“Last night, children were killed as they slept next to their parents on the floor of a classroom in a UN-designated shelter in Gaza. Children killed in their sleep; this is an affront to all of us, a source of universal shame. Today the world stands disgraced."
- UNRWA Commissioner General Pierre Kahenbuhl,
after the Israeli shelling of a sixth UN refugee shelter Wednesday
Gaza
After two brief lulls in the fighting in the past week, Israel's siege of Gaza continued. Palestinian civilian casualties continue to rise and the devastating destruction of Gaza by Israeli military strikes continues. As of Saturday, August 2, the Palestinian death toll now exceeds 1600; more than 8300 have been wounded. UN sources estimate 80 percent of the Palestinian dead - more than 1200 - are civilians. 300 of the dead are children. Israeli deaths stand at 67, including 64 soldiers and 3 civilians.
Monday - Missiles...struck several sites in Gaza, including a park inside a refugee camp and an outpatient building of the strip's largest hospital, disrupting a relative lull at the start of the Muslim Eid al-Fitr holiday. The IDF denied responsibility. Hamas denied it had fired any rockets in the area and said it was "categorically an airstrike by Israel". It said it had collected schrapnel from the scene that it could prove was from an Israeli munition. Medics said that an Israeli missile also hit a building, believed to be an outpatient clinic, close to the main gate of Shifa hospital, the same hospital where the victims of the playground strike were taken. [Al Jazeera, July 29]
Tuesday - Israel broadened its assault on Gaza on Tuesday, wrecking the region's only power plant and killing more than 125 Palestinians. Barrages "destroyed Hamas's media offices, the home of a top leader and what Palestinians said was a devastating hit on the only electricity plant," The New York Times reports....With Tuesday's bombings, which the Guardian described as "the most relentless and widespread" of the three-week-old conflict, the Palestinian death toll has exceeded 1,200. The shelling of the power plant, which Palestinian officials described as taking a devastating hit, will bring additional hardship. The lack of electricity will make existing problems with water and sewage far worse. "We need at least one year to repair the power plant, the turbines, the fuel tanks and the control room," Fathi Sheik Khalil of the Gaza energy authority told the Guardian. "Everything was burned." [NPR, July 29] The lack of electricity also boosts the need for increased fuel in Gaza to power water and sewage pumps and run backup generators, the U.N. said. Hospitals are especially vulnerable to electricity and water cuts as they try to cope with the influx of the injured and dead in addition to medical supply shortages. Ninety percent of the population is without electricity, sharply affecting water and sanitation services, with only 5 percent of Gaza’s water fit for drinking. This has raised fears of an imminent public health crisis, according to the United Nations...And without electricity, communication with the outside world for many Palestinians in Gaza has slowed to a trickle....Some 20 percent of Gaza’s population has been internally displaced by the crisis. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) is housing about 220,000 of them, according to Chris McGrath, its Washington liaison. But it’s unclear how much more the agency can do. “We’re stretched thin, and our supplies are running out,” he said. “There’s very little space left in our facilities.” [Al Jazeera, August 2]
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| Aftermath of the strike on a UN school in Gaza City. Photograph: Marco Longari/AFP/Getty Images Image appeared in The Guardian |
A cease fire failed after just several hours on Friday morning. The West blames Hamas for the collapse of the cease fire and, as usual, says little about the gross overreaction by the Israeli military. The current cause for the intensification of the assault against Gaza is a missing Israeli soldier that Israelis believe was captured by Hamas. Around 100 people have been killed and hundreds more injured in Rafah since fighting restarted following the collapse of an internationally brokered ceasefire Friday morning. At least a dozen have been killed elsewhere in Gaza and scores wounded. Health officials said the main hospital in Rafah had to be evacuated because of shelling on Friday afternoon....Early on Saturday, the Hamas military wing said in a statement on its website that it was "not aware until this moment of a missing soldier or his whereabouts or the circumstances of his disappearance". The group said it believed the soldier might have been killed in a clash with Hamas fighters about an hour before the start of the ceasefire...The United States and the United Nations supported Israeli accounts that Hamas had taken advantage of the 72-hour humanitarian ceasefire to ambush IDF soldiers near the entrance to a tunnel outside Rafah, on the southern end of the Gaza Strip on the Egyptian border, killing two soldiers at the same time as seizing Goldin. [The Guardian, August 2]
Update: Israel confirmed on Saturday August 2 that the soldier presumed captured had been killed in action.
Why the Ceasefires Aren't Working
International efforts to secure a cease fire in the current conflict have failed repeatedly. The only way to secure a lasting cease fire is to end the blockade on Gaza and for the Israeli troops to return home. This is something that Israel, Egypt and the West so far have refused to consider. The world has rightly condemned the Hamas rocket attacks into Israel, which have killed 35 Israelis in the past 10 years. However, the rocket attacks, according to Britain Eakin, a symptom of deeper issues that must be addressed as part of a comprehensive peace process. In that regard, any cease-fire that does not contain provisions to end the blockade will merely be a Band-Aid. In an opinion piece for Al Jazeera, Eakin quotes Chris McGrath, the UNWRA liaison in Washington. “The situation [in Gaza] was bleak before this conflict, and if something is not done to address those longer-term challenges,” McGrath cautioned, “conflict is likely to flare up again in the future...Is Gaza going to be a place where people can actually live in 2020?” McGrath asked. “The answer under current circumstances is no.” Eakin notes, Hamas has recently signaled its willingness to consider Israel’s legitimate security concerns. It put forth conditions for a 10-year truce that would allow for international monitors in areas of concern for Israel, including at border crossings, along the borders and at Gaza’s yet-to-be developed airport and seaport. Now is the time for cooler heads to prevail. Palestinians, like Israelis, deserve to live in peace and security and must be allowed to develop their economy. Any cease-fire that does not treat the parties equally will fall far short of addressing the legitimate security needs of both people — and consequently won’t be sustainable.
Links
The Nation, "Five Israeli Talking Points on Gaza - Debunked" - a good article to keep in front of you as you watch network and cable news "coverage".
Americans for Peace Now's Alert and Petition Supporting John Kerry's Efforts to Obtain A Ceasefire
Hamas conditions for a 10-year truce with Israel
Ukraine
Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko ...announced a unilateral cease-fire in a 20 km radius of the crash site of the MH17 flight in a telephone conversation with the PMs of Netherlands and Australia, according to his press-service. Earlier in the day [July 30] US Secretary of State John Kerry claimed Kiev was ready for a cease-fire “now,” following a meeting with Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin in Washington. Kerry added that President Poroshenko is also ready to start talks with the militia in the southeast of the country. Russia has called on Kiev numerous times to establish a cease-fire and start talks. The local militia in the south-east offered a bilateral cease-fire last week. Kiev refused. [Russia Times, July 30]
Russia
On Tuesday, the EU and the US announced new sanctions against Russia for its support of the Ukrainian separatists. The EU has agreed on a package of "significant" additional restrictive measures targeting Russia's finance, defense and energy sectors, said the European Council in a statement....These decisions will limit access of Russian state-owned financial institutions to EU capital markets, impose an arms embargo, establish an export ban on dual-use goods for military end users, and curtail Russian access to sensitive technologies particularly in the field of the oil sector, according to the statement....Following its European allies, Obama announced an expansion of U.S. penalties targeting key sectors of Russia's economy. Building on measures unveiled two weeks ago, the United States expanded its sanctions to more Russian banks and defense companies, and blocked the export of specific goods and technology to Russia's energy sector. [Xinhuanet, July 30]
Guns and Domestic Violence
On Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee is holding its first-ever hearing on domestic violence and guns...Several Democrat-backed bills that aim to strengthen federal law when it comes to gun ownership and domestic abuse are languishing in Congress...The gun lobby has fought back against [Sen. Klobuchar's] bill...But not all gun-owners are siding with the NRA to fight these stricter gun controls. "I am a gun owner. I was shot and left for dead by my own gun," says Christy Martin, a former championship boxer whose ex-husband was sentenced in 2012 to 25 years in prison for attempting to murder her with a firearm....Elvin Daniel is a gun-owner and self-described NRA member who is testifying at the hearing in support of efforts to curb gun ownership for stalkers and abusers. He accuses the NRA of employing "a scare tactic" to prevent Klobuchar's bill from advancing. His sister was shot and killed by her estranged husband in 2012. [Mother Jones, July 30]
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