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JABALYA, Gaza, Jan 21 (Reuters) - Ready to act fast to save his life, Maher Al-Assali’s young siblings stand at his bedside, poised to pump air through a hole in the 12-year-old’s neck when the ventilator that keeps him alive cuts out.

Since being paralysed in a car accident seven years ago, Assali has depended on a mechanical ventilator to supply his lungs with oxygen. During the electricity blackouts that have plagued the impoverished territory for months, his family used to hook the machine up to a generator at a nearby clinic.

But Israel has cut fuel supplies to Hamas-run Gaza as part of sanctions it says are meant to stop militants firing rockets across the border. The clinic generator has shut down. So now, when the power grid fails, Assali’s family keep him alive with a rubber hand pump. (more…)

Tightened Siege on Gaza Reaches Unprecedented Levels and Endangers the Lives of 1.5 Million Civilians
 
Israel has imposed a severe siege on the Gaza Strip since Hamas’ winning of the parliamentary elections in January, 2006. Furthermore, Israel has tightened this siege following Hamas military domination over the Gaza Strip in June, 2007 when Israel declared that the Gaza Strip is an enemy entity.
 
Two weeks ago, Israel has tightened the siege and embargo imposed on the Gaza Strip reaching unprecedented levels. This action included various sanctions such as: cut-off fuel and electricity provisions to Gaza as well as all other energy resources. Israel has also imposed strict closure on all Gaza Strip border crossings, preventing movement of civilians including patients’ for medical services. Such procedures led to entire shut-down of the sole energy producing station in the Gaza Strip, two days ago. As a consequence, Gaza is drowning in darkness whereas electricity from all homes, industrial, and health facilities in the Gaza Strip was cut-off entirely. (more…)

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition. (more…)

Of all the possible methods of dealing with Hamas, Israel’s slow and calculated suffocation of Gaza is perhaps the most sickening. Ostensibly aimed at weakening the Islamist government’s power in Gaza, the current fuel cuts constitute a bold-faced form of collective punishment—a way of destroying Gaza without having to pull a trigger.

Gaza’s fuel supplies come entirely from Israel… Naturally, Israel does not allow Gaza to seek such supplies elsewhere, which is why the recent pontificatons from Israeli politicians about ’supplying energy to the enemy’ are so disingenuous. Nevertheless, the closure of Gaza’s borders has blocked vital fuel supplies and has pushed Gaza’s only power-plant to the brink of closure, threatening the functionality of everything from the (already) limited medical capabilities, to the distribution of food by aid-workers. (more…)

Mariam Rahal, a 53-year-old grandmother and her two sons, were in the wrong place at the wrong time as they drove their donkey cart of oranges home through a mainly residential district of Beit Lahiya. Mrs Rahal was buried yesterday with one of the sons, Mohammed, 23. The pair were innocent victims of a four-day conflict between Israel and Palestinian militants that last night seemed far from over. They were killed when their cart was destroyed by a missile which targeted the car of a rocket-launching crew on Thursday evening.

At the mourning tent for mother and son, as another son, Mansour, 16, lay critically ill in Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital, a third brother, Amar, 33, explained: “They had gone to see another of my brothers who has just had a baby and on their way back they stopped to buy some oranges to sell.” (more…)

I am always interested to read the Gaza security briefings I receive daily. Today I read that the Erez checkpoint has been closed until at least January 21 for all but the most exceptional cases (and we all know that even then, it’s incredibly hard to get in or out of Gaza). Apparently the order came directly from Ehud Barak himself. But why should Erez be sealed? Certainly it is not off limits to the Israeli military; their unhinged presence in Gaza has become increasingly persistent and bloody.

In the wake of the horrific attacks now being prosecuted on a daily basis, it seems Israel is upping the ante further. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone familiar with modern history. After all, this is a tried and true method of avoiding peace and has almost become an Israeli tradition. The answer to peace talks? Bomb Gaza! (more…)

It is supposed that one can build factual perception by reading the statistics and getting all the hard evidence, but I recently realized that a complete cognitive process relies first and foremost on visuals — seeing the picture for oneself.

I joined a camera crew and producer shooting footage for a first-person interview on the Israeli siege on Gaza. The interviewee was Dr. Eyad El-Sarraj, head of the Palestinian International Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza, a coalition of organizations and individuals set out to do just that. We met with Dr. Sarraj at his office and booked him for the day. Based on his humanitarian activism with the campaign, Dr. Sarraj would determine which areas were most pressing in terms of the crisis in Gaza, and therefore deserved priority over other aspects during the short interview. Dr. Sarraj confirmed what the producer and the rest of the crew had already mentioned — when it came to crisis in Gaza, the health sector and the economic sector were at the top of the list. It was decided we would visit a couple of hospitals and a factory to shoot the right footage. This is where the cameraman started taping and didn’t stop till the end of the day. (more…)

You will be pleased to know that Ilektra and I arrived back in Denmark a few days ago and I have been eagerly trying to organize myself before posting. It would be impossible for me to fully condense my thoughts so soon after having returned from Gaza, so I won’t do it now. I have posted some pictures on Flickr from my post-research trip around Israel and Palestine; take a look if you are interested. During our brief time in Jerusalem, we stayed with fellow blogger Steve Amsel (the man behind Desert Peace) and had a fantastic time at his place. Steve treated us like family and I was very happy to have met him in person.

It has been nearly a month since I last posted and, as I say, it will take me some time to gather my thoughts. For now, I will not mention the many conflicting emotions running through my mind regarding my departure from Gaza, but I will say one thing: My impression of the situation has remained largely unchanged, though the occupation has become vastly more tangible to me and thus, more outraging and more depressing. My personal relationships with the amazing people of Gaza have connected me intimately with the occupation and I find myself vastly more concerned when I read the news of near-daily Israeli incursions in Gaza. Who knows when someone I know may be killed or seriously injured? More than before, I believe the Israeli occupation and colonization of Palestinian land to be one of the great injustices of our time.

From tomorrow, harmonicminor.com will be back again as usual. I am accepting suggestions for posts and guest posts and I would also like to encourage members of the harmonicminor.com staff to continue their contributions to the content. This is all part of the new format I began last September and I hope to continue with it.

Thanks to everyone for their patience.

Tags: Gaza, Flickr, Desert Peace, Denmark, Travel, Palestinian Centre For Human Rights, Kris Petersen, Internship, Human Rights, Israel, Palestine