ON SUNDAY Israeli warplanes shelled a location north of the Gaza Strip while the Israeli army declared a full closure of both Beit Hanoun and Karem Abu Salem border crossings under the pretext of rocket fire from Gaza.
According to WAFA (Palestine News Agency) correspondent in Gaza, Israeli warplanes have targeted one location in the besieged strip, causing severe damage to civilians’ properties. Meanwhile, lawmaker Jamal al-Khudari, head of the popular committee against the siege, denounced the closure of Gaza’s two crossings and only gates to the world, describing it as a tightening of the suffocating siege, which leads to increasing Gaza’s crises.
In a press release, he said that such a decision would hinder the entry of essential products and material, which are usually delivered through Karem Abu Salem crossing and obstruct the partial movement through Beit Hanoun crossing; both considered a blatant targeting of Gaza’s fragile stability.
Al-Kudari affirmed that all crossings are already closed except for Karem Abu Salem and Beit Hanoun, both working part-time, thus shouldn’t be subjected to closures. In this context, he called for opening all crossings to ensure freedom of movement for Palestinians in Gaza. What is delivered through the crossings into Gaza comes within the framework of humanitarian aid. Therefore, hindering the work of and closing these crossings stand against all international agreements and require international penalties against Israel.’
The closure of these crossings will also affect the delivery of diesel used to run the Gaza power plant, which might affect the work of hospitals and municipalities among other institutions. The Israeli Channel 7 reported on the Israeli deputy army minister Eli Ben Dahan saying that Israel is considering a permanent closure of construction materials’ entry into Gaza. He said that such a move is one of many which should be adopted until a final halt of rocket fire from Gaza.
Last Thursday, Israeli warplanes shelled multiple locations across the besieged Strip with at least five rockets, after reports of rocket fire from Gaza. Israeli Army Minister Moshe Ya’alon said: ‘We advise no one to test the patience of Israel against terrorism… If the need arises, the Israeli army will respond to any attacks with a larger force.’
Even though Israeli security reports indicated that Salafi groups other than Hamas might be responsible for the rocket fire, Israel held Hamas responsible for the situation in the Gaza Strip. The situation in Gaza continues to be a critical humanitarian crisis. Palestinian refugees in Gaza continue to live a nine-year-old siege from both land and sea.
The United Nations’ Coordinator of Humanitarian Affairs in the Palestinian Territories, James Rowley earlier this year called for lifting the siege imposed by Israel on the people of Gaza. Rowley said in a press conference which was held in al-Shifa hospital in Gaza city that the siege has greatly affected health and humanitarian services and emphasised that the blockade should be lifted to end the suffering of Gaza’s patients.
Whole neighbourhoods across the strip have been reduced to rubble by the extensive Israeli airstrikes, leaving about 475,000 Palestinians refugees displaced for yet another time. Israel and the Palestinian factions inked a ceasefire deal on August 26, ending the 2014 deadly Israeli onslaught on Gaza that claimed the lives of over 2,200 people, overwhelmingly civilians.
The ceasefire deal stipulated that Israel must ease the blockade imposed on the strip and the restrictions on the unilaterally-imposed fishing zone off Gaza’s coast. According to UN institutions’ statistics, around 15,000 Gaza refugees are still living in UN-run schools almost a year after the end of the latest war, as they have no other choice after losing their homes.
Even without rockets being fired from Gaza, Israel has failed to adhere to its agreement, repeatedly violating the ceasefire deal through opening fire on Palestinian fishermen within the fishing zone and farmers who tend to their land close to Gaza’s borders. Israel has imposed a tightened blockade since 2007 after Hamas won the democratic legislative elections and took over power in the strip.
The Egyptian authorities continue to close the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt almost entirely and are only opening it for extreme humanitarian cases. The Palestinian Authority’s Committee of Prisoners’ Affairs (CPA) said, in a statement Sunday, that 93 Palestinian minors are currently incarcerated in the Israeli Ofer prison near Ramallah.
It said while eight of them are serving prison sentences, the other 85 are detained on remand.
Since the beginning of this year, the report said, some 161 Palestinian minors under the age of 18 were brought to jail by the Israeli authorities, a rate of one minor every day. This includes 30 children under the age of 15 arrested in May alone. Recently, a number of Palestinian minor prisoners arrested by Israel told the CPA they had experienced a surge of flagrant violations against them during and after detention by the Israeli authorities, including physical assault and strip searches.
Heba Masalha, an attorney with the Detainees and ex-Detainees Affairs Committee, who was allowed to visit minor prisoners in Israeli jails, gained the testimony of four minor prisoners, who indicated a relentless disregard of their basic human rights. In the prisoners’ testimonies, the violations included physical assault, eye-folding, hand-cuffing, strip-searches, beating among others.
A previous report which was also published on January 19, also indicated that Palestinian minor prisoners incarcerated in Israeli jails were routinely subjected to physical torture during their arrest and interrogation as well as in detention.
‘By the end of January 2014, it was reported that a total of 183 Palestinian children were prosecuted and detained in the Israeli court system, a rise of 18.8% over the month. The figure includes twenty children between the ages of 14 and 15,’ reported the Middle East Monitor in a story. ‘Around 500-700 Palestinian children, some as young as 12, are arrested, detained and prosecuted in the Israeli military detention system each year. The majority of Palestinian child detainees are charged with throwing stones.
No Israeli children come into contact with the military court system,’ said Defence for Children International (DCI). With more than 200 minor prisoners currently incarcerated in Israeli jails, Israel is the only state to automatically and systematically prosecute children in military courts that lack basic standards of due process.
• The three Palestinian Arabic dailies highlighted on Sunday a secret report recently published by the United Nations, which indicated an alarming number of child victims during Israel’s 2014 aggression on Gaza. The report specified unlawful deaths and injuries of Palestinian children caused by Israeli forces, detention of Palestinian children and attacks on schools.
Al-Ayyam daily said the United States’ administration lobbied hard against including Israel in the list of child rights violators in the UN. On a different note, al-Ayyam and al-Quds said a Cairo-based court of appeal nullified a previous verdict listing the Islamic Movement Hamas as a terrorist group. The court ruling was welcomed by Hamas, al-Quds said.
Al-Quds reported on the Egyptian authorities which further expanded the buffer zone with the Gaza Strip. Al-Ayyam said that 10,000 homes on the Egyptian side of the border were recently demolished to expand the buffer zone. Al-Hayat al-Jadida quoted Issa Qaraqe, Chairman of the Prisoners’ Affairs Committee, who drew attention to the deteriorating health condition of hunger striking prisoner in Israeli jails Khader Adnan.
The paper said dogs belonging to illegal Israeli settlers of Harsina attacked a Palestinian-owned flock of sheep and killed seven of them. Al-Ayyam quoted Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu as saying that only a Jewish state would be liable of preserving the Jewish nation. It said Fatah senior official Nabil Shaath met with the French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius in Paris, where they reviewed France’s potential recognition of an independent Palestinian state.
Al-Quds said a missile which was fired from Gaza landed in Asqalan. Al-Ayyam quoted Amos Gilad, a former Israeli security official, who said that Hamas, the de facto authority in Gaza, was ready to do everything to prevent further security escalation following rocket fire on Israel by Gaza-based Salafi groups. Al-Hayat al-Jadida said Saudi armed forces shot down a scud missile fired at the kingdom by the rebel group of Houthi in Yemen.