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| By Ewa Jasiewicz and Frank Barat, The Palestine Chronicle, March 16, 2010
The first session of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine (RTP) was heard in Barcelona, Spain earlier this month. The RTP is a peoples’ legal initiative designed to systematically try key actors responsible for the perpetuation of human rights violations in Palestine. In the frame this time was the European Union (EU). Two days and 21 expert witness testimonies later, the RTP found individual states and the EU as a whole guilty of persistent violations and misconduct with regards to international and internal EU law. These included: assistance in perpetrating the crime of apartheid — deepened in definition as applicable to the violation of the inalienable right of return for refugees and the collective punishment and ghettoization of Gaza; aiding the procurement of war crimes and crimes against humanity particularly with regards to Gaza; and violating the Palestinian right to self-determination, aiding illegal colonization, the annexation of East Jerusalem and theft of natural resources. |
Posts Tagged ‘Gaza’
Gaza marks 1000th day of Israeli siege
March 7, 2010
uruknet.info, March 7, 2010
Ma’an News
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| Gaza – Ma’an – Protests against the crippling siege imposed on the Gaza Strip should spread across the world, said Palestinian lawmaker Jamalh Al-Khudari on Sunday, as the blockade enters its 1000th day.
“The siege harmed the people, as well as the environment, health, the economy and social life. It constitutes a serious attempt to suffocate the people and break their will,” Al-Khudari told reporters during a news conference. He announced that 500 Gaza residents have died as a result of the siege, most of whom were patients who could not recieve appropriate medical treatment. |
Israel/Gaza: General Assembly Presses for War Justice
February 27, 2010Most EU States Support Call for Israeli, Palestinian War Crimes Investigations; US and Canada Opposed
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“The UN resolution sends a strong message that Israel and Hamas need to conduct genuine investigations into the allegations of wartime abuses and punish those responsible. Governments are refusing to exempt the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from demands for justice made for other conflicts around the world.”
Steve Crawshaw, UN advocacy director at Human Rights Watch
(New York) – Today’s United Nations General Assembly resolution calling for impartial Gaza war crimes investigations is an important step toward justice for all civilian victims of last year’s conflict, Human Rights Watch said. A majority of UN members, including most European Union (EU) states, voted for the resolution, increasing pressure on Israel and Hamas to conduct credible investigations into the allegations of war crimes by their forces.
A November 2009 General Assembly resolution calling for credible domestic investigations by all parties to the conflict garnered support from only 5 EU member states.
“The UN resolution sends a strong message that Israel and Hamas need to conduct genuine investigations into the allegations of wartime abuses and punish those responsible,” said Steve Crawshaw, UN advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “Governments are refusing to exempt the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from demands for justice made for other conflicts around the world.”
By a vote of 98 to 7, with 31 abstentions, the General Assembly called on Israel and Hamas to conduct thorough and impartial investigations into the serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law documented by the UN Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict (the Goldstone report). Fifty-six countries did not vote. The resolution requires Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to report back to the General Assembly within five months on the progress both parties have made.
The Goldstone report concluded that both Israel and Hamas had committed war crimes and possible crimes against humanity.
Sixteen EU members voted for the resolution, including permanent Security Council members France and the United Kingdom.
The countries voting against were Canada, Israel, Macedonia, Micronesia, Nauru, Panama, and the United States.
“Washington’s objection to this resolution reveals a blatant double standard when it comes to international justice,” Crawshaw said. “Why should the victims of war crimes in Gaza not benefit from the same US demands for accountability as victims in Congo and Darfur?”
In its resolution on November 5, 2009, the General Assembly called on Israel and Hamas to conduct credible investigations within three months. In late January 2010, Israel and Hamas delivered their reports on domestic investigations to the UN. Based on those reports, Secretary-General Ban told the General Assembly on February 4 that, because the domestic processes were ongoing, “no determination can be made on the implementation of the resolution by the parties concerned.” He repeated his call on all parties “to carry out credible domestic investigations into the conduct of the Gaza conflict.”
Human Rights Watch has strongly criticized both Israel and Hamas for failing to conduct thorough and impartial investigations into the many alleged violations by their forces during the Gaza conflict.
To date, Israel has not prosecuted any soldier or commander for unlawful killings or other serious laws-of-war violations during the Gaza conflict. Nor has it conducted credible investigations into military policies that may have contravened the laws of war or facilitated war crimes. These include the targeting of Hamas political institutions and Gaza police; the use of heavy artillery and white phosphorus munitions in populated areas; and the rules of engagement for aerial drone operators and ground forces.
Hamas has not disciplined or prosecuted anyone for ordering or carrying out thousands of deliberate or indiscriminate rocket attacks against Israeli population centers before, during, and after the fighting in December 2008 and January 2009. Killings and other serious abuses by Hamas security forces against suspected collaborators and political rivals in Gaza have also gone unpunished.
“The United States, Canada, and other governments that voted against the Gaza resolution missed an opportunity to help break the cycle of violence and impunity that poses a major obstacle to the peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” Crawshaw said.
U.S. congressman: U.S. should break Israel’s blockade of Gaza
February 15, 2010Haaretz/Israel, Feb 15, 2010
By Associated Press 
The United States should break Israel’s blockade of Gaza and deliver badly needed supplies by sea, a U.S. congressman told Gaza students.
Rep. Brian Baird, a Democrat from Washington state, also urged President Barack Obama’s Mideast envoy to visit the Hamas-ruled territory to get a firsthand look at the destruction caused by Israeli’s military offensive last year.
The Obama administration, like its predecessor, shuns Hamas because the
I slamic militant group refuses to recognize Israel or renounce violence.
Israel and Egypt have restricted access to Gaza since Hamas’ victory in parliament elections in 2006 and tightened the blockade after Hamas seized Gaza by force in 2007.
Israel allows humanitarian supplies and food into Gaza, but has kept out cement and other building supplies needed for reconstruction. Israel argues such materials could be diverted by Hamas for military use.
Baird, who has announced his retirement from Congress, told a group of Gaza students Sunday evening that the U.S. should not condone the blockade.
“We ought to bring roll-on, roll-off ships and roll them right to the beach and bring the relief supplies in, in our version of the Berlin airlift,” he said, adding that the supplies could be delivered to UN aid agencies.
On Saturday, the Palestinian Ma’an new agency, quoting the Strip’s Energy Authority, reported that Gaza’s sole power plant will cease functioning within hours due to a fuel shortage.
The Gaza Energy Authority wrote in a statement that while most of the power plant’s generators have been shut down, the remaining amount of fuel will only suffice to continue the plant’s electricity output for a few hours longer.
According to the Ma’an report, the Strip-based authority also claimed that the reduction of fuel transfers into Gaza continued, with the first week of February seeing 1,600 cubic meters of fuel entrring the costal enclave instead of the 2,200 cubic meters decided upon in an Israeli court decision.
Authorities appealed to international and humanitarian organizations, as well as Arab states and the Organization of the Islamic Conference to end the ongoing electricity deficit in Gaza.
Last week, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip inflicted “protracted suffering” on Palestinians.
He described the blockade as “unacceptable and counter-productive” to development and reconstruction in the war-torn territory.
Hamas wants talks with Americans, Europeans
February 4, 2010Middle East Online, Feb 4, 2010
‘The establishment of a Palestinian state with the 1967 borders’
Ismail Haniya: Israel must recognise rights of Palestinian people before asking for recognition.
GAZA CITY – Hamas is ready for dialogue with the international community, including the United States and European Union, the leader of the democratically elected Palestinian movement Ismail Haniya said.
“Hamas is ready to dialogue with the world, international community, the US, the (Middle East) Quartet and the Europeans,” Haniya said Wednesday.
The resistance movement has been in power in the Israeli-besieged Gaza Strip since June 2007 after a routing out Fatah forces, to prevent a US-backed coup against Hamas’s democratic election.
Under pressure from Israeli lobbies, the US and the EU refuse to hold formal talks with the democratically elected movement, branding it a “terrorist” organisation.
One of the main obstacles to opening a dialogue is the Hamas’s refusal to officially recognise Israel. The Quartet demands an explicit recognition.
“They have to recognise us first, the right of the Palestinian people, we are the victims,” said the 48-year-old, who repeated that Hamas supports “the establishment of a Palestinian state with the 1967 borders.”
The Palestinians want their future state based on borders before the Israeli occupation of June 1967, which are recognosised by the international community, with its capital in East Jerusalem, a Palestinian territory under illegal Israeli occupation.
The Hamas prime minister said his movement had come “closer in political terms” to conditions issued by the Quartet — the US, EU, Russia and the United Nations — to open dialogue, including a “long-term ceasefire.”
Hamas has stopped resistance rocket attacks against Israel since a Hamas-Israeli ceasefire following the end of Israel’s devastating offensive against Gaza a year ago.
Haniya said he was determined to “establish Palestinian reconciliation and to have fair elections… in all Palestinian homes, including Jerusalem.”
Regarding “reconciliation, it is moving. It needs a strong push to reach a signature” with Fatah, the rival movement headed by Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas.
A senior Fatah official, Nabil Shaath, made a rare visit to the Gaza Strip on Wednesday in a bid to encourage stalled reconciliation efforts.
Shaath, a member of the central committee of Fatah, met with Khalil al-Hayya, a senior official from Hamas.
“We are one people, we have one homeland. Every Palestinian has the right to move in his own land at any time,” Haniya said. “If he (Shaath) asks for a meeting, we will do nothing to prevent it.”
After talks mediated by Egypt, Hamas has refused to sign a unity deal that was proposed by Cairo in October unless it is amended to reflect what the group says were previous understandings reached with Fatah.
Both Egypt and Fatah have said the deal is final.
In addition, relations between Hamas and Egypt have deteriorated recently after an armed confrontation at the Rafah border crossing that killed one Egyptian and wounded several Palestinians.
“What happened in Rafah did not affect the strategic relationships between Egypt and Hamas,” said Haniya, adding the “Egyptian role should continue and we welcome all Arab efforts for reconciliation, and Egypt has to be there.”
“It is no secret that the US and Israel do not want reconciliation but we are committed to reach it.”
Jewish Anti-Occupation Activists Send Forceful Message to Israel
February 2, 2010By Alex Kane, The Indypendent, Feb 1, 2010
For some Upper West Side residents, their usual stroll down Broadway this evening had a surprise: a group of 20 New York Jews denouncing Israel’s occupation of Palestine were standing with thought-provoking signs while a few passed out flyers.
Challenging the assumption that all Jews support Israel no matter what, the action, organized by Jews Say No, called on Israel to lift the blockade of Gaza and to end the longest running military occupation in recent history. The group was founded last year during Israel’s war on Gaza.
Israel’s Gaza blockade continues to suffocate daily life
January 19, 2010Amnesty international, 18 January 2010
Palestinian girls try to cross a flooded street, Shati refugee camp, Gaza City
© Associated Press
Amnesty International’s briefing paper Suffocating: The Gaza Strip under Israeli blockade gathers testimony from people still struggling to rebuild their lives following Operation “Cast Lead”, which killed around 1,400 Palestinians and injured thousands more.
Israel and Egypt continue to Squeeze the Lifeblood out of the People of Gaza
January 17, 2010Israeli Airstrikes and Tank Shelling and Egyptian Underground Walls and Maritime Blockade
by Ann Wright, CommonDreams.org, January 17, 2010
Two weeks ago, almost 2,000 internationals came to Egypt and Gaza in a massive show of civil society support for the people of Gaza. 1,362 persons representing 44 countries in the Gaza Freedom March and over 500 persons with the Viva Palestina Convoy let the people of Gaza know of their concern for the tragic consequences of the actions of their governments in support of the Israeli and Egyptian blockade.
Yet, two weeks later, with the apparent approval of governments (United States, European Community and Canada) who support the quarantine, blockade and siege of Gaza, Israel and Egypt have tightened the squeeze to wring the lifeblood out of the people of Gaza.
Peace and Justice Post 
Gaza marches over Jerusalem plans
March 17, 2010Morning Star Online, March 16, 2010
Palestinians march during a rally in solidarity with others trying to pray at the Al Aqsa Mosque
Thousands of Palestinians have rallied in the streets of Gaza to condemn Israeli construction in occupied east Jerusalem.
Central Gaza City was jammed with schoolchildren and university students waving Palestinian flags and chanting slogans, who marched alongside leaders of the Hamas administration and other factions of the Palestinian resistance.
The rally took place as scores of Arab residents of east Jerusalem were injured in clashes with Israeli riot police.
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