Hundreds of Palestinians from lands occupied in 1948 and international activists demonstrated at the Beit Hanoun (Eretz) crossing linking the Gaza Strip with 1948 Palestine on New Year’s Day to mark the first anniversary of the war on Gaza and protest at the continued siege on the densely populated strip.
Demonstrators called for an end to the siege on Gaza and the implementation of the Goldstone report.
They also called for an end to the inter-Palestinian discord and for unity between Fatah and Hamas to face the challenges confronting the Palestinian people.
Demonstrators also expressed unity amongst Palestinians in 1948 occupied lands, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
They chanted against the siege and starvation of the people in Gaza and against the US wall of shame being built by Egypt on the Palestinian-Egyptian border.
Ismail Haniya, the Palestinian Prime Minister in the Gaza government spoke to the demonstrators over the phone and expressed his gratitude and that of the people of Gaza to the demonstrators for their supportive stand.
For his part, Hamas deputy head Sheikh Kamal al-Khatib, who headed a delegation that participated in the demonstration, said: ‘We have come to say to our people in Gaza: we are with you because we are part of you and you are part of us.’
He added: ‘We did not come here in solidarity, because we consider ourselves to be part of you, despite being divided by occupation walls.’
He called on the people of Gaza to persevere and not raise the white flag, adding that Gaza represents dignity, defiance and freedom and it has become a symbol for free people everywhere.
Khatib condemned the continued siege on the Gaza Strip and called on Gaza people to persevere as the ‘dawn of freedom is nigh.’
On the other side of the Beit Hanoun crossing, hundreds of Palestinians and foreign sympathisers held a similar demonstration.
Meanwhile, an editorial on the Hamas website said: ‘The Egyptian regime’s decision to build a sophisticated underground steel wall along the Gaza-Sinai border is a cardinal crime bordering on attempted genocide.
‘Other similar epithets are used to describe this wall of shame built by an Arab state for the purpose of starving and killing an Arab people, already facing a virtual genocide at the hands of the Judeo-Nazi state of Israel.
‘The description “attempted genocide” is quite adequate because cutting off food from the virtually imprisoned people of Gaza means one thing: killing them by starving them to death.’
It added: ‘The Egyptian regime argues that, as a sovereign nation, Egypt has the right to protect its national security by whatever means necessary.
‘However, while this argument is true at face value, it is clearly designed to serve goals that are both immoral and criminal.
‘We all know that the wall is simply designed to kill Gazans venturing to smuggle food and other vital consumer products across the border.
‘Hence, the ultimate message the despotic government of Egypt is communicating to more than 1.5 million Gazans, already tormented by three years of a hermetic blockade from land, air and sea, is that “we will starve you to death rather quietly and if you try to smuggle food, even a small bottle of milk for your babies, you shall be killed”.
‘The “sovereignty” and “national security” argument is really mendacious to say the least.
‘It is no more than a smoke screen behind which the Egyptian regime is hiding its scandalous subservience to the US and Israel.
‘In truth Gaza never constituted or posed a security threat to Egypt. And it never will.
‘The real threats to Egyptian security come from the Judeo-Nazi regime which doesn’t stop trying to undermine and weaken Egypt.
‘Second, we all know that Egyptian sovereignty over the Sinai Peninsula is very limited and only symbolic in nature thanks to the Camp David treaty of 1978.
‘According to that shameful treaty, Egypt can’t deploy its armed forces into the bulk of the desert nor can it fly its warplanes over it. This means that Israel could always take over Sinai in a matter of hours.
‘Hence, it is safe to say that a strong and viable Gaza Strip could, at least partially, serve as an Egyptian security asset that should be constantly enhanced.
‘Some Egyptian spokespersons keep parroting the meaningless claim that the Gaza tragedy is not an Egyptian responsibility.
‘Well, the Palestinian plight, including the Gaza tragedy, is an Egyptian responsibility. It is an Arab, Muslim and human responsibility of the highest order.
‘From the Islamic religious view point, it is the duty of every Muslim under the sun to hasten to help and defend fellow Muslims (and non-Muslims) facing a stressful situation.
‘Egypt has a population of more than 80 million people whereas the population of Gaza doesn’t exceed 1.5 million. And Egypt is the strongest nation in the Arab world and it could do much to help the tormented and starved Gazans.
‘But, alas, instead of helping Gazans withstand and repulse the Judeo-Nazi holocaust, we see that the Egyptian regime is effectively conspiring with Israel in order to tighten the blockade of Gaza for the purpose of enabling Israel to impose its will on its people and its democratically-elected government.
‘This means that the Israeli goal of killing Gazans, either by raining death on them, as was the case a year ago, or by starving them and narrowing their horizons, is being carried out by an Arab state that claims to represent the conscience of the Arab nation.’
The editorial added: ‘By building this wall of shame, which is also a wall of death, the Egyptian regime is proving itself to be another Israel.
‘After all, the taste of death is the same, irrespective of whether it happens at the hands of the Zionist enemy or at the hands of the supposed Arab brother.
‘It is really sad that Egypt has reached this bleak phase of its long history whereby it has been transformed from an asset for the Palestinian cause to a real liability.
‘But in the end, all the traitors will go down the dustbin of history.
‘This is their natural place, and it doesn’t make any difference whether the traitor serves a Crusader king or a modern evil entity such as Israel.’
• The secular Fatah movement led by Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Thursday vowed to step up its struggle against the Israeli occupation with demonstrations and diplomacy.
Fatah said in a statement: ‘Our programme emphasises the importance of a two-track approach, with the first being the escalation of the popular struggle to resist occupation.’
The movement said it would model the struggle on the weekly demonstrations in two West Bank towns, Bilin and Nilin, where residents hurl rocks and protest against the expansion of Israel’s controversial separation barrier.
Fatah, which marked its 45th anniversary on Friday, also vowed to ‘increase movement on the international level to pursue Israel, to isolate it and to force it to answer to international law.’
It said: ‘We renew our vow to continue the struggle until the end of the occupation and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, with east Jerusalem as its capital, and a solution to the refugee issue.’
Fatah went on to say that it ‘would not spare any effort in restoring Palestinian national unity and returning the Gaza Strip from the hands of those who have taken it hostage,’ referring to its Hamas rivals.
When Abbas became president following Yasser Arafat’s death in 2004 he brought the armed struggle to a halt, but the movement has never given up its ‘right to resistance’ against the Israeli occupation of lands seized in 1967.
