October 1, 2003:
Mohammed's younger brother
Issam was seriously injured
and was taken to the hospital
about a week ago. His leg
was amputated and he is
undergoing medical treatment.

October 18, 2003:
Mohammad's younger brother,
Hussam [17 yrs old], was killed
by the Israeli army today.

Hussam was sitting at home
when he was shot in the face,
chest, back, legs. He had
nothing to do with any violent
or even political movement.

Hussam's crime is that he was
a Palestinian.

— The Webmaster

Truce Under Fire
Despite a rough start and closed borders, the new
Palestinian leadership makes some hopeful moves

http://www.vermontguardian.com/global/0904/GazaTruce.shtml

Special to the Vermont Guardian
Posted February 8, 2005

GAZA — In late January, Israel’s government opened the Rafah terminal to outbound Palestinian travelers, although it still would not let those stranded on the Egyptian side of the border return to their homes in Gaza. The gesture, though far from reducing the stranglehold Israel maintains over critical deliveries, may be a sign of a slight thaw on the diplomatic front.

Since then, the Palestinian Authority’s new Pres. Mahmoud Abbas has visited Gaza for talks with leaders of all the militant factions, while deploying 3,000 PA police along the Gaza/Israel border to prevent militant rocket attacks on nearby Israeli towns.

As one PA operative explained to a journalist, “If we see militants, we will first talk calmly with them, but finally, we will prevent their attacking.” In fact, while Abbas was talking with the militant leaders, no Qassam rockets were fired, and daily reports of progress emerged from the closed-door talks.

Although Israel and the West, most notably the United States, have hailed Abbas’s Jan. 9 election as a new opportunity for peace, the new president hadn’t even been sworn in when Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon broke off contact and threatened an all-out invasion of the Gaza Strip. The provocation was a suicide bombing at the Karni cargo crossing between northern Gaza and Israel in which five Israeli soldiers were killed.

Three different militant groups claimed responsibility, and Sharon’s administration insisted that the Palestinian Authority was complicit in the attack. Twelve Palestinians died in the immediate Israeli retaliation.

In Al Zaitoon Camp, a section of Gaza City, more than 9 people died and 20 were injured in an incursion that began just hours after the Karni crossing attack. Over the next weekend, in Khan Younis camp, which has suffered massive shelling from a nearby Israeli settlement in retaliation for the militants’ Qassam rocket attacks, four civilians from the same family were hit: a mother and son were killed while inside their home, and the father and sister were injured. Elsewhere in Gaza, Nedal Abu Tuour was shot in the head by an Israeli soldier near the Kissufin crossing.

Further south in Rafah, a simple shopping trip to the weekly outdoor market turned dangerous. Umm Samier, 42, was in the open-air souk to get two kilos of tomatoes for her family, but she never brought them home. Israeli gunfire erupted, sending shoppers and farmers scattering for any shelter they could find.

The alleged provocation came from a group of Palestinian children who somehow got through enough of the no-man’s-land near the Gaza/Egypt border to plant two Palestinian flags on the Palestinian side of a 30-foot-high iron wall. When two of them approached the door of the Israeli army sniper tower, soldiers inside shot them dead, claiming they were militants. Palestinian witnesses said otherwise. Many others were injured, and the gunfire spilled into the Sunday market.

Random shelling throughout Rafah has been a nightly occurrence. It is dangerous to show a light or venture outside after dusk. There was little respite over the two-day holiday of Eid Al Adha. Not for the first time, Israel completely sealed every crossing into the Gaza Strip, halting even deliveries of food and medicine.

Border blockages

With the collapse of the Gazan economy during the four-year intifada, and the massive destruction of farmland, more and more people in Gaza have become dependent on imported food. Foreign journalists and humanitarian workers are, for now, unable to enter Gaza, despite growing shortages. Within Gaza, checkpoint closures kept families from making traditional Eid visits.

The situation has been most desperate in southern Gaza at Rafah Terminal Crossing, completely closed since Dec. 12. With rare exceptions, Palestinians may not travel through Israel, so this Gaza/Egypt border crossing is the only way most Palestinians can travel abroad. Would be travelers, many of them sick people trying to reach foreign countries for specialized treatment unavailable in Gaza, accumulated in Rafah.

With internal closures within Gaza extremely frequent, plus shooting incidents with the Israeli soldiers opening fire on people waiting to go through the checkpoints, many cannot return to their homes.

A woman holding her small child was distraught. “I am trying to travel abroad so my child can have surgery. My child is dying, my child will undoubtedly die without this surgery. Why don’t the Israelis look at this, at our children? We appeal to decent people everywhere — where are you? We are as human as you are! Can’t you see what’s happening to the children?”

The people waiting on the Rafah side were still better off than many of the estimated 7,000 Palestinians stranded in Egypt between Cairo and Gaza. Some have found accommodation in border towns; others who went through Egyptian exit procedures hoping the border would re-open quickly cannot re-enter Egypt and are enduring serious hardship. Many now have been stranded outdoors for weeks without food, sufficient toilets, or shelter from the winter. There are no showers, or even blankets for them.

By now, many have run out of money and are surviving on supplies brought in by the Egyptian Red Crescent. These privations take their worst toll on sick people trying to return home to Gaza after medical treatment, forced to camp out in conditions in which even healthy people become ill. Eyewitnesses have reported that to date, seven sick people have died on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing. Their families asked to repatriate their bodies for burial at home in keeping with Islamic and Palestinian traditions, but Israel refused.

On Jan. 24, a cease-fire was announced, “provided Israel ceased military operations.” The Sharon government agreed to halt its usual shelling, incursions, and targeted assassinations “provided things remain calm.”

This raises more caution than hope among most Gaza residents. Memories are still vivid of the seven-week hudna, or truce, in the summer of 2003, during which the militants refrained from resistance while the Israeli army continued its usual attacks. Eventually, the militants resumed retaliation for specific incidents and the hudna collapsed amid mutual accusations.

At the moment, it is difficult to assess how much faith the militant leaders have in Abbas’s chances of negotiating a viable agreement with Israel on critical matters like prisoner release and Sharon’s much-touted disengagement plan. Nonetheless, their de facto cease-fire is a clear indication that they want Palestine’s new president to have the best possible chance to accomplish a real improvement in daily life for the 1.3 million Palestinians in Gaza.

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