Dear Chani,

Thanks so much for your kind words. I do hope for a more peaceful atmosphere where all peace-loving people would live in peace of mind and harmony.

Thanks Ann-Christine for your input. Living with agony is beyond description. I think so many times before taking my kids to the sea. I cannot think of going there without remembering the poor family of Huda Ghalia, who lost her parents and siblings because of Israeli shells at the sea shore. I am sure you remember her story and the video footage.

I believe sane people think about how to live peacefully and construct not to live in agony and destruct. I assure the whole world that I and my people want to live in peace and raise our kids like so many others do all over the world.

Best regards,

Abdallah

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay called today for an immediate end to the Israeli blockade of Gaza. “By function of this blockade, 1.5 million Palestinian men, women and children have been forcibly deprived of their most basic human rights for months. This is in direct contravention of international human rights and humanitarian law. It must end now,” she said.
The High Commissioner further called for the Israeli authorities to facilitate the urgent passage of essential humanitarian goods, including food, medical supplies, and fuel, to immediately allow the restoration of electricity, water and other essential services, and to lift movement restrictions preventing the passage of civilians for medical, educational and religious purposes. “Decisive steps must be taken to preserve the dignity and basic welfare of the civilian population, more than half of which are children,” she added.
While welcoming the decision by Israel to allow a limited number of trucks to enter Gaza on 17 November, the High Commissioner recalled the Occupying Power’s obligation to fully cease all measures that are inconsistent with its obligations under international law. “Only a full lifting of the blockade followed by a strong humanitarian response will be adequate to relieve the massive humanitarian suffering evident in Gaza today.”
Calling on all sides to respect international law and the security of civilian populations, the High Commissioner also appealed for a complete cessation of Israeli air strikes and incursions, and of rocket fire by Palestinian groups.

Website or http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/media.aspx

A few hours after the High Commissioner made her statement, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs criticized her statement with an oblivious press release.

Below is a press release by Al Mezan for Human Rights on the issue.

==========================================

Reference: 101/2008

Date: 19 November 2008

Press Release

Collective Punishment and Rights Violations Cannot Be Justified; Al Mezan Condemns the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Attempt to Justify the Illegal Siege of Gaza

Yesterday, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights called for an immediate end to the Israeli blockade of Gaza. In response, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) released a statement expressing its shock by what it called the one-sided statement by the High Commissioner. Al Mezan condemns the Israeli MFAs' assertion which attempts to validate gross violations of human rights and humanitarian law while the welfare and wellbeing of 1.5 million people in Gaza deteriorate so rapidly.

The High Commissioner's statement came after mounting reports about the human rights and humanitarian impacts of the Israeli siege. Israel has been enforcing this siege for many years, but particularly intensified recently. During the past fourteen days, food, medical and fuel supplies have been suspended under a decision by the Israeli Minister of Defense. Israel portrays the siege as an unavoidable response to mortar and rocket attacks on Israeli towns and military posts in Gaza's vicinity.

As a human rights organization based in the Gaza Strip, Al Mezan has been monitoring the situation with much concern. Facts on the ground indicate that the policy of siege dominates Israel's policies towards Gaza for many years. The siege had been imposed years before the first home-made rockets were fired towards Israel. In addition, the siege had been in place during the past five months; even when a truce was agreed between military groups in Gaza and Israel. Israeli officials have frequently set the record by asserting that the policy of siege aimed to pressurize the population to bring about political gains. During the past four years, the supplies Israel allowed into Gaza failed to meet the minimum needs of the population. This policy created a constant state of vulnerability and practically destroyed the economy and infrastructure. The humanitarian impacts have been dire, with a level of unemployment revolving around 35-40% and of poverty around 80%. Industry and construction have been halted, and agriculture is seriously affected.

Today, the siege causes shortages in electricity and fuel supply. It severely affects the local authorities' ability to pump water to neighborhoods. It also affects the education and health sector in more than one way. Public health remains a source of much concern as the local authorities' ability to deal with sewage water is undermined by the lack of power and equipment. Additionally, the lack of grains and power affects the work of bakeries. The situation on the ground is getting worse every hour. Humanitarian agencies, including UNRWA, had to halt their operations because of the siege.

This reality of human misery in Gaza is not the result of unavoidable conditions. On the contrary, it is the direct outcome of policies that are designed to bring this type of effect and suffering for Gaza's population. Security concerns cannot justify contempt or disregard of international law. Israel has an obligation to ensure that its forces act in conformity with its outstanding obligations under international law. In particular, it must not resort to measures that are absolutely prohibited by international law, such as imposing a long-term siege on a 1.5 million population; the vast majority of whom have no hand in, or effect on, the ongoing conflict. It is incumbent on Israel to show that its responses are strictly militarily necessary, proportionate and distinct to avoid unnecessary harm for civilians.

The High Commissioner's statement, rightly, reminds Israel of the legal obligations it owes to the international community as well as the population of Gaza, which remains under Israeli effective control. Allowing 33 trucks of humanitarian assistance into Gaza in 14 days, as referred to by the MFA, cannot mount to the slightest fraction of Gaza population's needs.

As the siege continues, Al Mezan and other human rights actors in the region and the world remain alarmed by both its consequences and Israel's distorted rationale behind enforcing it. The conditions of conflict and emergency are the very times when human rights and humanitarian standards are most needed. Sacrificing these standards must not be tolerated for it is this type of tolerance that paved the way for grave breaches of international law to be committed with complicit silence.

Al Mezan Center welcomes the High Commissioner's statement which is in full conformity with the standards she is entrusted to promote in the world. The Center calls on the international community to take a clearer, more effective position against the policy of collective punishment of Gaza. As the experience of the past few years shows, the partial, selective and sporadic interventions by the international community have proved futile and incapable of restoring the dignity and human rights of a population that lives under occupation.

Al Mezan remains highly concerned with the language used by the Israel MFA, which reflects a clear intention to maintain enforcing, and probably intensifying, policies that contradict non-derogable international standards.

END

And here is an example of what it can look like:

Another one:

The fishermen are shouting: "khalas, khalas", all the time, which means something like: "enough" or "stop", but in vain.

According to the Oslo Accords, the Palestinian fishermen are allowed to access a 12-nautical-mile fishing zone off the Gaza Strip shore. However, they are attacked and arrested inside the Palestinian territorial waters. The IOF harassments include opening fire of heavy guns towards fishing boats, using water cannons to throw sewage water with high pressure at the Palestinian fishing boats, and even hitting small fishing boats and drowning them. [...] Fishermen are denied access to deeper water and deprived from better opportunities to fish in their own waters.

Here is what a peace activist, on one of the solidarity boats to break the siege, says about it:

I think so many times before taking my kids to the sea. I cannot think of going there without remembering the poor family of Huda Ghalia, who lost her parents and siblings because of Israeli shells at the sea shore. I am sure you remember her story and the video footage.

I do. The footage can also be found on You Tube. However, I have decided not to post any links here. I don't know where the limit goes for what is 'too much', so I better refrain. Mind you, life is so funny. You think many times before taking your kids to the sea, I think many times that I'd like to take my kids to that sea.  I hope I will one day.

Ann-Christine

Originally written by Chani D on November 21, 2008 9:14 AM How must those Israeli soldiers feel while assaulting fishermen with water cannons? Are they really thinking they have to deal with terrorists?!

Hahaha. Très bonne question, mais je ne ris qu'à moitié, .

I know a refuznik who comes to Dijon every now and then, when our Association invites him to speak in a conference or whenever his association organizes something that is worth sharing. His story is amazing, because to answer your question, Chani, he would tell you: They are only fooling themselves. They are born with a lie, and they have to believe in it in order to keep going. The lie he is talking about is that Israel is fragile and needs to defend itself against the Palestinians.

This man's sister was killed by a bomb from a Palestinian. This is how his mother became very sensitive to the problem. Instead of hate and blind rage, she gave it a deeper thought. Her name is Nurit Peled Elhanan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nurit_Peled-Elhanan

Read what she says, and admire the strength of that woman:

[Excerpt]:

My little girl was murdered because she was an Israeli by a young man who was humiliated, oppressed and desperate to the point of suicide and murder and inhumanity, just because he was a Palestinian."

"There is no basic moral difference between the soldier at the checkpoint who prevents a woman who is having a baby from going through, causing her to lose the baby, and the man who killed my daughter. And just as my daughter was a victim [of the occupation], so was he."

First time I heard him speaking, I thanked him, for not being biased, for not being blind to the truth, for sharing our suffering. He told me: Don't thank me, I'm doing it because I love Israel. It's my country and I want to be proud of it. I have so many Palestinian friends, and I don't see a terrorist in any of them.

When I went back home, I thanked him silently again, because I could see the fear on the other side. I could almost touch it and understand it. I could feel his sorrow over having lost his sister. But with all this, he and his family turned their grief into something constructive, and that's what I wish for these two people, our cousins and us, from all my heart.

Ann-Christine

The problem, Anna, with wars and the Israeli-Palestynian problem is not so much in being proud in ones country and understnding the other country, but more in being human, and following the basics of one's religions rather thanthe peripherals of one's religion. The basic things in all religions, at least to my knowledge are the same, don't kill, love one another, maybe put into different words. Even real human morality of an atheist can benefit from these comandments, when taken seriously.  I think until the time people attain compassion comparable to somebody like Dalai Lama, they should follow commandments, and perhaps one day they will attain the momentaneous feeling of right and wrong within, without any commandments. The problem is that the basic things in religion, which can probably be summorized in ten words  are ironically totally neglected, giving place to elaborate theologis. 

All the best.

Liliana