Emilio Morenatti/Associated Press

About 200,000 Gazans rallied in a show of force from Hamas on the 20th anniversary of its founding.

Steven Erlanger and Taghreed El-Khodary, Gazans Rally on Hamas Anniversary, New York Times, December 15, 2007

GAZA — About 200,000 Gazans rallied in support of Hamas on Saturday, the 20th anniversary of its founding.

It was a significant show of force from Hamas, which took over Gaza six months ago in a rapid rout of Fatah forces. The rally was intended to display popular “samoud,” or steadfastness, in the face of the diplomatic and economic isolation of Gaza, which Israel has declared a “hostile entity.” It was easily as large as one a month ago for its rival, the Fatah faction, on the anniversary of the death of Yasir Arafat, and estimates ranged up to 250,000 people….

The crowd featured many who are poor and devout, with many veiled women and masked men. Layali al-Kher, 27, said that there was little money in her family, because factories and construction has largely stopped due to restrictions on cement and raw materials. “But this siege was not imposed by Hamas but on them, so why should we criticize them?” she asked. “They’ve put Hamas in a bottle and they are trying to suffocate it. But they have achieved a lot: the streets are safe, the traffic is controlled. They have adapted quickly and have a strong will.”

Ms. Kher said that she supported the armed struggle against Israel, as did Myasar Suleiman, 56, whose family of six sons and three daughters is largely supported by her husband, who sells vegetables, and by United Nations aid to refugees. Her son, Saleh, saw his salary cut by Ramallah because of his ties to Hamas, she said.

First-graders at a Gaza school for the deaf have had to rely on sign language since Israeli import restrictions caused the school to run seriously low on hearing-aid batteries. The isolated strip is also short of antibiotics, fuel and food. (By Scott Wilson — The Washington Post)

Scott Wilson, Sealed Off by Israel, Gaza Reduced to Beggary - washingtonpost.com, December 15, 2007

GAZA CITY — The batteries are the size of a button on a man’s shirt, small silvery dots that power hearing aids for several hundred Palestinian students taught by the Atfaluna Society for Deaf Children in Gaza City.

Now the batteries, marketed by Radio Shack, are all but used up. The few that are left are losing power, turning voices into unintelligible echoes in the ears of Hala Abu Saif’s 20 first-grade students.

First-graders at a Gaza school for the deaf have had to rely on sign language since Israeli import restrictions caused the school to run seriously low on hearing-aid batteries. The isolated strip is also short of antibiotics, fuel and food.

The Israeli government is increasingly restricting the import into the Gaza Strip of batteries, anesthesia drugs, antibiotics, tobacco, coffee, gasoline, diesel fuel and other basic items, including chocolate and compressed air to make soft drinks.

This punishing seal has reduced Gaza, a territory of almost 1.5 million people, to beggar status, unable to maintain an effective public health system, administer public schools or preserve the traditional pleasures of everyday life by the sea.

A Palestinian farmer waiting at the West Bank Barrier gate separating him from his olive groves located behind the Barrier, in the area of Ariel settlement.
©ICRC/E. Linklater/il-e-01265

Palestinians queuing at Huwara checkpoint, one of the two entry passages along the main road connecting Nablus to the rest of the West Bank. Private vehicles are not allowed through this check point, unless the owner holds a special permit.
©Associated Press/N. Ishtayeh

A Palestinian family crosses Huwara checkpoint, one of the two entry passages along the main road connecting Nablus to the rest of the West Bank. Private vehicles are not allowed through this check point, unless the owner holds a special permit.
©Associated Press / M. Mohammed

ICRC, The occupied Palestinian territories: Dignity Denied, December 13, 2007

“To be a Palestinian means to face limits in every aspect of life. We are blocked everywhere: we lose our jobs, we cannot travel freely, we are separated from our families. To be a Palestinian means to be deprived of many things that to others are normal.”
Mohammed, a Jerusalemite

Throughout the occupied Palestinian territories, in the Gaza Strip as well as in the West Bank, Palestinians continuously face hardship in simply going about their lives; they are prevented from doing what makes up the daily fabric of most people’s existence. The Palestinian territories face a deep human crisis, where millions of people are denied their human dignity. Not once in a while, but every day.

While the Gaza Strip is sealed off, the conflict between militants and Israel continues inexorably. Palestinian militants are launching rockets towards Israel almost every day. The Israeli army regularly carries out incursions deep into the Strip, air strikes and attacks from the sea. The civilian population remains trapped, with no escape possible, and is also affected by continued intra-Palestinian clashes.

Amira Hass, Two non-states - Haaretz, December 12, 2007

Immediately after the Hamas takeover of the security organs in Gaza in June, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas suspended, using executive orders, the work of the judiciary and law-enforcement systems there. It is possible to see this as a legitimate step against the de facto putsch carried out in the Gaza Strip. However, legal experts and human rights organizations in Gaza warned him that by so doing, he was paving the way for the establishment of a separate court system. How right they were.

Abbas ordered the police to stay home (and get paid for not working), and he forbade the judges to work in cooperation with the police force that Hamas established, having no alternative. Abbas suspended the work of the General Attorney in Gaza, Hamas appointed substitutes, and afterward it set up “The Supreme Justice Council” to run the court system and appoint judges instead of the PA’s “Supreme Judicial Council.” This body was ordered not to accept official documents issued by Hamas ministries and not to charge court fees so that the money would not go to the government coffers in Gaza.

The peak came at the end of November, when the Supreme Justice Council took over the court building in Gaza and informed the 48 judges that thenceforth they were under its authority and not the authority of the Supreme Judicial Council. The seven “Hamas judges” are the only ones working at present, and since there are no restrictions on them, they can at least conduct urgent trials as in cases of murder and robbery. Thus the final impression is that Hamas is more efficient than the PA.

The initial responsibility of the PA in Ramallah is not in doubt. After all, Palestinian judges continued to work with the occupation authorities, so why shouldn’t they also work in a reality of Hamas rule, for the sake of the public? And after all, before the military takeover Hamas won a majority in real democratic elections. That said, the Hamas government has also avoided alternatives such as seeking aid from independent jurists and human rights organizations to persuade Ramallah to put an end to the paralysis of the courts.

The Magnes Zionist: Mazel Tov, Activists and Anarchists — the Latter-Day Maccabees (But with a Better Sense of Humor), December 5, 2007

In a clever and well-coordinated move (what happened to the Shabak?), seventy activists panned out through Tel-Aviv, Jerusalem, and Haifa, and plastered 10,000 electricity cut-off notices to the residents. Of course, the cut-off notices were bogus, but they served to literally bring home to the Israelis that Gaza has been threatened by Israel with a general electricity and fuel shut-off in reprisal for shelling Sderot.

Now, the average Israeli will point out how justified Israel’s actions are. I mean, let’s face it, if the Israelis wanted to, they could just wipe Gaza off the face of the earth. The fact that they only hold a million human beings hostage and pressure them collectively whenever they want to (and their High Court lets them) shows how moral they are. Hell, they are the most moral country in the world. What other country would let the little b-stards lob shells into the city. I mean, Israel pulled out of their overcrowded hell-hole, didn’t it? (”The better to squeeze them, my dear….”)

That’s what the average Israeli says, considering the responses on the websites.

Pity the average Israeli.

Read about it in Hebrew here and here and here and here and here (this has a video clip; you have to wait through a dumb commercial before you get to it, but it’s worth it). And in English here

This protest action was sponsored by a coalition of lefties calling themselves, the Front for the Liberation of Gaza. They include some of the “Anarchists” who have been protesting the systematic expropriation of the lands of Bil’in every week. Lately they have also been involved in protesting the Israelis-only road 443, the most notorious of the roads of hafradah (Hebrew for “separation”; I wouldn’t dignify the ideology behind it with the term “apartheid”) And many other groups were involved.

Remember when Israelis justified checkpoints and closures by saying that they were “inconveniences” at worst? Well, apparently, the inconvenience of removing posters on their doors has been driving some of them nuts. Imagine what they would do if some of them had to stand in line for hours to get past a checkpoint? Of if their wives died in labor, or their children were stillborn because they did not have the right permit? Some of them would be fighting each other to sign up for the Masada suicide terrorist brigade.

Court approves Gaza fuel cutbacks, BBC, November 30, 2007

The Supreme Court in Israel has ruled that the government can continue its cutbacks of fuel supplies to the Gaza Strip, but must delay electricity cuts.

Israeli and Palestinian human rights groups had challenged the move, calling it an illegal collective punishment.

The Israeli government argues the cutbacks are used as economic sanctions in retaliation for rocket attacks by Palestinian militants in Gaza.

High Court orders state to delay power cuts to Gaza - Haaretz, November 30, 2007

The High Court of Justice on Sunday ordered the state to delay its reduction of power supplies to the Gaza Strip by at least a week, pending a full presentation detailing the proposed operation.

The court’s interim decision follows petitions by 10 human rights groups against the state’s plan to reduce supplies of electricity, gasoline and diesel fuel to the coastal territory.

Nevertheless, the justices upheld the state’s plan to reduce fuel transfers to the Strip, as long as the humanitarian needs of Gaza’s residents were given primary consideration.

Dancers at Cosmos club in the West Bank.

Credit: Katherine Kiviat

Nissenbaum Blog: Checkpoint Jerusalem, November 26, 2007

Ladies up in here tonight
No fighting, no fighting
We got the refugees up in here
No fighting, no fighting
- Shakira, featuring Wyclef Jean, “Hips Don’t Lie”

In theory, the 2.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank are brothers and sisters with the 1.5 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

In reality, the gap between the two has probably never been wider.

Most Palestinians who live in the West Bank have never been to Gaza, and most Palestinians in Gaza have never been to the West Bank.

Gaza, now under Hamas control, is substantially more conservative than the West Bank.

That reality hit home Saturday night around 2 a.m. while grooving to Shakira on the dance floor at Cosmos, the West Bank’s only real disco.

The dance floor was packed. Women in short leopard-skin mini skirts and thigh-high leather boots with spiked heels were doing the shimmy-and-shake with their partners as strobe lights and smoke swept across the club. Two, young, thin gay Palestinians with spiked punk rock-style hair and matching black t-shirts felt free enough to get their groove on on the dance floor.

The DJ unartfully careened from Shakira to classic Egyptian dance tunes to Nancy Ajram to cheesy American disco classics, but no one really seemed to mind.

The bar served up a steady stream of vodka and Red Bull, Taybeh (the only Palestinian beer), and a traditional selection of cocktails.Cosmos

You see this across the Middle East in places like Beirut and Dubai. But not so much here in the West Bank. And certainly not these days in the Gaza Strip.

Being at Cosmos 48 hours after attending a sparsely-attended rap show in Gaza City made me acutely aware of the growing psychological gap between the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The chances for couples to dance together in Gaza are virtually nil. And forget about serving alcohol. There are no restaurants in Gaza that serve booze and even those that serve non-alcoholic beer sometimes get stern looks from customers who think it’s really the Devil’s Brew.

The rift between the West Bank and Gaza has become more pronounced in the nearly six months since Hamas seized control of Gaza.

Scores of Palestinians, the few allowed out by Israel, fled to the West Bank where they became refugees again in their own nation.

Many were scorned as traitors or cowards for fleeing. Others from Gaza were shocked by the sight of Palestinian girls dressed in tight jeans and pink DKNY tops seen shopping every day in downtown Ramallah.

On the eve of Annapolis, Gaza remains under effective lock-down. And there is little reason to believe that things will get better after the peace conference.

If Annapolis leads to ongoing peace talks, there will be no incentive for PA President Mahmoud Abbas to renew talks with Hamas and create a new unity government - a move that would no doubt scuttle negotiations with Israel.

If Hamas decides to renew attacks on Israel after Annapolis, Israel is certain to respond with overpowering force in Gaza that would probably have at least the tacit backing from Abbas.

In a few days, Israel is planning to turn the screws again on Gaza by rationing power - a move widely viewed as a violation of international law.

“This is our life,” a friend of mine in Gaza told me last week. “Your life was better than your father’s, and your father’s life was better than his father’s life, yes? Here, my father’s life was better than mine, and my life will be better than my son’s.”

Maher Najjar - Fire and Water in Gaza - washingtonpost.com, November 27, 2007

GAZA CITY — On Sept. 19, the Israeli government declared the Gaza Strip “hostile territory” and authorized steps to punish its civilian population. It decided that every Qassam rocket fired into Israel would carry a price tag: cutting the supply of electricity and fuel that Israel sells to Gaza. This assumes that disrupting civilian life in Gaza will have positive political results for Israel.

Gaza’s 1.5 million residents have been living with collective punishment for some time. We have endured years of border closures, aerial attacks and military operations — measures Israel has always explained as militarily necessary. But now, Israeli politicians claim it is legitimate to deprive all of Gaza’s civilians of basic needs.

A goat is rescued from a sewage flood after a cesspool embankment collapsed in Gaza in March.

Israel controls Gaza’s borders and the movement of all people and goods. Since Hamas came to power in June, Israel has tightened its siege. It has banned raw materials for manufacturing and construction; only basic foodstuffs are permitted into Gaza, and exports have been halted. Gaza’s economy is suffocating: Since June, 85 percent of its factories and 95 percent of its construction projects have been paralyzed. More than 70,000 people have lost their jobs. A million and a half people are locked in a pressure cooker in one of the world’s most densely populated areas.

Hamas: Abbas has no right to give up one inch of Palestine, Haaretz, November 27, 2007

Hours before the start of a U.S.-hosted Middle East peace conference, Gaza’s Hamas rulers stepped up their attacks on Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, calling him a traitor and saying they would reject any decisions that come out of the international gathering.

“The Land of Palestine … is purely owned by the Palestinians,” senior Hamas official Mahmoud Zahar said in a speech. “No person, group, government or generation has the right to give up one inch of it.”

“Anyone who stands in the face of resistance or fights it or cooperates with the occupation against it is a traitor,” he added. He spoke at a conference, held in Gaza City, attended by some 2,000 activists from local militant groups opposed to the U.S. conference.

Hamas and other militant groups have been holding a series of protests this week against the U.S. peace conference, underscoring the challenges Abbas faces at home as he tries to make peace with Israel.

A Palestinian farmer feeds carnations to sheep at his farm in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip (AP).

Israel okays renewal of flower, strawberry exports from Gaza,

Haaretz, Nov. 21, 2007

The government has decided to permit the renewal of flower and strawberry exports from the Gaza Strip to Europe from agricultural export terminals inside Israel.

Agriculture Minister Shalom Simhon and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, both of Labor, approved the move after Palestinian farmers and Israeli exporters appealed to the High Court of Justice against Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Simchon and Barak.

The exports came to a halt after the security cabinet declared the Gaza Strip a ‘hostile entity’ in response to ongoing militant Qassam fire on the western Negev.

Simchon is to send the details of the decision to Palestinian Authority Agriculture Minister Mahmoud Habash.

The export of flowers and strawberries from the Gaza Strip to the European Union is carried out with the cooperation of Israeli exporters and European buyers, and amounts to roughly NIS 100 million each year. Of that sum, NIS 45 million comes from the sale of carnations.

Gaza: Israel Blocks 670 Students from Studies Abroad (Human Rights Watch, 20-11-2007)

Egypt, Palestinian Authority and Hamas Share Blame

(New York, November 20, 2007) – The Israeli government is arbitrarily blocking some 670 students in Gaza from pursuing higher education abroad, Human Rights Watch said today. Israel is denying exit permits that the young men and women need to leave Gaza for university programs in countries such as Egypt, Jordan, Germany, Britain, and the United States. The students are among roughly 6,400 Gazans with foreign citizenship, permanent residency, work permits, student visas or university admissions abroad, who have been trapped in Gaza since June, when Hamas took control of the territory by force.

Israel has near total control of Gaza’s borders – land, air, and sea. Since June, it has mostly allowed only extreme medical emergencies, some journalists, and employees of international organizations to leave.

“Israel seems determined to punish all Gazans, including students, for the behavior of Hamas,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East division. “Israel should not make young people seeking education pay the price for its conflict with a political or military group.”

Universities in Gaza do not offer degrees in a variety of subjects, including undergraduate degrees in languages other than Arabic, English and French, and master’s degrees in law, journalism and information technology. Doctoral degrees are not offered at all in Gaza or the West Bank.

Israel forbids Gaza residents from studying in Israel or the West Bank, and rarely permits foreign professors and lecturers to visit Gaza to teach.

Most of the students are waiting for permission to leave Gaza, either to get visas for the countries where they have been admitted to universities or to travel to those countries directly. Many started their studies in previous years and were trapped in Gaza when they returned home for the summer.

In some cases, Israeli authorities have given students exit permits but then refused to let them leave via the passenger crossing at Erez due to unspecified “security concerns.”

Among the roughly 670 students, some 400 are trying to pursue their studies in Egypt. The southern crossing from Gaza to Egypt at Rafah has been closed since June 9, 2007, at Israel’s insistence. Reopening it requires the participation of Israel, Egypt, and the Palestinian Authority, under the terms of the 2005 Agreement on Movement and Access. Israel has declared its opposition to reopening Rafah. Both Egypt and the Palestinian Authority appear to have acquiesced to Israel’s demand, and have not pressed for the crossing to reopen.

Nissenbaum Blog: Checkpoint Jerusalem, Nov. 20, 2007

The cashier at the Unity Market in Gaza City pulled up video of last week’s deadly Arafat memorial rally on his computer and cursed the Hamas gunmen who opened fire on the crowd, killing at least seven.

“I went to the rally not to support Fatah or Yasser Arafat, but to send a message to the whole international community that we don’t want Hamas,” said the shopkeeper who gave his name only as Ala’. “I hate them because of what they did at the rally.”

Then, suddenly, the man went quiet, put his finger to his lip and shook his head.

In walked a thin man with a black shirt, black jeans and a well-cropped red beard. The store owner kept quiet until the Hamas member bought his bottle of cooking oil and left. Then he returned to cursing Hamas.

“How do you want me to love or respect Hamas?” said Ala’, who voted for Hamas in last year’s election. “It’s only a matter of fear.”

Across the Gaza Strip, there is growing frustration and resentment as life for the 1.5 million Palestinians remains mired in a swamp of economic and political despair.

More than five months into its unilateral control of Gaza, Hamas is slowly losing its grip on the main thing the Islamist forces brought when they took power in mid-June: Security.

IDF: Gaza fuel cuts don’t violate humanitarian duty - Haaretz, November 19, 2007

Israel’s decision to cut fuel supplies to the Gaza Strip does not violate its responsibility to provide humanitarian services to residents of the coastal territory, an Israel Defense Forces official maintained on Monday.

Shlomi Muchtar of the IDF Coordination and Liaison Office, which coordinates Palestinian civilian affairs, wrote in an affidavit to the High Court of Justice that the cuts do not “harm the humanitarian minimum to which Israel is committed.”

The affidavit was submitted after High Court justices last week ordered the State Prosecution to present data affirming that Israel’s move would not affect the humanitarian needs of the civilian population of the Gaza Strip.

The affidavit said that Israel intends to cut diesel fuel supplies for transportation purposes from 1.4 million liters per week to 1.2 million, and diesel fuel supplies for power stations from 2.2 liters per week to 1.75 liters.

According to IDF calculations, humanitarian needs require 800,000 liters of diesel each week. “And that’s a strict estimate,” the affidavit said.

The High Court hearing is in response to the petition of ten Israeli and Palestinian human rights organizations against the state’s decision to cut fuel and electricity supplies in response to constant Qassam rocket fire from the Gaza Strip into western Israel.

Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

ON EDGE A woman passes under the watchful eye of a member of Hamas’s security forces outside the Parliament building in Gaza City. In June, Hamas prevailed against its rival, Fatah.

Erlanger, Under Siege, Life in Gaza Just Shrinks - NYT, November 18, 2007

IT’S a miserable time to be a Gazan.

A Tightened Grip, Multimedia Feature, Photos by Ruth Fremson

Hopes were high in 2005, when Israel unilaterally withdrew its troops and 9,000 Jewish settlers, and the international community lined up to help the Palestinians make Gaza a model for their potential state.

But happy endings are rare in this part of the world. In the last year, life in Gaza has been plagued by criminal gangs as well as fighting among Palestinian groups. Some rocket barrages aimed at Israel fall on Gaza itself, and Israeli retaliation for the rest ranges from military strikes to economic quarantine.

Months of battling between the main political factions, Fatah and Hamas, culminated in a Gazan civil war in June, with 160 people killed and 800 wounded, many of them civilians. Hamas, which is classified as a terrorist group by Israel, the United States and the European Union, was the winner.

The struggle is hardly finished, with Fatah trying to consolidate in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza. Just last week, a large Fatah demonstration on the third anniversary of Yasir Arafat’s death ended in violence when Hamas police fired into a rock-throwing crowd and killed six people, while beating others.

Hamas is under siege, and with it, the people of Gaza.

It’s not just that Hamas is shunned by the West and Israel, which has declared Gaza “a hostile entity” and is moving to restrict supplies of gasoline, diesel fuel and electricity. Gaza is also shunned by the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah, who is a ready accomplice in the effort to punish and pressure Hamas.

After the Israelis pulled out in 2005, Gazans complained that they lived in a big prison, since Israel still controlled their airspace, sea coasts and principal border crossings. Such claims had an element of propaganda, but now, with the crossing into Egypt for people also shut, by Egypt, the accusation is much closer to reality.

A trickle of the 1.5 million inhabitants of Gaza can now leave their tiny coastal strip for any reason whatsoever. The streets are ghostly, with little traffic, and the private economy is dying, lacking needed imports and unable to export.

Gaza is a deeply conservative society, but Hamas’s growth has been reflected in the increasing number of women not only covering their hair, but also their faces. Israel says that it will ensure that no one starves in Gaza, and that the essentials of life will be provided.

But Israel also wants to see that Hamas suffers, by making Gazans suffer, to impress on them that the best path lies in accommodation and negotiation with Israel for a Palestinian state. Fatah backs that strategy, not the violent, religious and national struggle against Israel that Hamas advocates and practices.

Raji Sourani, director of Gaza’s Palestinian Center for Human Rights, is himself stuck in Gaza. No friend to Hamas, he has a new metaphor.

“At least in prison, and I’ve been in prison, there are rules,” he said. “But now we live in a kind of animal farm. We live in a pen, and they dump in food and medicine.”