in Deir Balah, replacement of Beit Lahia water network, a solid waste management system for all of Gaza, complete wastewater networks installed in the Khan Yunis area, installing pipelines in Khan Yunis, reservoir construction - dozens of such projects approved by Israel and implemented by NGOs like UNDP, USAID, UNRWA, the ICRC and others.

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The daily pain experienced by ordinary Gazan Arabs and its cause

Trucks filled with food and essential goods are lined up outside Gaza. Would it surprise you to know the role that money plays in this?

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
04 March '13..

The Gaza Strip, tightly ruled by the terrorist Hamas organization for the past seven years, depends on the import of a wide range of goods for its existence. Hamas has invested close to zero in economic infrastructure and means of production for reasons that are obvious to people who understand what terrorist organizations exist to do. Thus, since Gaza no longer has an airport (see "Gaza airport destroyed by scavengers", imported goods arrive via three land routes: the border-crossing with Israel, the border-crossing with Egypt and a vast network of tunnels from Egyptian Sinai.

The sole crossing for the goods that pass in both directions between Gaza and Israel is Kerem Shalom, the 'Vineyard of Peace'. But it's not especially peaceful. This is where, in June 2006, infiltrators from Gaza tunneled under the border and attacked an IDF patrol, killing two soldiers, wounding three others, and kidnapping Gilad Shalit whom they then illegally and cruelly held hostage for five years. Last August (2012), armed terrorists ambushed an Egyptian military base in Sinai close to Kerem Shalom, killed 16 Egyptian soldiers there and commandeered two Egyptian armored cars with which they forced their way across the border into Israel via Kerem Shalom. In the ensuing firefight with an IDF contingent, six of those attackers were killed and, fortunately, all the Israelis were uninjured.

A measure of the important role Kerem Shalom plays in the life of Gaza is that, during 2012, an average of 250 filled truckloads of goods passed through en route to the Gaza Strip daily according to Wikipedia (though the IDF says 300).

For the past six days, Kerem Shalom has been closed. This was Israel's non-violent response to last week's rocket attack on Ashkelon [see "3-Mar-13: The terrorists of Gaza keep trying to destroy the electric power station that feeds them"] as well as to a sniper attack on Friday in which the personal military vehicle of the Gaza Division's Northern Brigade was hit. Then yesterday (Sunday) the head of COGAT said Kerem Shalom, as well as the Rafah Crossing which is for people, not goods, would re-open on Monday morning i.e. today. COGAT is a key IDF unit that is responsible for responsible for implementing the Israeli government's policies in Judea, and Samaria and in relation to Hamas-controlled Gaza

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S. Israel: Two more incoming rockets from Gaza, responding to Israeli provocation

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
31 July '12..

An update on the continuing indiscriminate fire by the Gazan terrorists on Israel and Israelis. In the past fifteen minutes (it's now 1:20pm on a hot Tuesday afternoon) we have gotten reports of two rockets crashing into southern Israel and exploding not far from the border with the Gaza Strip. The rockets were of course fired from the Gaza Strip by any of an almost limitless list of real and imaginary groups, subgroups and sub-sub groups of the Gazan Palestinian Arab terror conglomerate. The Tzeva Adom incoming missile warning system began sounding at 1:00pm.

We suspect these rockets are intended as retaliation by yesterday's outrage: the facilitation by Israel's military of 251 delivery trucks carrying more than 6,100 tons of goods into Hamas-controlled Gaza, including a ton of veterinary drugs. During the week just ended, more than 735,000 liters of heavy-duty diesel fuel for Gaza's power plant were admitted via COGAT [details here]. COGAT is almost never mentioned in news reports - it's the arm of the Israeli military that serves to co-ordinate civilian issues among Israel and the Israel Defense Forces on one hand; the multitude of interested international organizations and diplomats on the second hand; and the Palestinian Authority and its Gaza equivalent on the third hand.

Thousands of tons of goods arriving by road from Israel: no flotilla, no tunnels, no sniper cover. The insult to the Palestinian Arab pride of Gaza's population is understandably more than a normal person can bear.

Link: http://thisongoingwar.blogspot.co.il/2012/07/31-jul-12-southern-israel-two-more.html

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Israel Transfers $13 Million to Gaza

Israeljustice.com
25 March '11

http://www.israeljustice.com/news2.asp?key=198

JERUSALEM -- In a grass roots attempt to influence the government of Israel, a human rights organization has urged Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to stop the transfer of $13 million in cash and other goods into the Gaza Strip this week.

"The government should reconsider its steps in this issue and should show responsibility towards its citizens," The Legal Forum for the Land of Israel said in a letter to Netanyahu on March 23. "It isn't possible to expect that pressure on Gaza will produce results while at the same time allowing the residents of Gaza to maintain a normal life at the time that the lives of residents in Ashdod and Beersheba have become not normal and Gild Shalit is still in captivity."

The Bank of Israel transfers cash at least once a month from bank accounts in Ramallah into the Gaza Strip. The money is transported in Brinks armored trucks which pass through the Israel-Gaza check points. Government sources said part of the money is to pay the wages the wages of UNWRA personnel in Gaza.

Officials at the office of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories [COGAT] said that the funds are transferred straight into the bank accounts of UNWRA personnel who are active in humanitarian causes. Officials said that UNWRA is instrumental in distributing food in Gaza.

"The fact that the State of Israel is concerned for the population in Gaza and allows [the transfer] of cash and other goods, is entirely illogical in the wake of the fact that the Hamas leadership in Gaza permits attacks with Grad rockets on Israeli cities," The Legal Forum for the Land of Israel said. "Is it logical that Israel permits the transfer of funds into the Gaza Strip, when there is a reasonable suspicion that the money is used for purchasing weapons against us."

Unofficial sources said that the cash is deposited into two separate banks in Gaza. They said that some cash is deposited into the Postal Bank to pay salaries to military and security officials, including to the PA police.

Cash is also deposited into the Islamic Bank in Gaza and to the Arab Bank to pay salaries for 20,000 to 30,000 Fatah members on the PA payroll and some Hamas members on the PA payroll.

But the cash has a very short shelf life as Hamas is constantly raiding the banks, forcing some banks to close up business. "The Palestine Islamic Bank in Gaza City suspended operations after Hamas raided the financial institution and grabbed $16,000," Middle East Newsline reported on June 28, 2010. "The money [from Israel] was said to have been deposited in the account of the Educational Teaching Society, frozen by the bank several days earlier. This marked the third Hamas raid of Palestinian banks in the Gaza Strip during 2010. Several months earlier, the Bank of Palestine was attacked by Hamas troops, who made off with $280,000 from a deposit held by a Hamas-dominated charity."

Sources said that the cash is quickly dissipated as it is used to pay the tunnel smugglers from Egypt into Gaza for weapons and other commodities. The sources also said that Hamas smuggles out the cash through the tunnels back into the West Bank.

"Hamas has been under sanctions from both the European Union and United States. The sanctions ban any bank transfers to the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip, which has been struggling to pay its more than 30,000 civil servants for much of 2010," Middle East Newsline said. "In May [2010], Palestinian gunmen entered the Arab Bank and demanded $400,000 in tax proceeds destined for the Palestinian Authority, expelled by Hamas in 2007. The Arab Bank, with 500 branches in 30 countries, was identified as one of the last financial institutions that operated under international standards. The Arab Bank, the second largest financial institution in the Gaza Strip, has already dismissed hundreds of employees and closed two branches. Executives said the Hamas raids have jeopardized the banking system."

Nachi Eyal, Director General of The Legal Forum for the Land of Israel said that the Supreme Court has already rejected two petitions filed against the cash transfers. Eyal said the public can't rely on the courts at this juncture. "What we need now is public pressure," Eyal said. "About a year ago, we tried to stop the Brinks truck carrying the money into Gaza at the crossing point but the truck just swerved off the road and continued."

Unofficial sources said that the $13 million will be transferred on March 27 in two Brinks trucks.

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With Justice For All

Yisrael Medad
My Right Word
24 May '10

So, who gets the better deal?

Seems that

The Civil Administration retroactively legalized 1,611 Palestinian structures built without the necessary permits all over the territories in recent years, according to internal documents obtained by Haaretz...The practice of granting legal status after the fact to illegally built structures is commonly applied in the state's dealings with illegal Palestinian construction. According to internal memos circulated by the office of the Coordinator of Government Activties in the Territories, the state retroactively legalized 956 homes in 14 West Bank towns in 2008 alone.

...According to the documents, the most extensive legalization of unauthorized Palestinian construction has been in the Hebron region. The facts and figures cited in the COGAT memos deal exclusively with Area C [which] encompasses 60 percent of the West Bank, pockets of land home to 130,000 Palestinians and 312,000 settlers.

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