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Contents
- Current background
- Excerpts from the original call from the Department of Services to Palestinian Refugees, 29 June 2006
On June 30, 2006, we shared the urgent call of Department of Service for Palestinian Refugees (DSPR); it asked DSPR partners all over the world to press their governments to push for a diplomatic solution to resolve the episode of violence that threatened the life of a kidnapped Israeli soldier, countless civilians and Palestinian infrastructure.
The action describes a situation where the Palestinians in the Gaza are increasingly cut off from necessary resources of life and where any existing infrastructure is being devastated. Since the alarming developments of the last weeks, the situation in the Gaza Strip has become even more urgent.
We thank those who contacted their MP on this urgent situation, and ask everyone to consider taking a moment to phone or send a letter to their MPs and to Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay, informing him of your concerns related to the alarming developments in the Middle East. Please remind him that it is now more urgent than ever for the Canadian government to re-state Canada’s commitment to a negotiated settlement to the Israel-Palestinian conflict and the upholding and defending of international law.
Contact information: Email: MacKay.P Telephone: 613 992 6022. Mailing address: House of Commons, Ottawa, ON, K1A 0A6
Current background on Gaza
The Israeli army has continued to wage a full-scale offensive that is dramatically impacting the Palestinian people, especially in the Gaza Strip. Since the beginning of “Operation Summer Rains” on June 25, 2006, Israel has conducted 27 incursions into Palestinian areas in the West Bank, launched 124 air-to-surface missiles, and fired hundred of artillery shells at Palestinian civilian and military targets in the Gaza Strip. 115 people, mostly civilian, have been killed. At least 550 civilians, including 134 children and 19 women, have been wounded. 8 Palestinian Ministers and 26 members of the Palestinian Legislative Council have been arrested.
Gaza’s only electrical plant was destroyed. This has left 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza without electricity between 12-18 hours every day. Water utilities, dependent on electricity for pumping and treatment, have been reduced to 1/3 capacity, resulting in severe water shortages. This is a critical situation that has resulted in the uncontrolled discharge and flow of untreated sewage into the streets, causing groundwater pollution. 6 bridges linking Gaza City with the Central Gaza Strip have been destroyed. This has severely restricted humanitarian supply lines.
Restrictions on fuel supplies are causing an unprecedented crisis
in the health system as hospitals and Primary Health Care Centers
are running on backup generators that will soon run out of fuel.
Top
of pageExcerpts from the original call from the Department of Services to Palestinian Refugees |
(29 June 2006) |
According to UPI, the Israeli army’s operation "Summer Rains" kicked off early Wednesday morning, June 28, 2006, with air raids that targeted Gaza Strip’s infrastructure, including the main power plant in central Gaza, which supplies most of the region with electricity, and which was completely destroyed and set ablaze, plunging Gaza City and the strip's central and southern sectors into darkness. As a result water shortages are experienced across wide areas of the Gaza Strip. Israeli warplanes also fired rockets at two bridges, including the one that links Gaza City with the central and southern provinces, destroying them completely and inflicting extensive material damage to nearby properties.
In a phone conversation with our colleague Executive Director of DSPR Gaza, Mr. Constantine Dabbagh spoke of a situation that is becoming slowly but surely a hopeless one. Gaza’s streets are deserted and people are finding it difficult to go about performing their daily chores. This paralysis touches the lives of hundreds of Palestinians stranded on the Rafah Crossing with Egypt which was closed since the European monitors stationed there, as part of the disengagement plan mediated by no other than US Secretary of State, could not reach the area through an Israeli crossing. Mr. Dabbagh’s son-in-law, Munir, is an UNRWA maintenance engineer and he was in Egypt together with other UNRWA employees for work purposes. They cannot return to Gaza because of the closure of the Rafah Crossing. This is just one story but what is particularly worrisome relates to the conditions of scores of Palestinians stranded at the Crossing who need immediate medical attention and who are without any recourse. Some food provisions were given to the hundreds stranded by the Arab and Egyptian Medical Associations in Cairo but if the closing continues, it is likely that a major emergency situation could be at hand. There is also fear that with the closing of the Karni Commercial Crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip, supplies of food and energy will soon be depleted particularly flour, rice, gasoline and other essential commodities. For the Gaza Strip’s Palestinians, the only solace in the current situation, if this is really a solace, is that they have plenty of summer fruit produce as long as they can pick it and use it before it perishes. Commerce in the Gaza Strip stands at a standstill as hundreds of Palestinian merchants are prevented from leaving the area and as Palestinian fishermen are prohibited from sailing off the Mediterranean coast …
Clearly, the situation is heading towards complete destruction of what remained of the Palestinian infrastructure in the Gaza Strip. The call to a diplomatic solution to the episode of the kidnapped Israeli soldier was not heeded; even Mr. Mahmoud Abbas, Abu Mazen, the President of the Palestinian National Authority, cannot leave Gaza where he is trying ceaselessly until this moment to bring about a peaceful resolution to the episode. Israel’s military operation sent out the message that there is no longer interest in diplomatic efforts among Israeli leaders. The Israeli military moves that destroy basic electricity and water infrastructure, among other services, together with arrests of Palestinian government and parliamentarian figures are steps that cannot be accepted on legal or moral grounds.
Operation “Summer Rains” in a land where there is no summer rain brings to mind the wishful thinking of some in Israel that the military operation would bring a turnabout not only in seasons but also in the chances of freeing the kidnapped soldier. The military solutions are never lasting solutions and this is why there must be insistence by all on a negotiated settlement between Palestinians and Israelis to bring to an end the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands and to create a viable Palestinian state next door to Israel that would lead to closing the ceaseless cycle of violence that has plagued our two peoples for long. As the Israeli forces were encircling and raiding Gaza, Palestinian factions and political groups agreed on the formation of a national unity government as part of the subscription to the “Palestinian Prisoners’ Document” that calls among other things on the use of negotiation as a means to end the occupation and that implicitly recognizes Israel’s right to exist.
DSPR partners the world over are urged to press on their governments and various constituencies the dangerous situation in which the Gaza Strip and the whole Palestinian people find themselves today. The insistence on diplomatic means to resolve this episode is of vital interest to the children and people of Palestine. A diplomatic solution would spare not only the lives of the kidnapped soldier and of countless others but would preserve what is left of the Palestinian infrastructure...
The Department of Services to Palestinian Refugees
Middle East Council of Churches
June 29, 2006
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