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Compared to December 2005, less than 20 percent of the supplies needed for normal trade are allowed into Gaza by Israel, and foreign investment has fallen off by over 95 percent, leading both the World Bank and some Israeli human rights organizations to call for an end to the siege.
“This is not a natural disaster,” says John Ging, director of the U.N.Relief and Works Agency in Gaza. “It is a man-made disaster created by policies that are not humane.”
DIRECT ACTION
The people of Gaza aren’t waiting for the siege to end to deal with the crisis. In January, hundreds of thousands of Gazans poured into Egypt when Hamas demolished a border wall that Israel had erected in 2003. In February, the Popular Committee Against the Siege organized thousands of Gazans into a “human chain” that stretched along the entire length of the Gaza Strip.
“My phone was ringing off the hook all day because they [the Israelis] thought we were going to storm the border,” says Sameh Habeeb, one of the event organizers. “Israel couldn’t believe that thousands of Arabs could peacefully protest. When there’s armed resistance Israel can send their rockets and F-16s, but they don’t know how to respond to civil resistance. Nonviolence makes the Israelis crazy.”
(Israel's past violent repression of Non-Violent Resistance demonstrates their fear of this tactic, which is designed to shame the oppressor, as opposed to provoking it to react with greater brutality and violence. - JT)
The greatest act of nonviolent resistance in Gaza has been simply surviving. Some families have taken to catching and raising wild rabbits and birds to supplement their diet. A network of perilous tunnels that cross into Egypt has claimed several lives, but has also helped to relieve shortages with smuggled goods. In recent weeks, an underground pipeline
for gasoline has substantially eased the fuel crisis. Automobile conversion kits, allowing cars to run off cooking gas, sell for about $300. Shortages in propane have led families to revert to wood-burning stoves for cooking and, with the scarcity of concrete, Gazans have returned to using earthen bricks for construction.
The collapse of Gaza’s economy is an example of imperialism at its most extreme: prevent raw materials from entering the economy, weaken and tear down native industries through military violence and blockade, allow access only to finished products imported from the outside (in this case, Israeli products) and force the local population and its uncooperative government to expend and exhaust whatever resources and reserves they had managed to set aside. When the Gaza blockade is finally lifted, people here will be hard pressed to recover, even with increased humanitarian
assistance.
(Israel has also begun routinely entering Gaza, and destroying farms and agricultural facilities, like Gaza's poultry operations. Such events often precede the rocket attacks we hear about, but the media rarely reports on them, removing any sense of context from the public. - JT)
PNGO Director Amjad Shawa points out that the blockade is part and parcel of the ongoing Israeli occupation. “Gaza is still occupied, legally and physically,” says Shawa, “and the siege is simply one part of this aggression. We don’t need more aid. What we need is an end to the occupation.”
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Ramzi Kysia is an Arab-American writer and activist, and one of the
organizers of the Free Gaza Movement. To find out more, visit
www.FreeGaza.org.
“This is not a natural disaster,” says John Ging, director of the U.N.Relief and Works Agency in Gaza. “It is a man-made disaster created by policies that are not humane.”
DIRECT ACTION
The people of Gaza aren’t waiting for the siege to end to deal with the crisis. In January, hundreds of thousands of Gazans poured into Egypt when Hamas demolished a border wall that Israel had erected in 2003. In February, the Popular Committee Against the Siege organized thousands of Gazans into a “human chain” that stretched along the entire length of the Gaza Strip.
“My phone was ringing off the hook all day because they [the Israelis] thought we were going to storm the border,” says Sameh Habeeb, one of the event organizers. “Israel couldn’t believe that thousands of Arabs could peacefully protest. When there’s armed resistance Israel can send their rockets and F-16s, but they don’t know how to respond to civil resistance. Nonviolence makes the Israelis crazy.”
(Israel's past violent repression of Non-Violent Resistance demonstrates their fear of this tactic, which is designed to shame the oppressor, as opposed to provoking it to react with greater brutality and violence. - JT)
The greatest act of nonviolent resistance in Gaza has been simply surviving. Some families have taken to catching and raising wild rabbits and birds to supplement their diet. A network of perilous tunnels that cross into Egypt has claimed several lives, but has also helped to relieve shortages with smuggled goods. In recent weeks, an underground pipeline
for gasoline has substantially eased the fuel crisis. Automobile conversion kits, allowing cars to run off cooking gas, sell for about $300. Shortages in propane have led families to revert to wood-burning stoves for cooking and, with the scarcity of concrete, Gazans have returned to using earthen bricks for construction.
The collapse of Gaza’s economy is an example of imperialism at its most extreme: prevent raw materials from entering the economy, weaken and tear down native industries through military violence and blockade, allow access only to finished products imported from the outside (in this case, Israeli products) and force the local population and its uncooperative government to expend and exhaust whatever resources and reserves they had managed to set aside. When the Gaza blockade is finally lifted, people here will be hard pressed to recover, even with increased humanitarian
assistance.
(Israel has also begun routinely entering Gaza, and destroying farms and agricultural facilities, like Gaza's poultry operations. Such events often precede the rocket attacks we hear about, but the media rarely reports on them, removing any sense of context from the public. - JT)
PNGO Director Amjad Shawa points out that the blockade is part and parcel of the ongoing Israeli occupation. “Gaza is still occupied, legally and physically,” says Shawa, “and the siege is simply one part of this aggression. We don’t need more aid. What we need is an end to the occupation.”
-----
Ramzi Kysia is an Arab-American writer and activist, and one of the
organizers of the Free Gaza Movement. To find out more, visit
www.FreeGaza.org.
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