EMAIL SIGN UP!
Most Popular This Week
- Eve of Destruction (or How to Destroy a Planet Without Really Trying)
- The World Economy Is a Ticking Time Bomb (and The Fuse is Burning)
- 'Beyond Orwellian': Outrage Follows Revelations of Vast Domestic Spying Program
- 'We Are Movement, Not a Moment': North Carolina Peaceful Uprising Continues
- President Obama Uses a Sledgehammer Against Dissent
- Eve of Destruction (or How to Destroy a Planet Without Really Trying)
- The World Economy Is a Ticking Time Bomb (and The Fuse is Burning)
- Is Enbridge Building a Secret Keystone Pipeline?
- President Obama Uses a Sledgehammer Against Dissent
- Victory: Connecticut Becomes First State to Require GMO Labeling
Popular content
Today's Top News
UN Official Pleads for Opening of Gaza Borders
UNITED NATIONS - The top U.N. aid official in the Gaza Strip urged Israel on Friday to ease restrictions on the flow of goods into the conflict-torn territory, saying they were "devastating" for the people.
"It's wholly and totally inadequate," John Ging, head of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency in Gaza, said about the amount of goods Israel permits into the territory, where some 1.5 million Palestinians live.
"It's having a very devastating impact on the physical circumstances and also the mindset of people on the ground," he said.
Israel says it has opened Gaza's border to larger amounts of food and medicine since its December-January offensive against Hamas militants who control the Palestinian enclave and were firing rockets against Israeli towns.
The war destroyed some 5,000 homes and, according to figures from a Palestinian rights group, killed over 1,400 people. Around 80 percent of Palestinians are reliant on aid.
Ging said access to goods was still a severe problem.
"We need access," he said. "It's the number one issue. It's the number two issue. It's the number three issue, and so on. Until we get it, there's nothing as important as solving the access issue."
Israel fears opening the borders would allow Hamas to smuggle more weapons and ammunition into the territory.
Ging said that all the crossing points from Israel into the Gaza Strip should be opened, and those that were currently opened in a limited way to only selected people or goods should be fully opened.
In addition to restrictions on what it deems luxury goods, such as cigarettes and chocolates, Israel has blocked entry of materials such as cement and steel for rebuilding because it says they could be used for bunkers and rearming.
Since Hamas seized the Gaza Strip in a 2007 civil war with Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's secular Fatah faction, Israel has tightened its blockade of the 30-mile (45-km) strip in an effort to weaken Hamas' hold on power.
Ging said he understood the "real security challenges" to the operation of crossing points, such as when militants were firing rockets that could endanger people at the crossings. But he said it was not clear why they were closed at other times.
Israel's U.N. Ambassador Gabriela Shalev said last month that an expansion of activity at Gaza's border crossings could be discussed once Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier who was captured by Hamas in 2006, is released.
(Additional reporting by Claudia Parsons; Editing by Alan Elsner)
- Posted in
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
18 Comments so far
Show AllDo you learn about the warsaw ghetto in American schools?
Like Gaza, the ghetto had a great number of the population crammed into a small area.
Like Gaza the occupiers built an apartheid wall around the inmates.
Like Gaza the army didn't let in much food and medicine and disease was rampant.
Like in Gaza the victims fought back.
Let's see if the world has learned anything since then.
You can fucking forget that
No, no, no, you do NOT understand. Mass imprisonment, starvation, harrasement and execution of a group of people only counts if the people are Jewish.
One dead Israeli is world news. One hundred dead Palestinian children barely makes the back alleys of the internet.
The Romans apparently knew what they were doing.
With the US continuing to supply Israel with weapons, including white phosphorus weapons, the UN or anyone for that matter is pissing in the wind calling for anything resembling fairness or jawheh forbid JUSTICE for Gaza.
"Israel fears opening the borders would allow Hamas to smuggle more weapons and ammunition into the territory."
Nope -- Israel is trying to destroy or chase away the Palestinians -- to eliminate them. Ethnic cleansing has been stated as policy by zionist leaders for decades. Closing the borders to make Gaza into a ghetto or prison, and starving them, is part of that policy.
http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Famous-Zionist-Quotes/Story644.html
'Transfer' (Ethnic Cleansing) Zionist Quotes
[...]
Famous Quotes
Yosef Weitz did not only advocate "transferring" the Palestinian people so the "Jewish state" would become a "Jewish majority", he also envisioned the "transfer" as a useful tool that could dispossess them from their lands. He stated in a meeting with the Transfer Committee on November 15, 1937:
"...the transfer of [Palestinian] Arab population from the area of the Jewish state does not serve only one aim--to diminish the Arab population. It also serves a second, no less important, aim which is to advocate land presently held and cultivated by the [Palestinian] Arabs and thus to release it for Jewish inhabitants." (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 94-95)
Weitz was obsessed with "transferring" the Palestinian people to neighboring Arab countries in a way that consumed all his thoughts. He wrote in his diary on December 20, 1940:
"it must be clear that there is no room in the country for both [Arab and Jewish] peoples . . . If the [Palestinian] Arabs leave it, the country will become wide and spacious for us . . . The only solution [after the end of WW II] is a Land of Israel, at least a western land of Israel [i.e. Palestine since Transjordan is the eastern portion], without [Palestinian] Arabs. There is no room here for compromises . . . There is no way but to transfer the [Palestinian] Arabs from here to the neighboring countries, to transfer all of them, save perhaps for [the Palestinian Arabs of] Bethlehem, Nazareth, and the old Jerusalem. Not one village must be left, not one [Bedouin] tribe. The transfer must be directed at Iraq, Syria, and even Transjordan [eastern portion of Eretz Yisrael]. For this goal funds will be found . . . An only after this transfer will the country be able to absorb millions of our brothers and the Jewish problem will cease to exist. There is no other solution." (Benny Morris, p. 27 & Expulsion Of The Palestinians, 131-132)
Wetz' obsession continues, "transfer" was on his tongue day and night. Note how he had articulated the importance of "transferring" the Palestinian people out of their homes, and how he had justified it. On March 18, 1941 Yosef Weitz recorded in his diary while visiting Jewish colonies in the Jordan Valley:
"Once again I come face to face with the land settlement difficulties that emanate from the existence of two people in close proximity . . . . We have clashing interests with the [Palestinian] Arabs everywhere, and these interests will go and clash increasingly. . . . and once again the answer from inside me is heard: only [Palestinian Arab] population transfer and evacuating this country so it would become exclusively for us [Jews] is the solution. This idea does not leave me in these days and I find comfort in it in the face of enormous difficulties in the way of land-buying and settlement." (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, 132)
[...]
Gazs And The Warsaw Ghetto
same place
different time
as the world stood by
genocide
live
The U.N. pleads with Israel to open the crossings? But isn't the U.N. supposed to be the democratic world body that is running the planet and ensuring that justice prevails? Obviously not!
No, the truth is that, currently, America and Israel are running the world and the reality is that what they say goes.
The U.N. stands for UTTER NOTHINGNESS!
www.dangerouscreation.com
There are over 10,000 imprisoned Palestinians in Israel, including elected Hamas officials who's only crime is being democratically elected.
I'm ashamed to admit that except for Marwan Barghouti I know none of their names.
It is against the Geneva convention to arrest & move Palestinians to Israel for imprisonment.
Now the whole world knows the name of Shalit and I say too bad, he should have stayed at home in France, this is the curse of dual citizenships, you cannot have a European or USAn passport and then go to Israel put on a uniform & have your kicks killing Palestinians.
You all do remember John Walker Lindh & the travesty of justice concerning Jose Padilla don't you?
IMHO, fck Gilad Shalit, he had no business joining the IDF & trespassing in the OPT.
He was supposedly wounded during Cast Lead, hope he gets the same medical treatment that Israel allows for Palestinians.
And yes I'm bitter.
alwaysamazed Did anyone else notice that Paul Volcker (sp?)& Brent Scowcroft went to meet with Hamas ? I hope one of you talented investigative reporters are on the trail. Also, check out the mixed-signal-bag on the UN Wire...they seem to me to be an information gatekeeper. Sorry I haven't the time, resources, or talent; so many of you seem to be getting so close...we're all relying on you!
the point is abundantly clear. palestinian life and happiness (in the eyes of the israeli occupiers) is a non sequitur . in the eyes of the israeli overlords, palestinian people are on the same level as rats and cockroaches, exterminate at will.
the american public has accepted these terms (sadly) and absent a miracle ( mass shift in american public consciousness) the terms will not be redefined.
we live in dark times.
may the truth prevail...
...peace...
I hope the Palestinians do manage to smuggle in arms, lots of them, to defend themselves from the Nazi Israelis, who were just resupplied with the latest in lethal weaponry by the U.S., in violation of U.S. law. Check out this news release from Amnesty International:
http://www.amnestyusa.org/document.php?id
=ENGUSA20090402002&lang=e
United States Delivers Massive New Weapons Shipment to Israel, Confirmed by Pentagon, Says Amnesty International
Human Rights Organization Urges President Obama to Halt Further Exports
(New York) -- Amnesty International today revealed that the United States has sent a massive new shipment of arms to Israel -- about 14,000 tons worth -- despite evidence that U.S. weapons were misused against civilians in the Gaza attacks. The unloading of the shipment in Israel was confirmed by the Pentagon. The human rights organization called on President Obama to suspend future arms shipments to Israel until there is no longer substantial risk of human rights violations.
Amnesty International said the Wehr Elbe, a German cargo ship, which was chartered and controlled by the U.S Military Sealift Command, docked and unloaded its cargo on March 22 at the Israeli port of Ashdod, about 25 miles north of Gaza.
The Pentagon confirmed the successful unloading of the ship, which left the United States for Israel last December 20, a week before the start of Israel's attacks on Gaza. Reportedly, the ship carried 989 containers of munitions, each of them 20 feet long with a total estimated net weight of 14,000 tons.
"Legally and morally, this U.S. arms shipment should have been halted by the Obama administration given the evidence of war crimes resulting from military equipment and munitions of this kind used by the Israeli forces," said Brian Wood, arms control campaign manager for Amnesty International. "Arms supplies in these circumstances are contrary to provisions in U.S. law." ....
The Amnesty International website is full of information, and you can send an email from their "take action" page to Secretary of State Clinton, asking her how the investigation into Israel's illegal use of our weapons is progressing.
Gaza is a POW camp. Starving prisoners is horrific cruelty. The motivation is to hurt, to Injure, to Stunt, to create a morass of Despair and Hopelessnes-The borders are not sealed to keep out weapons-what a thin, sad lie, the whole world would help bring pristine food to the Prisoners-Gun Free, ez to check, what a joke.
It is the same mentality that cheered at that soccer game, rejoicing about Dead Children.
What is Dead is Israel's Soul. NO ONE can enter the darkness without it entering them.
US Blues
These people have been at each other's throats since Issac cheated Ishmael.
Brothers who can't get along: This story is older than history. Right now the Jews have the upper hand thanks to the US. every dollar sent over there turns into blood. It will not always be so.
Will the daughters of Ishmael be more generous than those of Isaac? Sure, when human nature changes.
what a total tragedy between heaven and hell. The US and Israel are the great terrorist states of the world! They are bent on 'inheriting' the kingdom of earth from YAHWAY! This inheritance will come after the Christian fundamentalist US and Zionist Israel have caused all the heathens to go 'missing' from the earth. Their brutality and inhumane hatred has no limits...they can and will do what they want, as evidenced by the so called 'war on terror' and the attacks and imprisonment of the Gaza population as well as all the false flag operations that they have conducted seperately and together. Who do you really think caused 9-11....some turbaned radical from a cave in Bora Bora who managed to get by all the most sophisticated defence systems of the most technologically and military power in history? Grab a brain! Look at the evidence compiled by the 9-11 truth movement and then look at what the Bush/Cheney cabal did and what the israelis are doing with the US as military and financial backers and you ought to be able to see just who the terrorists are!!! Is Obama the 'change' that we voted for? Just look at his cabinet and the decisions to bale out the banksters and the wall street gangsters and the escalation of the war and you will have the answer! Woe to all who believe that the US and Israeli power elite have the good and interests of the common people in mind. Nothing could be more naive!
Apparently, our government policies do more to help Israeli settlers than defend Americans like Tristan Anderson. How long will Obama's silence of Israel ethnic cleansing policies last?
In May, FreeGaza.org is planning another effort to break illegal blockade of Gaza.
http://www.freegaza.org/en/home/798-rendezvous-gaza-support-the-free-gaza-hope-fleet-and-help-shatter-the-israeli-siege
If you can help:
http://www.freegaza.org/en/donate
Israel must stand trial for acts of genocide. Nothing less will do!
Now we're threatening N.Korea, and the situation in Gaza still remains. Obama, bless him, is the sweetheart of the world over in Europe, but he remains a hypocrite. How can this government continue an embargo against Cuba, not recognize an elected president in Venezuela, not recognize the elected government in Gaza, not have any kind of diplomatic connections with the Iranian government, continue an illegal presence in Iraq, bomb with impunity any target in Afghanistan and Pakistan, etc. on one hand, and allow Israel to do whatever, to whomever it wants completely disregarding international law, without so much as a whimper in objection. Oh, I know why; compared with our world wide indescretions, Israel is like a flea on a dog's back. How the hell do we maintain any kind of moral relevance in the world? When peace finally reigns, our country's actions will be objectively viewed to be just as insanely self serving and schizophrenic as any in the world's history. The old saying fits: power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.