Genocide in Gaza | ||
Keywords | ||
Gaza | ||
Genocide in Gaza
The story of Palestine is a unique one. It is now more than 60 years since it happened and the world every day is witness to the most tragic events in this regard. Different generations of Palestinians have thus far endured tragic sufferings and hardships and they are either vagabond in other countries or are refugees in the camps with miserable conditions. The partition of the Palestinian territory by the colonial powers, including Britain and the United States, deprived the Palestinians of their own motherland, while the international organizations such as the United Nations not only have not alleviated the pains and sufferings of the Palestinians but have either acknowledged the savage acts of the Israeli regime or kept silent vis-à-vis the Israeli crimes. No other issue has been discussed in the United Nations as mush as the Palestinian issue has. There is no other issue with as much documents in the Untied Nations and other international organizations as Palestine. Unfortunately the United Nations and other international organizations have been always witness to the massacre and genocide of the Palestinians at the hands of Israel but every time they kept silent or remained indifferent spectators waiting for Israel to become the victor of the field and put an end to the Palestinian issue. But when they realize that due to the resistance of the people and public opinion, Israel does not succeed, they issue resolutions and statements and despite the fact that a large number of civilians are killed by Israel, the UN Security Council does not take a suitable action or measure. In many cases it does not even issue a statement and if it issued a resolution, it is vetoed by the United States.
Siege of Gaza a Clear Example of Genocide
What the Israeli military commanders committed on the order of the political leaders regarding the siege of Gaza aimed to deprive the Palestinians from food, medicine and other basic needs and the main reason of the siege and the deprivation a group of the nation of food and other basic human needs was merely their Palestinian nationality nothing else. Ramzi Clark the former US Justice Minister in an interview with the Al-Kaffah al-Arabi called the Zionist regime a terrorist regime in its true sense, adding, what Israel has done in Gaza is a Holocaust and genocide in which the women, children and old people were killed and everything was destroyed. A report on Gaza published by the Human Rights Commissioner on 1st January 2009, announced that there was no safe places in Gaza, there is no shelter to protect the residents against bombardments. The report added: there may be some signs of safe places in some buildings such as schools and offices, but these buildings cannot withstand the bombardments. The children are exposed to intermittent threats; more than 300 children have been killed and more than1,000 injured. Overall more than 1,400 people, majority of whom were civilians, women and children, fell martyrs in the course of bombardments, more than 5,500 were wounded, while the condition of 350 was critical. During the massacres the schools were not safe either. In fact 43 students were killed and 100 wounded when the UNRWA School in Jablaliya was bombarded. According to a report of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Israeli security forces continued their military attacks on the Gaza and West Bank throughout 2007. According to a report of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 392 Palestinians were killed in the occupied territories (91 in the West Bank and 301 in the Gaza Strip). Moreover, 1180 Palestinians were wounded in the West Bank and 661 in the Gaza Strip. The long-term siege of a people in a limited area is nothing but a forced labor camp or a death camp. Today the imposed conditioned on the Gaza is nothing but yesteryear’s Auschwitz, or may be even more criminal. The prisoners of the Nazi Holocaust used to receive their limited food ration from the jailors to survive and work, but today’s Israeli Nazi jailors even bombard the passages of food, fuel and medicine in an indescribable cold blood. They even bombard the UN schools, the relief organizations, ambulances and hospitals. The conditions in Gaza were so tragic that the Secretary General of the highest international organization, that is, the United Nations, could not restrain his anger. Not using the prevailing diplomatic norms and expediencies of his position, in an interview with the London-based Al-Hayat daily, he said: When I see that the conditions in Gaza do not move towards improvement and solution as I expected, and when I see that we have not been able to send humanitarian aids to the people who suffer from lack of water and electricity and even cannot leave Gaza, I strongly get angry and even I conveyed this anger to the Israeli officials in my recent trip to Tel Aviv. The expression of this situation by the UN Secretary General is nothing but the proof of genocide in Gaza. The remarks of the Israeli foreign minister Zibi Tzipi Livni in her meeting with the Egyptian foreign minister underlined the Israeli intention of destroying Gaza in whole. Her remarks do not differ from those of the Nazi Heinrich Himmler of Germany in the past. If we make a comparison between the Leidich region in the former Czechoslovakia which was leveled to the ground by the Nazi SS on the pretext of an attack on Hadrigh and the Gaza region that was attacked by Israel on the pretext of capturing a Israeli soldier or launching of a missile by Hamas, we can conclude that the attacks are similar with the only difference that the former were carried out by the Nazi regime yesteryears and the later by the Israeli SS today. The yesteryear’s Nazis used to speak of the settlement of the Jewish issue and today’s Israelis speak of the final settlement of the issue of Hamas and Palestine. Yesterday the order for massacre was issued in German language, today it is issued in Hebrew; the theater of massacre is the same but the actors are different.
Economic Losses of the Siege of Gaza
The intensification of the economic siege of the Gaza Strip by the Israelis inflicted huge losses on the economic infrastructure of this region, leaving negative consequences on all other sectors. On the basis of the early estimates, the losses inflicted on the Gaza every mouth amounted to 48 million dollars. Hence during the 20 months of the siege the total losses amounted to more than one billion dollars. Overall, about 5,000 buildings and the entire infrastructure were destroyed in Gaza and about two billion dollars of direct losses were inflicted on the people. At the time of Israeli invasion, Gaza was witness to several attacks and onslaughts leaving their impacts on all aspects of life. The life condition of the people has been degraded to the lowest level showing that the main objective had been destruction in whole. Because of the prevention of the import of raw materials and goods to the region and prolonged strict siege of Gaza, 85 percent of the people live below the poverty line. According to an estimate of the World Bank, the figure was 66 percent in the closing months of 2006. The situation in Gaza is tragic regarding other aspects of life. Israel prevents the arrival of any medicine. More than 90 percent of the equipment of hospitals are out of work because of shortage of spare parts. The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has estimated that 80 percent of the people of Gaza are below the poverty line and depend on international food relief. If prohibition and punishment of the crime of genocide is based on international law, then the punishment of the Israeli leaders and military commanders is necessary. If such a crime with such an intensity is not punishable, in fact the convention that considers genocide a crime, lays emphasis on the punishment of its perpetrators. Hence it absolutely applies to Israel. The punishment of such a crime must not be merely confined to the condemnation of its perpetrators by the International Court, but all the member governments must contribute to its punishment, particularly the governments that have given some jurisdictions and competency to their courts in this field. | ||
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