Legal Advisor Halts Gaza Collective Punishment
Oppose War Criminals | 01.11.2007 01:45 | Anti-racism | World
Kudos to the human rights groups, within Israel and outside, which focused the light of international public scrutiny on what Israel was attempting to do here.
Israel's legal advisor halts Gaza power cuts
Published: Monday October 29, 2007
Israel's state prosecutor said Monday that planned punitive cuts in the electricity supply to the Gaza Strip cannot go ahead without taking full account of the possible humanitarian consequences.
(And, no doubt, the negative PR this would entail ...)
Menahem Mazouz said in a statement that "security chiefs must carry out supplementary examinations to take account of the humanitarian obligations before ordering electricity cuts."
A spokesman for Mazouz's office, Moshe Cohen, told AFP there was a need to "evaluate the risks that such measures could have on the civilian population."
Mazouz published his advice following close consultations with officials from the justice, defence and foreign ministries as well as the prime minister's office and the supreme court.
The supreme court has meanwhile given the government until Friday to justify the economic sanctions it is seeking to impose on the Palestinian territory, following legal action taken by 10 human rights groups.
Israel on Sunday began reducing the amount of fuel it supplies to the beleaguered Hamas-run coastal strip, just weeks after it declared the territory a "hostile entity" in response to frequent but rarely lethal rocket attacks.
(However, Israeli officials have since stated that this is not about the rockets - as defense analysts predict these measures would most likely increase their frequency - but about distancing Israel from Gaza's infrastructure. Considering Israel's long-held plans for a massive military assault on the Strip, this is most likely about softening up the region for reoccupation.)
Amid international criticism of the move as "collective punishment", it said it intended to impose electricity cuts within the next few days.
rawstory.com/news/afp/Israel_s_legal_advisor_halts_Gaza_p_10292007.html
The intention of this long-planned crime is the 'softening up' of the world's largest Concentration Camp, paving the way for an Israeli attack which was planned alongside 'disengagement'.
Regardless of the reasons, this is an illegal policy.
ANALYSIS: Israel's real intention behind sanctions on Gaza Strip
Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff , Haaretz Correspondents
October 26, 2007
There is an enormous gap between the reasons Israel is giving for the decision to impose significant sanctions against Hamas rule in the Gaza Strip, and the real intentions behind them. Defense Minister Ehud Barak authorized Thursday a plan for disrupting electricity supply to the Gaza Strip, as well as significantly shrinking fuel shipments. This is supposed to reduce the number of Qassam rocket attacks against Sderot and the other border communities. In practice, defense officials believe that the Palestinian militants will intensify their attacks in response to the sanctions.
As such, the real aim of this effort is twofold: to attempt a new form of "escalation" as a response to aggression from Gaza, before Israel embarks on a major military operation there; and to prepare the ground for a more clear-cut isolation of the Gaza Strip - limiting to an absolute minimum Israel's obligation toward the Palestinians there.
Several weeks ago, Barak said Israel "is getting closer" to a major operation in the strip. Like Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, Barak is not excited about this possibility. He knows that it will not be easy, and there are no guarantees for positive results. Many soldiers will be killed and so will many innocent Palestinians, because the IDF will employ a massive artillery bombardment before it sends infantry into the crowded built-up areas. This will be a "dirty war," very aggressive, that will have scenes of destruction similar to southern Lebanon in 2006. The sole exception: unlike in Lebanon, the population there has nowhere to run.
Moreover, Ashkenazi has told the cabinet that he will only support an offensive operation if it is long-lasting. If after several weeks of fighting, the IDF is allowed time to carry out arrests and gather intelligence, then the chief of staff sees a point for the operation.
Defense sources say the sanctions will lead the militants to intensify their attacks to show that they do not succumb to Israeli pressure. And because the sanctions will not be severe - so as not to create a humanitarian crisis - they will not be effective. It is actually expected that the gasoline shortage will have a greater effect than the disruptions in the electricity supply - which normally happens because of equipment breakdowns.
The decision on sanctions is also an attempt to give expression to the inclination to completely disengage from Gaza. In this way Israel is sending a message to the Palestinian leadership in the strip that it must seek alternatives, however minor, to goods and services coming from Israel. This touches on the day after the Annapolis summit. Failure at the summit may lead Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas into the arms of Hamas. In such a case, Israel is raising a big stop sign at the exit from Ramallah: Passage to Gaza is closed.
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/917385.html
Israel 'won't cause Gaza crisis'
Israel has vowed not to cause a humanitarian crisis in Gaza - despite plans to cut fuel and electricity in a bid to halt rocket attacks.
(However, the UN has already called this a Humanitarian Crisis, and has condemned Israel for making it worse.)
"We will take the steps needed but we will not allow a humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip," PM Ehud Olmert told Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.
Meeting in Jerusalem, before a US-led peace conference, the leaders made little progress on a joint statement.
(This is for foreign consumption, as anyone looking at the facts on the ground sees through this bullsh*t.)
Israel supplies 60% of the electricity for Gaza's 1.5 million inhabitants.
'Collective punishment'
"Israel will protect its citizens," Mr Olmert told Mahmoud Abbas, according to Israeli government spokeswoman Miri Eisin.
Both leaders agreed to implementing the stalled 2003 roadmap to peace as part of the joint statement due before the US-led peace conference, Ms Eisin said.
We call for an end to these meetings, which have become a cover for the killings, destruction... and the escalation of the aggression against the Gaza Strip
Ismail Haniya
Hamas
The conference is due in November in Annapolis, Maryland, and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been touring the Middle East to secure a joint agreement that would allow it to go ahead.
"They [Mr Olmert and Mr Abbas] agreed to try to reach, as soon as possible, a meaningful statement," Ms Eisin said.
(But Olmert has already ruled out any Negotiations that would lead to peace. This conference is about PR, since Israel's actions over the past three years has destroyed most of its international sympathy and support.)
The leader of the Hamas faction in Gaza, Ismail Haniya, condemned Friday's meeting.
"We call for an end to these meetings, which have become a cover for the killings, destruction, assassinations, incursions and the escalation of the aggression against the Gaza Strip - including talk of new collective punishments," Mr Haniya said.
Palestinians have said they will only attend the Annapolis conference if key issues are up for discussion, including the final status of Jerusalem, the borders of a future Palestinian state and the right of return for refugees.
The Israelis have said no prior text is needed as a basis for the talks.
The events in Gaza underline the enormous difficulties of advancing the Israeli-Palestinian dialogue, says the BBC's Tim Franks in Jerusalem.
There is a growing belief among the Palestinian and Israeli public that this diplomatic process will offer no significant advance, our correspondent adds.
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7064107.stm
Israeli says Gaza cuts will begin Sunday Sat Oct 27, 3:44 PM ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israel's defence ministry announced it would begin cutting fuel supplies to the Gaza Strip from Sunday in reprisal for continued rocket attacks from the Palestinian territory.
"The reduction in fuel supplies will be felt from Sunday and we will carry out electricity cuts beginning in the coming days," Ronen Moshe, a spokesman for Defence Minister Ehud Barak, told AFP late Saturday.
Barak announced Thursday that Israel would start periodic electricity cuts and limit fuel deliveries to the Strip because of the continued firing of rockets by militants.
Moshe added that "juridical problems are still to be resolved" concerning the cuts, referring to possible legal action by Israeli human rights organisations which consider the sanctions collective punishment of civilians, contrary to international law.
(And indeed, they are.)
The Israeli military claims that since the Islamist Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in mid-June, a thousand rockets and mortar shells have been fired at Israel, wounding dozens of people.
(The 'takeover' was a response to a failed Coup attempt by Israel and the United States, using corrupt elements within Fatah as proxies. The rockets are a response to increased Israeli aggression and the Collective Punishment of all who live in Gaza, the world's largest Concentration Camp. Israel's actions have resulted in hundreds of Palestinian deaths.)
Deputy Defence Minister Matan Vilnai said earlier Saturday that Israel planned to paralyse the infrastructure of the Gaza Strip in every possible way and separate itself completely from the Palestinian territory in the long term.
(That is a War Crime. What's really happening is that Israel is 'softening up' the strip for an invasion which has been planned since before the 'disengagement' that turned Gaza into a free-fire zone.)
"We want to separate ourselves from the Gaza Strip at the level of its infrastructure in every way possible," Vilnai told Israeli public radio.
Vilnai said the measures were not really because of the rocket firing "but really to achieve the separation of this territory, which was approved in principle two weeks ago by the Israeli government, and whose application had only been delayed for a simple legalistic check."
In September, the security cabinet decreed the Gaza Strip "a hostile entity." It has been controlled completely by Hamas since mid-June when the Islamist movement ousted security forces loyal to Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and the Fatah party.
(Remember, everything Hitler did was "legal" too ...)
"Long term we want to separate ourselves from this territory, 100 percent," said Vilnai, adding that at the moment Israel was providing all the fuel that the Gaza Strip needed, as well as two-thirds of its electricity supplies.
(If this was true, then the Israelis would undertake final peace talks with the Palestinians, and recognize the resultant Palestinian State, instead of refusing to Negotiate and Compromise in the name of peace.)
"Currently, more than 100 lorries loaded with food and basic necessities coming from Israel enter the Gaza Strip each day to avoid a humanitarian crisis, but we also have to find an alternative solution at this level," Vilnai said.
Since the Hamas 'takeover' the Israelis have imposed a tight vice around the Gaza Strip, closing crossing points and only allowing through essential products.
Palestinians and human rights groups charge that the noose around the Strip amounts to collective punishment of civilians, contrary to international law.
The Israeli military claims that since the 'Islamists' took control, a thousand rockets and mortar shells have been fired at Israel, wounding dozens of people.
(Why is this sentence repeated, especially after, within the same story, we already read "Vilnai said the measures were not really because of the rocket firing"? The 'takeover' was a response to a failed Coup attempt by Israel and the United States, using corrupt elements within Fatah as proxies. The rockets are a response to increased Israeli aggression and the Collective Punishment of all who live in Gaza, the world's largest Concentration Camp. Israel's actions have resulted in hundreds of Palestinian deaths.)
The sanctions, the first of their kind since the Palestinian intifada or uprising began in late September 2000, can now proceed without further authorisation from the Israeli government.
Since the uprising started, a total of 5,906 people -- the vast majority of them Palestinians -- have been killed in Israeli-Palestinian violence, according to an AFP count.
news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071027/wl_mideast_afp/mideastisraelgazasanctions
Published: Monday October 29, 2007
Israel's state prosecutor said Monday that planned punitive cuts in the electricity supply to the Gaza Strip cannot go ahead without taking full account of the possible humanitarian consequences.
(And, no doubt, the negative PR this would entail ...)
Menahem Mazouz said in a statement that "security chiefs must carry out supplementary examinations to take account of the humanitarian obligations before ordering electricity cuts."
A spokesman for Mazouz's office, Moshe Cohen, told AFP there was a need to "evaluate the risks that such measures could have on the civilian population."
Mazouz published his advice following close consultations with officials from the justice, defence and foreign ministries as well as the prime minister's office and the supreme court.
The supreme court has meanwhile given the government until Friday to justify the economic sanctions it is seeking to impose on the Palestinian territory, following legal action taken by 10 human rights groups.
Israel on Sunday began reducing the amount of fuel it supplies to the beleaguered Hamas-run coastal strip, just weeks after it declared the territory a "hostile entity" in response to frequent but rarely lethal rocket attacks.
(However, Israeli officials have since stated that this is not about the rockets - as defense analysts predict these measures would most likely increase their frequency - but about distancing Israel from Gaza's infrastructure. Considering Israel's long-held plans for a massive military assault on the Strip, this is most likely about softening up the region for reoccupation.)
Amid international criticism of the move as "collective punishment", it said it intended to impose electricity cuts within the next few days.
rawstory.com/news/afp/Israel_s_legal_advisor_halts_Gaza_p_10292007.html
The intention of this long-planned crime is the 'softening up' of the world's largest Concentration Camp, paving the way for an Israeli attack which was planned alongside 'disengagement'.
Regardless of the reasons, this is an illegal policy.
ANALYSIS: Israel's real intention behind sanctions on Gaza Strip
Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff , Haaretz Correspondents
October 26, 2007
There is an enormous gap between the reasons Israel is giving for the decision to impose significant sanctions against Hamas rule in the Gaza Strip, and the real intentions behind them. Defense Minister Ehud Barak authorized Thursday a plan for disrupting electricity supply to the Gaza Strip, as well as significantly shrinking fuel shipments. This is supposed to reduce the number of Qassam rocket attacks against Sderot and the other border communities. In practice, defense officials believe that the Palestinian militants will intensify their attacks in response to the sanctions.
As such, the real aim of this effort is twofold: to attempt a new form of "escalation" as a response to aggression from Gaza, before Israel embarks on a major military operation there; and to prepare the ground for a more clear-cut isolation of the Gaza Strip - limiting to an absolute minimum Israel's obligation toward the Palestinians there.
Several weeks ago, Barak said Israel "is getting closer" to a major operation in the strip. Like Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, Barak is not excited about this possibility. He knows that it will not be easy, and there are no guarantees for positive results. Many soldiers will be killed and so will many innocent Palestinians, because the IDF will employ a massive artillery bombardment before it sends infantry into the crowded built-up areas. This will be a "dirty war," very aggressive, that will have scenes of destruction similar to southern Lebanon in 2006. The sole exception: unlike in Lebanon, the population there has nowhere to run.
Moreover, Ashkenazi has told the cabinet that he will only support an offensive operation if it is long-lasting. If after several weeks of fighting, the IDF is allowed time to carry out arrests and gather intelligence, then the chief of staff sees a point for the operation.
Defense sources say the sanctions will lead the militants to intensify their attacks to show that they do not succumb to Israeli pressure. And because the sanctions will not be severe - so as not to create a humanitarian crisis - they will not be effective. It is actually expected that the gasoline shortage will have a greater effect than the disruptions in the electricity supply - which normally happens because of equipment breakdowns.
The decision on sanctions is also an attempt to give expression to the inclination to completely disengage from Gaza. In this way Israel is sending a message to the Palestinian leadership in the strip that it must seek alternatives, however minor, to goods and services coming from Israel. This touches on the day after the Annapolis summit. Failure at the summit may lead Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas into the arms of Hamas. In such a case, Israel is raising a big stop sign at the exit from Ramallah: Passage to Gaza is closed.
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/917385.html
Israel 'won't cause Gaza crisis'
Israel has vowed not to cause a humanitarian crisis in Gaza - despite plans to cut fuel and electricity in a bid to halt rocket attacks.
(However, the UN has already called this a Humanitarian Crisis, and has condemned Israel for making it worse.)
"We will take the steps needed but we will not allow a humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip," PM Ehud Olmert told Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.
Meeting in Jerusalem, before a US-led peace conference, the leaders made little progress on a joint statement.
(This is for foreign consumption, as anyone looking at the facts on the ground sees through this bullsh*t.)
Israel supplies 60% of the electricity for Gaza's 1.5 million inhabitants.
'Collective punishment'
"Israel will protect its citizens," Mr Olmert told Mahmoud Abbas, according to Israeli government spokeswoman Miri Eisin.
Both leaders agreed to implementing the stalled 2003 roadmap to peace as part of the joint statement due before the US-led peace conference, Ms Eisin said.
We call for an end to these meetings, which have become a cover for the killings, destruction... and the escalation of the aggression against the Gaza Strip
Ismail Haniya
Hamas
The conference is due in November in Annapolis, Maryland, and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been touring the Middle East to secure a joint agreement that would allow it to go ahead.
"They [Mr Olmert and Mr Abbas] agreed to try to reach, as soon as possible, a meaningful statement," Ms Eisin said.
(But Olmert has already ruled out any Negotiations that would lead to peace. This conference is about PR, since Israel's actions over the past three years has destroyed most of its international sympathy and support.)
The leader of the Hamas faction in Gaza, Ismail Haniya, condemned Friday's meeting.
"We call for an end to these meetings, which have become a cover for the killings, destruction, assassinations, incursions and the escalation of the aggression against the Gaza Strip - including talk of new collective punishments," Mr Haniya said.
Palestinians have said they will only attend the Annapolis conference if key issues are up for discussion, including the final status of Jerusalem, the borders of a future Palestinian state and the right of return for refugees.
The Israelis have said no prior text is needed as a basis for the talks.
The events in Gaza underline the enormous difficulties of advancing the Israeli-Palestinian dialogue, says the BBC's Tim Franks in Jerusalem.
There is a growing belief among the Palestinian and Israeli public that this diplomatic process will offer no significant advance, our correspondent adds.
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7064107.stm
Israeli says Gaza cuts will begin Sunday Sat Oct 27, 3:44 PM ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israel's defence ministry announced it would begin cutting fuel supplies to the Gaza Strip from Sunday in reprisal for continued rocket attacks from the Palestinian territory.
"The reduction in fuel supplies will be felt from Sunday and we will carry out electricity cuts beginning in the coming days," Ronen Moshe, a spokesman for Defence Minister Ehud Barak, told AFP late Saturday.
Barak announced Thursday that Israel would start periodic electricity cuts and limit fuel deliveries to the Strip because of the continued firing of rockets by militants.
Moshe added that "juridical problems are still to be resolved" concerning the cuts, referring to possible legal action by Israeli human rights organisations which consider the sanctions collective punishment of civilians, contrary to international law.
(And indeed, they are.)
The Israeli military claims that since the Islamist Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in mid-June, a thousand rockets and mortar shells have been fired at Israel, wounding dozens of people.
(The 'takeover' was a response to a failed Coup attempt by Israel and the United States, using corrupt elements within Fatah as proxies. The rockets are a response to increased Israeli aggression and the Collective Punishment of all who live in Gaza, the world's largest Concentration Camp. Israel's actions have resulted in hundreds of Palestinian deaths.)
Deputy Defence Minister Matan Vilnai said earlier Saturday that Israel planned to paralyse the infrastructure of the Gaza Strip in every possible way and separate itself completely from the Palestinian territory in the long term.
(That is a War Crime. What's really happening is that Israel is 'softening up' the strip for an invasion which has been planned since before the 'disengagement' that turned Gaza into a free-fire zone.)
"We want to separate ourselves from the Gaza Strip at the level of its infrastructure in every way possible," Vilnai told Israeli public radio.
Vilnai said the measures were not really because of the rocket firing "but really to achieve the separation of this territory, which was approved in principle two weeks ago by the Israeli government, and whose application had only been delayed for a simple legalistic check."
In September, the security cabinet decreed the Gaza Strip "a hostile entity." It has been controlled completely by Hamas since mid-June when the Islamist movement ousted security forces loyal to Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and the Fatah party.
(Remember, everything Hitler did was "legal" too ...)
"Long term we want to separate ourselves from this territory, 100 percent," said Vilnai, adding that at the moment Israel was providing all the fuel that the Gaza Strip needed, as well as two-thirds of its electricity supplies.
(If this was true, then the Israelis would undertake final peace talks with the Palestinians, and recognize the resultant Palestinian State, instead of refusing to Negotiate and Compromise in the name of peace.)
"Currently, more than 100 lorries loaded with food and basic necessities coming from Israel enter the Gaza Strip each day to avoid a humanitarian crisis, but we also have to find an alternative solution at this level," Vilnai said.
Since the Hamas 'takeover' the Israelis have imposed a tight vice around the Gaza Strip, closing crossing points and only allowing through essential products.
Palestinians and human rights groups charge that the noose around the Strip amounts to collective punishment of civilians, contrary to international law.
The Israeli military claims that since the 'Islamists' took control, a thousand rockets and mortar shells have been fired at Israel, wounding dozens of people.
(Why is this sentence repeated, especially after, within the same story, we already read "Vilnai said the measures were not really because of the rocket firing"? The 'takeover' was a response to a failed Coup attempt by Israel and the United States, using corrupt elements within Fatah as proxies. The rockets are a response to increased Israeli aggression and the Collective Punishment of all who live in Gaza, the world's largest Concentration Camp. Israel's actions have resulted in hundreds of Palestinian deaths.)
The sanctions, the first of their kind since the Palestinian intifada or uprising began in late September 2000, can now proceed without further authorisation from the Israeli government.
Since the uprising started, a total of 5,906 people -- the vast majority of them Palestinians -- have been killed in Israeli-Palestinian violence, according to an AFP count.
news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071027/wl_mideast_afp/mideastisraelgazasanctions
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