UN seeks 10 million dollars in Gaza aid from Gulf Arabs Thu Jan 24, 8:51 AM ET
AMMAN (AFP) - The cash-strapped UN agency for Palestinian refugees appealed on Thursday to oil-rich Arab states in the Gulf to provide nearly 10 million in aid for the besieged Hamas-run Gaza Strip. We are seeking 9.8 million dollars from Arab Gulf countries for food aid, fuel supplies and cash assistance for the most needy in the Gaza Strip, said Peter Ford of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).If we get this aid, we would be able to provide the necessary assistance in an immediate and tangible manner despite all the current obstacles, Ford told reporters.The appeal came a week after Israel imposed a lockdown on the impoverished, densely populated territory, where 80 percent of the population depends on humanitarian aid.It's not in Israel's interest to starve the Palestinians in Gaza. We will take advantage of any available opportunity to deliver the aid to the strip, where the poverty rate stands at 57 percent and food insecurity affects 34 percent of the population, he added.
On Thursday, Palestinians poured out of Gaza into Egypt for a second consecutive day to stock up on supplies after militants blew open the border of the territory, where the Islamist Hamas seized power seven months ago.Although Israel eased the lock-down on Tuesday amid mounting fears of a humanitarian crisis, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has vowed to keep up the pressure on Gaza as long as militants there continue to fire rockets and mortars on Israel.In December, the United Nations appealed to donor countries to raise 462 million dollars for the Palestinian territories in 2008, of which only 60 percent was raised by mid-November.
Human Rights Council slams Israel over Gaza; EU abstains JAN 24,08
GENEVA (AFP) - The UN Human Rights Council criticised Israel on Thursday for its blockade of Gaza, in a resolution that EU member states on the council abstained from voting on, citing a lack of balance. By a vote of 30 to one, the council adopted the resolution that had been tabled by Pakistan and Syria on behalf of the Islamic and Arab blocs. Canada cast the lone opposing vote, while a total of 15 other states abstained.The resolution called for urgent international action to put an immediate end to the grave violations committed by the occupying power, Israel, in the occupied Palestinian territory.It marked the fourth time that the council, established in 2006 to replace the Human Rights Commission as the United Nations' main forum for human rights, had lambasted Israel in a special session.The Palestinian ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Mohammad Abu-Koash, said the vote was significant but urged greater international pressure upon Israel.Israel cannot have a free hand, a free licence against the Palestinian people, he told journalists after the session.Western states took issue with the resolution, arguing that it made no mention of Palestinian rocket attacks launched from Gaza into Israel.Both the United States and Israel were absent from the session.Neither country is a member of the 47-strong Council but both can attend as observers.
US ambassador Warren Tichenor said the Council's unbalanced approach had squandered its credibility by failing to address continued rocket attacks against Israel.Today's actions do nothing to help the Palestinian people, in whose name the supporters of this session claim to act, he said in a statement.Supporters of a Palestinian state must avoid the kind of inflammatory rhetoric and actions that this session represents, which only stoke tensions and erode the chances for peace, he added.Speaking on behalf of the European Union, Slovenia's representative said the resolution lacked an acknowledgement of civilian casualties on both sides.
Slovenia currently holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, which has seven member states on the council.Last week Israel turned its prolonged blockade of Gaza into a full-scale lockdown, blocking all fuel shipments and humanitarian aid, in a bid to stop the firing of rockets from the Hamas-controlled territory.On Tuesday, Israel allowed in shipments of cooking gas and fuel to power Gaza's sole power station, which had ground to a halt on Sunday night.Earlier this week, tens of thousands of Gazans poured into Egypt to stock up on goods in defiance of the Israeli siege, after militants blew up parts of the barrier that marks the border.Like its predecessor, the Human Rights Commission, the Human Rights Council has been criticised by mainly Western countries for focusing too much on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Barak says Israel may go back into Gaza By DAN PERRY and BRADLEY S. KLAPPER, Associated Press Writers JAN 24,08
DAVOS, Switzerland - Israel's defense minister said Thursday his government has not ruled out a large-scale military operation to counter continuing rocket attacks from Gaza. He added that Israel would not rush to reconquer the teeming, impoverished seaside strip. Probably we will find ourselves there, Ehud Barak said in an interview with The Associated Press. We are not rushing to reconquer Gaza, but we will not remove any option from the table when it comes to the security of our citizens.Barak, who holds the key to Israel's tenuous coalition government, also hinted that he would not step down — as promised to his Labor party's voters in last year's leadership primary — even if next week's much-anticipated report into the conduct of the 2006 Lebanon war is damning. Barak became defense minister after the war.He said accountability on his part must be weighed against political stability at a critical time for Israel's security, and the quiet but possibly critical peace talks with the Palestinians. How exactly to balance between those two elements, that's what I will have to bear in mind when making my decision, he said.
Barak was interviewed at the World Economic Forum at Davos, which he attended as part of a high-level delegation that included Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and President Shimon Peres — all former or aspiring prime ministers.Notably absent from the Alpine gathering of political and business leaders was the current holder of the post, Ehud Olmert — who awaits an inquiry commission's report next week on his handling of the 2006 conflict with Hezbollah, a campaign widely judged as a costly misadventure.The big question in Israel — and for Barak as well as Olmert — is whether the report will blame the prime minister directly and harshly. That would spark calls for Olmert to resign and for Barak to do the same if his senior coalition partner instead tries to hang on.A world away from the idealism and buzz of Davos, tumult reined in the Middle East as Palestinians this week breached their border with Egypt and streamed into the neighboring country by the thousands. Israeli sanctions imposed on the strip in an attempt to force the end of the rocket attacks have led to severe shortages there.Barak refused to echo a statement by his deputy, who was quoted as saying Thursday that the border breach meant Israel could now relinquish all responsibility for the strip, including the supply of electricity and water.
Israel pulled troops and settlers out of Gaza in 2005 but the strip is sealed off from the world and still dependent on the Jewish state.In comments confirmed by his office, deputy defense minister Matan Vilnai said that when Gaza is open to the other side we lose responsibility for it.I don't go too far in my interpretation of this, Barak gruffly offered.Complicating the picture are ongoing negotiations with the Palestinians that began after the U.S.-sponsored November peace conference in Annapolis, Md.President Bush has expressed optimism that a deal can be reached by the end of the year, and low-key but high-level talks between Israelis and Palestinians grind on behind a certain cloak of mystery.I hope that he's right and we clearly will do all possible efforts to make it happen, Barak said, but he added: "Having some experience in the Middle East ... I cannot tell you for sure there will be a peace agreement in 2008.Most Israelis and Palestinians probably share that skepticism, given the weakness of both Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who last year lost control of the Gaza Strip — where about a third of his people live — to the militant group Hamas.Barak, who led Israel from 1999 to 2001, was voted out when peace talks collapsed amid the outburst of a new Palestinian uprising that lasted some four years and in some ways continues. Given his clear interest in returning to his old job, the former military chief was careful in his responses, mindful of the political storm that may be coming and could either propel him back to the top or sink his aspirations.
He said 80 percent of Israelis now agreed with the idea of a Palestinian state and a withdrawal from the Palestinian-populated lands occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war. But are they ready to pay the price? Will Olmert's government offer at least what Barak himself did, as prime minister, some seven years ago — a near total-pullout and a division of sorts of the holy city of Jerusalem? Not these terms necessarily to the last detail, Barak said. The key, he said, was that most Israelis now understand that two states for two nations is a compelling imperative.If there is no two-state solution, if there is only one entity called Israel reigning over the whole area, it will become inevitably either non-Jewish or non-democratic.
Hamas Beats Israel's Gaza Siege By TIM MCGIRK/RAFAH CROSSING JAN 24,08
It took explosives to do what diplomacy couldn't: allow Palestinians to go on a shopping spree. The siege of Gaza, imposed by Israel and the international community after Hamas seized control of the Palestinian territory last July, ended abruptly before dawn on Wednesday when militants blew as many as 15 holes in the border wall separating the territory from Egypt. In the hours that followed, over 350,000 Palestinians swarmed across the frontier, nearly one fifth of Gaza's entire population. Some Palestinians craved medicine and food - goats appeared to be a hot item - because Israel had cut off most supplies from entering Gaza as punishment for militants' firing rockets into southern Israel. Students and businessmen joined the throng heading for Egypt. There were scores of brides-to-be, stuck on the Egyptian side, who scurried across to be united with their future bridegrooms in Gaza. And some, like teacher Abu Bakr, stepped through a blast hole into Egypt simply to enjoy the air of freedom.The previous day, President Housni Mubarak faced the wrath of the Arab world when his riot police used clubs and water hoses to attack Palestinian women pleading for Egypt to open the Rafah crossing in Gaza. And despite pressure from Israel and the United States, Mubarak wasn't about to order his men to use force to restrain Palestinians rendered desperate by Israel's siege. The Egyptian President said he ordered his troops to let them come to eat and buy food and go back, as long as they are not carrying weapons.At 2 a.m. on Wednesday, Palestinian militants detonated explosive charges knocking out slabs in the 26-foot concrete border wall, and by dawn, Gazans were racing to the open border on donkey carts and tractors and in cars. Once through the holes, they trampled across barbed wire, vaulted over fences and picked their way gingerly through cactus. Many carried heavy suitcases and said that they were never coming back to captivity in Gaza.But most Gazans were in a mad scramble to go shopping, and they returned with everything from goats to tires to jerricans full of gasoline. One stout woman in a veil threaded nimbly through barbed wire with a tray of canned fruit balanced on her head. The Palestinians cleaned out every shop on the Egyptian side: By afternoon, there was nothing to buy within a six-mile distance of the border; and even the Sinai town of El-Arish, three hours drive away, had been sucked dry of gasoline. One taxi driver who brought back cartons of cigarettes and gallons of gas to resell for a profit in Gaza said, This should help feed my family for several months.
Israel expressed fears that Hamas militants would use the breach in the border to bring in weapons. One Palestinian said he witnessed dozens of Hamas men who had been stuck in Egypt for months crossing into Gaza. Israeli Foreign Ministry Spokesman Aryeh Mekel told newsmen, We have real concerns that they can now freely smuggle explosives, missiles and people into Gaza, which makes an already bad situation even worse.Hamas moved quickly to capitalize on the mass celebration of the border's breach. The movement's parliamentary leader, Prime Minister Ismael Haniyeh, called on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Egypt to join in urgent talks to find a formula for keeping the Gaza-Egypt border permanently open. Haniyeh said Hamas was prepared to set up joint control of the border with the President's forces, bringing an end to a hostilities between the two factions that erupted last July when Hamas militants chased the President's Fatah militia out of Gaza. Now that Gazans have exploded out of their besieged enclave, it may be up to Israel to seal up the border again, since the Egyptians are showing no signs of doing so. Israel had put the economic squeeze on Gaza's 1.5 million people - a policy described as collective punishment by many aid organizations - hoping it would turn the Palestinians against Hamas. But with the siege broken, even if temporarily, Hamas has earned the gratitude of hungry Palestinians and reinvigorated its popularity in Gaza.
Palestinians blow up border wall, flood into Egypt By Nidal al-Mughrabi Wed Jan 23, 7:45 PM ET
RAFAH, Gaza Strip (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of Palestinians poured into Egypt from the Gaza Strip on Wednesday after militants blew up a border wall, and stocked up on food and fuel in short supply because of an Israeli blockade. Those people are hungry for freedom, for food and for everything, said an Egyptian shopkeeper who gave her name only as Hamida, surveying shelves emptied swiftly by Gazans paying with Egyptian pounds and Israeli shekels.The fall of the Rafah wall punched a new hole in efforts by Israel, under frequent rocket attack from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, to keep pressure on the territory in the face of an international outcry over shortages and Palestinian hardship.The flood of people into the Egyptian part of Rafah -- some on donkey carts and carrying bags and cases to fill with consumer goods -- also forced Israel into a delicate diplomatic balancing act with its first Arab peace partner.Egypt proposed that it take a new look, with Israel and the Palestinian Authority, at how to reactivate their border agreement, the Foreign Ministry in Cairo said.
Residents of Rafah, a divided town straddling the Egypt-Gaza border, said militants set off explosions that demolished a 200-metre (200-yard) length of the rusting, six-meter (20-foot) high metal border wall put up by Israel in 2004, a year before it pulled its troops and settlers from the territory.Locals estimated at least 200,000 people crossed over in a rare opportunity to leave what Gazans call a giant jail.Pushing a trolley among the crowds that turned Rafah into a bazaar, Mohammed Saeed said: I have bought everything I need for the house for months. I have bought food, cigarettes and even two gallons of diesel for my car.Israel tightened its Gaza border closure last week, briefly halting fuel delivery to a main power plant and cutting supplies to petrol stations, as well as food and other humanitarian aid.
LIVING UNDER CHAOS
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, under pressure to prove his security mettle before publication next week of an inquiry's report on the costly 2006 Lebanon war, reiterated a vow to maintain pressure on Gaza until the rocket salvoes cease.But, addressing an annual policy conference in Herzliya, he also said he would not let Palestinian privations reach crisis point.We will not harm the supply of food for children, medicine for those who need it and fuel for institutions that save lives.But there is no justification for demanding we allow residents of Gaza to live normal lives while shells and rockets are fired from their streets and courtyards at Sderot and other communities in the south, Olmert said in his speech.The United States rallied to its ally's defense.The Palestinians living in Gaza are living under chaos because of Hamas, and the blame has to be placed fully at their feet, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.The border terminal in Rafah, once a main avenue to the outside world for Gazans, has been largely closed since Hamas Islamists opposed to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's peace efforts with Israel seized control of the Gaza Strip in June.In Cairo, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said he told the security forces: Let them come in to eat and buy food. The Gazans could then go back as long as they are not carrying weapons, Mubarak said. Israeli defense Minister Ehud Barak, visiting Paris, was careful not to criticize Egypt. I believe that they (the Egyptians) know and will respect their role in this whole picture, he told reporters. Past Israeli criticism of Egypt's failure to curb weapons smuggling into the Gaza Strip through tunnels running under Rafah provoked an angry response from Cairo, a key supporter of U.S.-sponsored peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. The European Union and international agencies have called the closure collective punishment -- banned by the Geneva Conventions -- of Gaza's 1.5 million people.
The Israeli army says about 250 rockets and mortar rounds have pounded Israel since last week. Over the same period, Israeli troops killed more than 30 Palestinians. (Additional reporting by Yusri Mohamed in Ismailia, Mohammed Yusuf in Rafah, Jonathan Wright in Cairo and Ari Rabinovitch in Jerusalem) (Writing by Jeffrey Heller and Ari Rabinovitch in Jerusalem; editing by Tim Pearce)
Egypt starts to control crowds from Gaza By SARAH EL DEEB and OMAR SINAN, Associated Press Writer JAN 24,08
RAFAH, Gaza Strip - Egyptian border guards took measures to control huge crowds of Palestinians streaming from Gaza to Egypt across a breached border for a second day Thursday, but they did not try to halt the flow. On Wednesday, Palestinian gunmen used land mines to blast down the border partition so Gazans could escape an Israeli closure imposed last week that was making food, fuel and other goods scarce. Tens of thousands of Gazans have rushed into Egypt without any border controls.On the frontier, guards were patrolling access roads while helmeted police with sniffer dogs used batons to beat the hoods of private cars and pickup trucks that massed at the border, trying to stop them from carrying Palestinians further into Egyptian territory.Egyptian officials said the border would eventually return to normal.
In the past two days, Gazans stocked up on supplies in Egypt, including cement, fuel, cigarettes and other staples.In response to continuing Palestinian rocket attacks, Israel stopped emergency shipments of industrial diesel fuel, arguing that Gazans could now get those supplies from Egypt. However, Palestinian officials said Gaza's power plant would shut down Sunday for the second time in a week if fuel shipments do not resume.The border breach effectively ended Israel's tight blockade of Gaza imposed in response to a spike in the attacks on Israeli border towns.Some Palestinian travelers in the Egyptian town of El Arish, about 15 miles from the border, said they were told by local police they should start making their way back if they had no urgent business in the city, signaling that authorities were trying to start resealing of the border.Gazans had hoped the temporary border opening would become permanent. Both Egypt and Israel had restricted the movement of people and goods in and out of Gaza after Hamas won parliament elections in 2006, and further tightened the closure after Hamas seized control of the area from moderates by force.The Egyptians started doing good deeds by letting us in. For God's sake, why don't they keep allowing us to pass through? said Mohammed Abu Amra, a Palestinian walking across the border on crutches. Everyone is rushing into Egypt before they seal it off.Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai, meanwhile, caused a stir when he said Israel gradually wants to relinquish responsibility for Gaza now that a border fence with Egypt has been blown open.
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Arye Mekel struck a similar tone, saying that once Gazans are getting supplies from elsewhere, there is less need for Israel to provide for them.Privately, Israeli officials said the border breach could pave the way for increasingly disconnecting from the territory.However, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, speaking to The Associated Press on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, did not echo Vilnai's remarks.I don't go too far in my interpretation of this, Barak said.Egypt angrily rejected the Israeli ideas, and said it would not change border arrangements.The border will go back as normal, said Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki, adding that Egypt had not been approached by Israel about a possible change in the status of Gaza.Egypt has not yet indicated how it plans to reseal the border, but it would not be that difficult for it to rebuild some type of physical barrier fairly quickly. Egypt is highly unlikely to leave the border town of Rafah united, instead probably aiming to re-create some type of partition in roughly the same position as the old one. For now, it appeared Egypt was moving slowly, putting its forces in the area as a first step toward later pushing Gazans back and then re-erecting a barrier. In a previous major breach, after the Israeli pullout from Gaza in 2005, Egypt closed the border after four days and issued a deadline for Gazans to return home. Troops searched for, detained and fined stragglers who were then sent to their side of the border. Egypt also lined up armored personnel carriers and riot police as a makeshift border barrier, and eventually rebuilt a small border fence.
The border breach has boosted the popularity of Gaza's Hamas rulers, who in recent months had struggled to govern because of border closures. The sanctions have led to severe shortages of cement, cigarettes and other basic goods, deepened poverty and drove up unemployment. Hamas has used the breach — carefully planned with militants weakening the metal wall with blow torches about a month ago — to push its demand for reopening the border passages, this time with Hamas involvement. Such an arrangement would in effect end the international sanctions that have isolated the Islamic militants. Hamas government spokesman Taher Nunu suggested Thursday that Hamas would seek a future role on the Gaza-Egypt border. An open border like this has no logic, he said. We are studying the mechanism of having an official crossing point.
However, it was not clear whether Egypt will acquiesce. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has been under intense public pressure at home in recent days to alleviate the suffering of Gazans under blockade. However, Egypt would likely be reluctant to have an open border with a territory ruled by Islamic militants. In Tel Aviv, visiting U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said that while Hamas itself was to blame for the shortages in the Gaza Strip, it was Egypt's responsibility to restore order at its border. Obviously it is going to be up to the Egyptian government to bring under control the situation along the border, he said at the start of a meeting with Israeli Cabinet minister Shaul Mofaz.
Cargo shipments across the border picked up. Trucks and donkey carts pulled up to the Egyptian side, the goods were unloaded and carried across to the Gazan side where they were put in waiting trucks. Gaza businessman Abu Omar Shurafa received a shipment of 100 tons of cement, seizing an opportunity to stock up before the border closes again. Everyone is exerting all efforts to stock the reserves for six to seven months. We have to find a way to continue living, he said. Still, he was also hopeful that this could be the beginning of a new arrangement. A solution has to be like this, he said, referring to the flow of goods from Egypt. Some Gazans just wanted to get out, even for a few hours. We just want freedom, said Adel Tildani, who was bringing his mother-in-law from Egypt into Gaza to meet grandchildren she had never seen before. I don't need to buy anything. Freedom is more important.AP reporters Omar Sinan, Salah Nasrawi and Dan Perry contributed to this report from Rafah, Egypt, Cairo and Davos, Switzerland, respectively.
