The Gaza crossings are all closed. A few days ago, the head of the UNRWA operations in the Gaza Strip told the Jerusalem Post that it’s Hamas’ fault because they refuse to guarantee the safety of Israelis who deliver food and goods to the crossings—oh, and they keep firing mortars at them.
But that’s not what he told the AP or the New York Times. There are now hundreds of articles blaming Israel for closing the crossings, even though the articles—like the one in the Times—point out that Israel is notonly not deliberately keeping the crossings closed, but doing her utmost to feed Gazans even though Hamas keeps firing on them.
Both John Ging, the director of UNRWA operations in Gaza, and Mr. Regev say they are waiting for the Palestinians to come up with some kind of internal agreement on how to administer the Palestinian side of the crossings in a way that will meet Israel’s security requirements. “There has been no decision in Israel to keep the crossings closed on political grounds,†Mr. Regev said.
Yet when it comes to Karni, there seems to be a general ambivalence and little sense of urgency in either Jerusalem or Ramallah, the administrative capital of the West Bank, where Mr. Abbas has appointed an emergency government with no Hamas ministers.
Israel’s military moved quickly to allow the passage of medicines and staples into Gaza, mostly through smaller, secondary crossings like Sufa and Kerem Shalom, in order to stave off a looming crisis of hunger and public health.
A United Nations report covering the week of June 25 – July 1 found that the emergency imports into Gaza had met 70 percent of the minimum food needs of the population there.
Read that again. Seventy percent of Gaza’s needs are being met, even though terrorists keep trying to bomb the crossings. But still, in spite of the headline, the article is all about how Israel is keeping up the pressure by denying Gazans, well, whatever. Doesn’t matter what the facts are, the writers are going to get their anti-Israel angle. Even as terrorists fire directly at the crossings.
Five mortar shells fired from southern Gaza landed in open areas near the Kerem Shalom crossing Monday afternoon.
So now it’s not just Sderot residents who are supposed to suck it up and accept that the Palestinians are going to send rockets into their homes, schools, and businesses—now the Israelis are supposed to send food and medicine into Gaza even as terrorists try to murder the truck drivers bringing those foods and medicines, and oh yeah—Hamas gets to refuse food from Israel because it’s Israeli. And the world doesn’t manage to note that fact when it’s blaming Israel for the “starvation” going on in Gaza.
The Times puts this in the next-to-last paragraph of its big boo-hoo article on Gaza, somehow still managing to make this Israel’s fault, and managing to minimize the firing of mortar shells at Kerem Shalom:
Hamas has made its own demands, especially over the issue of the Rafah passenger crossing. About 6,000 Palestinians are stranded on the Egyptian side of the crossing, which has been closed since June 9, many of them without shelter in the sweltering heat. Israel, the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority and Egypt agreed to allow those stranded people to enter Gaza through Kerem Shalom, as a one-time solution to alleviate the human suffering. But Hamas officials rejected the idea, calling it an attack on Palestinian “symbolic sovereignty†at Rafah. To reinforce the message, militants fired mortars on Monday at Kerem Shalom, inside Israel, one of which hit the crossing.
The real story there is that Hamas is refusing re-entry of 6,000 Gazans out in the summer heat in the desert, while Israel would send them through a different crossing. But as in the previous story of Hamas refusing Israeli produce—preferring, it seems, to let its people starve rather than take Israeli assistance—Hamas is ready to let the peasants die so that the cause can go on.
And still, the world is blaming Israel. Here’s the AP article that went ’round the world yesterday:
The United Nations suspended construction of homes, schools and an emergency sewage system in the Gaza Strip on Monday, blaming a shortage of building materials resulting from Israel’s closure.
The move, which threatens the jobs of 121,000 Palestinians, is the latest hardship facing the poverty-stricken territory buffeted by infighting, ruled by Islamic militants and tightly controlled by Israel.
Hm. “Tightly controlled by Israel,” of course, places all the blame on Israel, and none on, say, the terrorists who want to use the crossings to smuggle more weapons and bombs into Gaza.
John Ging, director of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency in Gaza, said a “huge number” of houses in refugee camps were damaged during months of clashes between Hamas and rival Fatah forces and his agency can’t repair them because it lacks building supplies. He said school repairs and construction also have fallen behind schedule, leaving children without classrooms.
Break out the hankies. Palestinian children have no schools because of the nasty Israelis.
Ging said the shortage of building materials was the result of severely limited imports through crossings between Gaza and Israel. Since Hamas defeated Fatah forces and took control of Gaza last month, Israel has shut the crossings except for humanitarian assistance, citing security threats. That excludes vital materials such as cement.
“Security threats”—you think maybe those mortars crashing down on the crossings might be part of those “security threats”? You think the constant attacks by terrorists on the crossings might have something to do with the closings? You think the weaponry being smuggled into Gaza might have something to do with it?
The Israelis are aware of the crisis. Shlomo Dror, spokesman for the Israeli army unit that deals with Gaza issues, said some cement is being let in along with the emergency supplies, and other building materials would be added to the next shipment.
Sari Bashi of Gisha, a human rights group, called the border closing “collective punishment.” She said, “The rationale is to pressure Hamas. . . . But now it’s a quick death blow because the economy is unraveling very quickly.”
“Collective punishment” seems to go only one way. When Hamas refuses food and medicine, the world does not say that Hamas is resorting to “collective punishment” by denying its people the things they need. When Hamas refuses to let its people come out of the desert sun and go home because Hamas refuses to allow Israel any measure of control over what goes into Gaza, it is not “collective punishment” to leave those people suffering in the summer heat. But any time Israel sneezes in Gaza’s direction, it’s “collective punishment” on the Palestinians.
And the constant throb of Israeli Double Standard Time continues.
