The six-month long ceasefire agreed between Israel and Hamas on 19 June reached its halfway mark on 19 September. The benefit of a ceasefire agreement for Hamas and the people of Gaza was supposed to be the opening of the border crossings between Gaza and Israel and the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt. In reality, Israel has continually closed the border crossings it controls whilst Egypt, following instructions from its imperialist paymasters, has refused to permanently open the Rafah crossing. Bob Shepherd reports.
Hamas spokesperson Fawzi Barhoum, speaking on the 15 September after Israel had once again closed all the border crossings on the pretext that a single rocket had been fired from Gaza, accused the Zionists of manipulating the ceasefire agreement according to the moods and wishes of their leaders. ‘Everybody knows that we agreed on a ceasefire to eliminate Israeli pretexts (for military operations),’ he said. ‘We wanted to give the Egyptians an opportunity (to help), while we knew from past experiences that Israel would not adhere to the ceasefire.’ Islamic Jihad leader, Khalid Al Batsh declared; ‘Israel escalates operations in the Gaza Strip in order to end the ceasefire agreement, which they were never committed to.’ The closure of all border crossings ‘is a normal, expected action by Israel which disregards its truce commitments – lifting the siege, opening border crossings and halting aggression. None of these conditions have been implemented’.
The continued blockade means that fuel is severely rationed with private vehicle owners only allowed to buy ten litres every two weeks and taxi owners 30 to 40 litres every other day. Critically ill patients are still being denied the right to cross into Israel or Egypt for crucial life-saving treatment. At the last count 243 people had died because they were not allowed out of Gaza for treatment. People who have been in the process of applying to leave for life-saving treatment have reported that the Israeli authorities have pressurised them into becoming informers and collaborators on pain of being refused a permit.
Egypt’s role in the imperialist blockade is highlighted by its refusal to open the Rafah border crossing for more than a few days at a time. At the end of August, Ehud Barak, Israel’s Defence Minister met with Mubarak the Egyptian President. Barak congratulated Mubarak on Egypt’s role in closing the border with Gaza, declaring it to ‘have visibly been effective’.
This continuing siege of Gaza has led to the desperate situation of people digging hundreds of tunnels under the border. It is estimated that there are up to 900 working tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border in the Rafah area. The tunnels are not used, as the Zionist propaganda would have it, to bring arms into Gaza, but are primarily used to smuggle medicines, children’s milk, foodstuffs, vehicle spare parts, fuel and clothes.
The servile role Egypt is playing was exposed once again on 10 September when the Egyptian authorities prevented a solidarity convoy of trucks, organised by the ‘Popular Committees to break the Gaza Seige’ from crossing the border into Gaza. This came just a couple of weeks after the landing of the ships SS Free Gaza and SS Liberty on the shores of Gaza after setting sail from Cyprus. This breaking of the siege was organised by the ‘Free Gaza Movement’ and was an example of direct action that will inspire more actions against the blockade.
Settlement expansion
The so-called peace talks between Abbas and Olmert have achieved no progress although rumours abound that they have reached a secret framework agreement to be made public later in the year. This agreement will compromise the right of return of Palestinian refugees and give Israel control of most of Jerusalem. Israel’s contempt for the talks is shown by the continuing and escalating Zionist settlement growth in the West Bank. According to Tzipi Livni, then the Israeli Foreign Minister, and now the likely replacement for Ehud Olmert as prime minister, ‘the peace process is not, and should not be, affected by any kind of settlement activities’.
Peace Now, an Israeli organisation, reported in September that Israel had nearly doubled settlement construction in the West Bank since 2007. At least 2,600 homes are currently under construction in the West Bank, an increase of 80% over last year. In East Jerusalem the number of new government bids for construction has increased from 46 in 2007 to 1,761 so far this year. Another Israeli peace group, B’Tselem, says that Israeli settlers have seized hundreds of additional hectares of land around settlements that are beyond the Apartheid Wall in the West Bank. Using the excuse of security, settlers and the army have seized large tracts of land around these settlements, unofficially annexing an extra 460 hectares of land and increasing the size of these illegal settlements by about 240%.
Imperialist pressure on Hamas
The National Dialogue talks being brokered by Egypt are the latest attempt by imperialism to sideline Hamas and impose a pro-imperialist government in Gaza. At the beginning of September Egypt proposed a new Palestinian technocrat government be formed excluding both Hamas and Fatah. This would still be a government that would follow the dictates of imperialism.
Egypt also proposed that Arab forces be deployed in Gaza to end division and build new ‘security apparatuses’. Hamas spokesman Dr Bardawil rejected the proposals, declaring that they were following the Zionist imperialist agenda and that their aim was the removal of Hamas from positions of authority.
The beginning of September also saw the latest attempt of Fatah to undermine Hamas in Gaza. The Fatah-controlled teachers’ union, one of their few remaining areas of influence, called a strike, supposedly against the forced transfer of teachers to new schools. Hamas denounced the strike as political and as an attempt to sabotage life in Gaza. This analysis of the situation was confirmed by the subsequent threat of the Palestinian Authority government in Ramallah to dismiss all civil servants who didn’t support the strike!
FRFI 205 October / November 2008
