 selected writing Egypt and Gaza: Report for Rustbelt Radio
Rustbelt Radio is Pittsburgh Indymedia's weekly radio program featuring news from the grassroots, news overlooked by the corporate media. Rustbelt Radio is broadcast live from WRCT studios every other Monday at 6 PM on 88.3 FM in Pittsburgh, and the program airs again on WRCT every Tuesday morning at 9AM. Rustbelt Radio can also be heard weekly on the following stations: WNJR-Washington 91.7FM, WIUP-Indiana 90.1 FM, WOBC Oberlin 91.5FM and online at radio.indypgh.org. COPYRIGHT: USE AS NEEDED WITH CREDIT Related Links TRANSCRIPT In late December 2008, Israel launched a massive military operation against the Gaza Strip, a 139-square-mile strip of land between Egypt & Israel—home to one-and-a-half million Palestinians. U.S. publication Defense News reported that in the opening wave of air strikes alone, 88 Israeli aircraft simultaneously hit 100 targets in Gaza in under four minutes. The Gaza Strip contains some of the most densely-populated areas on the face of the earth. Jabaliya Refugee Camp, the largest of eight in the Strip, is home to over 100,000 refugees in half a square mile, three times the population density of Manhattan. The death and destruction Israel unleashed on Gaza, during what it called “Operation Cast Lead”, was predictable. The International Committee of the Red Cross reported that in Jabaliya Refugee Camp, between one and two thousand households were left living in the rubble of their homes. According to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza, 1,417 Palestinians were killed during the three-week-long assault. 1,181 were civilians, including 429 women and children. 236 of those killed were combatants—just 16.7%. Over 5,000 Palestinians were injured and more than 100,000 displaced. Various media sources, including the Times newspaper of London reported that Israel was using white phosphorus shells in civilian neighborhoods in what Amnesty International described as “grave violations of international law”. Human Rights Watch described the use of white phosphorus as “indiscriminate and [...] evidence of war crimes”. Former CNN and NBC producer, and Al-Jazeera’s Gaza Correspondent, Ayman Mohyeldin reported that: “I’ve stood on the border of Gaza watching Jabalyia as it’s been hammered by white phosphorus over the last few days. It’s very clear as you walk by the Israeli 155mm artillery batteries they’re handling American-made white phosphorus rounds. They’re fused. You don’t fuse it unless you’re going to use it. And I’m watching as the white phosphorus explodes in air—in an airburst situation—and comes down and covers the area of the refugee camp. The problem of course is, that while it’s not illegal to use to cause smoke and create a smoke screen, it is illegal to use if you’re going to harm a civilian population.” With the model and series numbers of the 155mm white phosphorus rounds clearly visible in media photographs taken of Israeli missile batteries on the Gazan border, it was possible not only to identify the shells as U.S.-made M825-A1s but also to trace specific batches of shells back to the original manufacturers. The casings of the white phosphorus rounds used against civilians in Gaza were made by the Chamberlain Manufacturing Corporation in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Hadas Ziv, Executive Director of Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, stated that, “The military was well aware that such an attack on a densely populated area would exert a terrible toll on the civilian population.” Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni faced an often hostile press at a gathering at the National Press Club in Washington, on January 18th, 2009. “Israel is acting not only according to international law but according to our values. And the Israeli soldiers are trying to avoid any kind of civil[ian] casualties.” Later during the press conference, Livni almost seemed to stop caring about how she presented Israel’s assault: “During this war, we try to avoid civil[ian] casualties but these things happen.” Imtissal Smouni, mother of Nawwar Smouni, described how her daughter gave birth as Israeli missiles and shells rained down around their home in the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza, south of Gaza City: [Translation:] “It was nighttime and there was no electricity so we held up a candle to see. The strikes and the shellings were all around us. The window was open and the baby started throwing up. She was very cold so I put her in a blanket. I tried to take out the placenta but there were more strikes so it wouldn’t come out for another two hours. And then Nawwar started bleeding heavily.” The Smouni family were trapped in their home for days, among dead and injured family members. The children reported how Israeli snipers shot at them and laughed as they tried to flee their home. In addition to shooting at civilians—including women and children and others bearing white flags—Israeli soldiers prevented medical personnel from entering the area for days, a story confirmed by multiple sources as standard across Gaza during the attack, including by Israeli soldiers themselves. The United Nations has estimated that more than 50,000 homes, 68 government buildings including the Palestinian Legislative Council, and 31 non-governmental organization offices were totally or partially damaged. Hundreds of commercial workshops and 30 mosques were destroyed. Of 122 health facilities assessed by the World Health Organization in the immediate aftermath of the Gaza assault, almost 50 percent were damaged or destroyed. In the wake of the Israeli assault, over 80% of Gaza’s population required food aid, more than two-thirds of the population were left without power, and one-third without running water. Israel has maintained a tightly-controlled blockade against Gaza since 2007, following the election of Hamas the preceding year. Reconstruction in Gaza since Operation Cast Lead has remained at a standstill because of Israel’s refusal to permit the transit of basic building materials, such as concrete. Meanwhile, the UN reports that 20,000 people are still displaced. United Nations Relief and Works Agency spokesperson Chris Guinness commented: “A year after so-called ‘Operation Cast Lead’ Gaza has been bombed back—not to the Stone Age—but to the Mud Age because the United Nations Relief and Works Agency has been reduced to building houses out of mud. The Israeli blockade has meant that almost no reconstruction materials have been allowed to move into Gaza even though more than 60,000 homes were either damaged or completely destroyed.” Other items barely available due to the Israeli siege include cooking fuel and food. In February 2009, international aid group Mercy Corps famously reported that Israel was preventing them from sending 90 tons of macaroni and other foodstuffs to Gaza. Israel justified the pasta prohibition with the assertion that it was not ‘an essential food item’. In August 2008, four months before Operation Cast Lead, concerned activists from the Free Gaza Movement were already trying to break the punishing siege on Gaza with the first of a series of boats carrying humanitarian aid launched from Cyprus. The activists completed five successful missions, arriving to cheering crowds on the Gazan beach. Their sixth mission, in December 2008, was intercepted by the Israeli Navy, which rammed the boat—named the ‘Dignity’—three times in international waters, firing machine guns into the water. The boat was forced to retreat to Lebanon, where it limped into port severely damaged. It later sank. A seventh mission that set sail in January 2009 was similarly forced to retreat after the boat was met by Israeli warships. The eighth sailing of the Free Gaza Movement in June 2009 saw further escalation from the Israeli Navy, who boarded and commandeered the vessel—named the ‘Spirit of Humanity’—off the coast of Gaza. Twenty-one crew members, including former U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, were arrested, imprisoned, and later deported from Israel. Following Operation Cast Lead, other concerned activists from around the world planned similar nonviolent convoys to break the siege and deliver humanitarian aid directly to the people imprisoned in Gaza. British Member of Parliament George Galloway founded the Viva Palestina charity, which has sent three convoys to Gaza, the first leaving the UK on Valentine’s Day 2009, and the most recent arriving in Gaza in early January. As the first convoy pulled out of London, Paul Hanes from FourMan Films interviewed Galloway: “It’s a mile long. By the time we reach Gaza we should have a million pounds in aid and God knows what length it will be by then. When it reaches Libya it’s going to double alone because there’s a Libyan convoy joining it. This is catching on this idea. If every country moves like we’ve moved, the siege is over and the blockade is finished. This is not the British elite. This is poor people from poor places in Britain. This is the salt of the earth in Britain that’s on this convoy and I’m very very proud of it. Nothing will ever be the same again actually, because every one of these vehicles represents a community, a community which has worked and fundraised and will be watching and these people are in that sense delegates for much bigger areas.” Another solidarity mission—the Gaza Freedom March—was planned for the end of 2009 by U.S. antiwar group CODEPINK, with Palestinian partners in Gaza. With both the Gazan Freedom March and Viva Palestina convoy heading to Gaza for the first anniversary of the Israeli assault, it was clear that the eyes of the world would be firmly gazing at Israel, to assess its reaction to the clearly humanitarian solidarity missions. But people were focussed on the wrong country. Both humanitarian missions required the cooperation of the Egyptian government to enter Gaza via the Egyptian-controlled Rafah crossing. Both groups had been in contact with the Egyptian authorities about their plans months before their respective departures. The Gaza Freedom March coordinators had submitted the names of the almost 1,400 participants to Egypt in advance, and the Viva Palestina convoy had followed similar notification procedures. Sam Husseini, the Arab-American communications director of the Institute for Public Accuracy in Washington D.C., traveled to Egypt this December to participate in the Gaza Freedom March. He joins us via telephone from D.C. to talk about how events transpired in Cairo: “Within a very short time it was clear that the Egyptian authorities were not going to allow us into Gaza so we began to have a series of protests and very quickly after every protest [we were] quickly penned in to an area and basically hidden from public view, and this continued throughout the protests. We had one protest outside the U.N., with several hundred people.” Similarly, the Viva Palestina convoy ran into problems. The 500-member, 250-vehicle convoy—with participants from 17 countries—left the UK in early December, traveling by land and sea through Europe and the Middle East to Jordan. The original plan then had the convoy traveling the most direct route by sea to the Egyptian Red Sea port of Nuweiba. Egypt halted all progress for five days when it suddenly insisted that the convoy enter through the Mediterranean port of Al-Arish, requiring Viva Palestina to return back through Jordan to Syria and find a boat to carry the convoy. When the convoy finally arrived in Al-Arish port, Egypt demanded that one-quarter of it pass through an Israeli-controlled crossing. A protest by participants ensued, which was met by 2,000 Egyptian riot police, who deployed batons, tear gas, water cannons, and rocks against the convoy participants, injuring 25 and damaging some of the aid vehicles. Egyptian police arrested several participants. The convoy was later allowed to proceed and ultimately made it—relieved—into Gaza to a hero’s welcome: [Female voice #1] “Oh we’re so happy, we’re so grateful. It’s a privilege to be here in solidarity with the steadfast people of Gaza. And really shame on the Egyptian government in that position. I think it was the continuation of a policy of direct complicity in war crimes and that has to stop. There has to be massive movement in the West, in the Arab World, to challenge the continuation of the siege and occupation in general.” As Viva Palestina organizer George Galloway returned through the Rafah crossing from Gaza to Egypt, he was detained by Egyptian Intelligence officers, taken directly to the airport, and told he would not be allowed to return to Egypt. “Well it’s always a badge of honor to be deported by a tinpot dictatorship and that’s what happened this morning.” On January 16th, Egyptian foreign minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit told Al-Ahram newspaper that "Egypt will no longer allow convoys, regardless of their origin or who is organizing them, from crossing its territory." This report was prepared with original research and interviews, together with raw audio from a variety of nonprofit, independent, corporate, and state media organizations including the United Nations, Al-Jazeera English, Sky News, The Real News Network, Press TV, the Free Gaza Movement and FourMan Films. End music from “The Emperor’s Clothes” by Israeli rapper Invincible. |
