How Israel Continues its Military Occupation of Gaza

General overview…

Israel’s occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) continues to exact a heavy toll on the development and fundamental freedoms of the Palestinian people. In the Gaza Strip, the situation is more dismal than ever. Israel’s continued aggression, closure policies, withholding of funds, and abductions of government officials have all left an enormous impact on the human rights situation, especially economic, social and cultural (ESC) rights in the OPT.

We are seeing unemployment and poverty rates that are gravely high, at 78% and 40% respectively, according to UN OCHA. On top of this, the people of Gaza live imprisoned within their tiny territory and in a perpetual state of insecurity: insecurity fuelled by both a state of lawlessness that governs the territories, and from the fear of arbitrary deprivation of life and livelihood from continued Israeli aggression in the Strip.

Yet this situation has not been caused by a natural disaster nor is it inevitable. Instead, it is human made, largely the direct result of Israel’s continuous occupation of Gaza, and will continue until the myth that Israel has ended its control of Gaza is finally expunged.

Gaza is under an Israeli Siege…

Gaza is under an Israeli siege. The Gaza Strip is totally closed off and blockaded by the Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF). The Strip is surrounded by an electric fence. The only entrances and exits to the strip are military checkpoints dependant on the whim of the occupying forces.

The three commercial checkpoints into Gaza have been largely closed ever since ‘disengagement’, and have been open for only a few days in the last three months.

Rafah Crossing, on the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, is Gaza’s main and often only point of passenger access to the rest of the world, yet it has also been largely closed.

Although the IOF ostensibly pulled out of Rafah Crossing in October 2005, following the conclusion of an agreement locating EU observers in the Crossing, it continues to remain under effective Israeli control. Israel controls the EU observers’ access to the crossing, which Israel often closes on ‘security grounds’. Indeed, the monitors have found their mandated task so impossible to complete that they have recently threatened to pull out altogether.

The closure of Rafah Crossing has devastated Gaza’s economy and led to thousands of Palestinians being trapped in Gaza unable to reach their work, their universities or medical treatment abroad. It has also led to thousands of Gaza residents being stuck on the Egyptian side of the crossing, unable to reach their homes, living in squalid conditions waiting on rumours for the crossing to open. Indeed, during the months of July and August 2006, 5 people died at the crossing.

Not only are Gazans prevented from accessing the rest of the world, but Israel continues to maintain complete control of movement of people and goods between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. An Israeli military order has classified the entire West Bank as a “closed military zone,” within which entry and exit requires a permit issued by the IOF. All Gazans that are found crossing or living in the West Bank without these permits (which are rarely issued) are deported back to the Strip. This includes even those Gazans that have lived in the West Bank for years, and/or established families there. Indeed, most Gazans have not been able to visit the West Bank in years. This is devastating for Palestinians, as it severs the dependency of the two regions in key areas such as public administration, health services and trade, as well as dividing many families.

Israel also continues to maintain complete control over the air and sea surrounding the Gaza Strip. Control of the air space provides Israel with the ability to effectively and easily constrict movement, constrain actions on the ground, and to interfere with radio and television broadcasts. Control of the coastal area and territorial waters enables Israel, among other things, to restrict the activity of Palestinian fishermen. The price of fish has increased dramatically making it unaffordable to most Gazan families, and several fishermen have recently been killed by the IOF.

Israel is imposing collective punishment on the whole population of Gaza…

Israel continues punish the entire civilian population of Gaza for actions that they are not responsible for.

The closure of the vital Rafah Crossing, for example, is an example of collective punishment, and cannot be justified by any specific security concerns. Indeed, in the minutes of a meeting held in the Israeli Ministry of Defense relating to the Gaza crossing (published in the Israeli newspaper Ha‘aretz), the IOF’s planning division argued the crossing “should be opened on occasion only after the kidnapped soldier [Shalit] is released and the shooting from the Gaza Strip stops. (To use the crossing as a means of applying pressure)”. The General Security Service opposed the opening of the crossing even for a few hours, “(so long as the matter of the abducted soldier remains unchanged. Pressure on this matter must remain in place at this stage).”

Israel’s blatant disregard for international law – which prohibits collective punishment – is most clearly seen in IOF action in Israel’s most recent major offensive against Gaza. At the end of June of this year (2006), Israel mounted a massive ground and air invasion of the Gaza Strip, physically reoccupying parts of it. Since then, the IOF has maintained its ubiquitous presence and even tighter control in much of the Gaza Strip in its operation “Summer Rains” (we have since also seen other operations, such as operation “Rain Man”). Israel has used highly sophisticated weapons in recent attacks on the Gaza Strip. These include F-16 fighter jets, Apache helicopter gun ships, Mercava tanks and heavy artillery units. These weapons are known for being capable of attaining high degrees of target precision and of causing mass destruction. Nevertheless, most of these attacks have hit civilian objects.

Air strikes have destroyed ministerial buildings, the Islamic University in Gaza, seven bridges (three of which are vital to connect the Northern and Southern parts of the strip), and Gaza’s only power station. These actions have had dire effects on the humanitarian situation in the Strip. It is estimated that it will take many months until the power station may be repaired, and currently the population of the Gaza Strip lives without a consistent electricity supply. Moreover, over 100 homes have been destroyed in the last three months, mainly in the districts of northern Gaza and Rafah, and several thousand people have been evacuated from their homes. In Al Shouka village, 190 families have been living in precarious conditions in an UNRWA school in Rafah.

It is also worth noting that during July and August (2006), Israeli fighter jets repeatedly, routinely and deliberately broke the sound barrier, causing an average of 25 sonic booms daily over all districts of the Gaza Strip. The sonic booms, which sound like close-by explosions, are shown to have extremely severe psychological effects on the population. The numerous effects include post-traumatic stress disorder, nervousness and exhaustion, all of which disproportionately effect children. Physical damage to property also occurs, as sonic booms have shattered thousands of windows. That sonic booms are intended solely to punish the whole population has also been made clear. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has recently stated that “[because] thousands of residents in southern Israel live in fear and discomfort, I gave instructions that nobody will sleep at night in the meantime in Gaza”.

Collective punishment, among other things, constitutes a severe breach of the principle of distinction, one of the fundamental pillars of international humanitarian law (the law of war). This principal states that a distinction must be made at all times between civilians and combatants, and at no time should a civilian object or person be punished or targeted for any reason, including in order to pressure combatants.

The Israeli Occupying Forces continue to kill Gazan civilians…

The killing and injuring of the civilian population of Gaza has not ceased since Israel ‘disengaged’ from Gaza. Instead the IOF have continued to attack Gaza, both from the air and from the ground.

Although Israel launched the violent attacks of operation “summer rain” under the pretext of a defensive invasion to return the kidnapped Israeli soldier, the IOF had in fact been conducting operations in Gaza for the last year, killing and abducting the Palestinian population, long before the soldier was kidnapped. For example:

• On the 20th of May 2006, Al Mezan fieldworkers reported that Israeli jet fighters fired one missile on a car in the Tel Al Hawa neighbourhood of Gaza City, killing the 28 year-old driver. Two women and a four year-old child in a passing taxi were also killed.
• On June the 9th, the IOF bombed a car in Tel Zaatar neighbourhood in north-east Jabalia camp killing three. It was reported that the car was returning from taking an injured person to hospital following the IOF shelling of Beit Hanoun earlier that afternoon.
• Also on this day, three IOF missiles killed 5 children and their parents, injuring 31 others, including 14 children at Beit Lahia beach. While an IOF military investigation acquitted the IOF of any blame in this incident, independent reports by Al Mezan, Human Rights Watch and the media have indicted IOF culpability in the attack.
  Since the commencement of operation “summer rain”, the IOF have increased their attacks on the Gazan population, disproportionately killing civilian women and children. For example:
• On the 8th of July, the IOF dropped a missile on the house of the Hajj family in the Shajaiya neighbourhood in eastern Gaza City, killing a mother and her two children; 5 others from the same family were also injured. Although the IOF denied responsibility, Al Mezan’s fieldworker and an UNRWA fieldworker happened to be in the neighbourhood at the time and witnessed the shelling.
• On the 12th of July, Israeli fighter jets fired two heavy rockets at the two-story house of Dr. Nabil Abd Al Latif Abu Selmiya, totally destroying the house and killing Dr. Abu Selmiya and 8 members of his family.

Since the commencement of operation Summer Rains, more than 300 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces, including over 65 children. The majority of the killings since ‘disengagement’ occurred when the IOF fired into crowds of people, busy streets, or upon civilian houses.

Israel has created an economic disaster in the Gaza Strip…

According to the World Bank, Palestinians are currently experiencing the worst economic depression in modern history. While Israel tries to deny any responsibility for this situation and present itself as blameless, this is simply not the case. Israel’s policies over the last four decades, and the last few years and months in particular, have been a direct cause of much of Gaza’s economic devastation.

Israel’s new policy to replace Palestinian labour within Israel to labourers brought in from overseas has led to mass unemployment. In the recent past, tens of thousands of Gazans worked in Israel in construction, as agricultural workers, and as family help. While Israel is, of course, not obliged to employ Palestinian workers per se, Israel is responsible for this mass unemployment as Israel has specifically endeavoured, since 1967, to orient the Palestinian economy towards a highly dependant service economy providing Israel with cheap goods and a convenient pool of labour. Over the last 35 years Israel has consistently undermined Palestine’s self-sufficiency. Gaza’s economic suffering is not a recent phenomenon, nor can it be redressed simply by the removal of settlements from the Strip.

Yet instead of working to buffer the effects of this turn-around, Israeli governmental and armed forces have only further worsened it. The closure of Karni commercial crossing into Gaza has had a disastrous effect on the Gazan economy, preventing Gazans from exporting their goods, causing an estimated daily loss of $500,000-$600,000. Gazans have routinely seen their goods destined for export simply wait at closed crossing points, as they have been forced to pay for its storage and watch their food rot. Recently, only a very small proportion (17 per cent) of all Gaza’s produce has been exported, the rest swamps the local market (while other vital items remain in short supply).

The shelling of Gaza’s infrastructure – the demolition of homes (over 5000 homes since the year 2000), schools, roads, factories, workshops and mosques, the uprooting of trees and destruction of agricultural land - has also been a major contributing factor to the shattering of the Palestinian economy. In the four years between 2000 and 2004, for example, the economy of the Gaza Strip and West Bank suffered over US $3.5 billion worth of physical damage at the hand of the Israeli army (World Bank estimate). The estimated cost of the damage to the physical infrastructure in just the first two months of Summer Rains is around US$ 46 million (UNDP estimate). Over half of this estimated damage is found within the agricultural sector.

The imposition of international sanctions has had a devastating impact on an already severely damaged economy given its extreme dependence on external sources of finance. The Palestinian National Authority (PNA) is highly dependent on two sources of income. The first is annual aid package from Western donors of about $1 billion per year, most of which is now suspended. The second is a monthly transfer by Israel of $55 million in customs and tax revenues that it collects for the PNA, a source of revenue that is absolutely critical to the Palestinian budget and totally suspended. In fact, Israel is now withholding close to half a billion dollars in Palestinian revenue that is desperately needed in Gaza. Without it, the PNA's ability to carry out basic functions of government such as paying salaries and providing humanitarian assistance are greatly impaired. For example, over 160,000 Palestinians have not received any but a token part of their salary for the last 8 months. This includes not only civil servants, but many other professions, from garbage collectors to teachers and doctors. As each person is not paid, a whole family suffers.

This money is not charity and is thus been directly stolen from the Palestinian people at a time when they need it most.

And a humanitarian crisis …

Israel’s policy of closure and destruction of civilian infrastructure (particularly the electricity plant) not only affects Gaza’s economy, but has also created a humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.

The restrictions on the humanitarian supply lines have delayed or prevented thousands of containers of food through the Karni Crossing. Food, fuel, medical supplies and equipment are all badly needed but are not being allowed through the crossing points. Hospitals and municipal services are suffering severely from the disruption of supplies. Fuel, for example, is a key requirement to power the generators that provide backup for the power cuts that are so prevalent since Israel destroyed the power stations. Hospital equipment, as well as vital services such as sewage systems, hygiene maintenance and water supplies are all now largely dependant on fuel which is in seriously short supply. Each of these is close to collapse; something which would prove disastrous in the most heavily densely populated place on earth.

While international donor support is vital to the residents of Gaza, in many cases too little of the set-aside funds and goods reach Gaza (aid agencies are also finding many of their supplies stuck at crossing points for long periods of time). In addition, international aid has, in many cases, served to worsen the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip as donor policies have undermined the Palestinian health system. While in previous years donor aid has provided support that amounted to 50 percent of the Ministry of Health's budget, with the formation of the new government, the major donors turned off their support without any notice. They gave the Palestinian Authority no prior opportunity to put in place alternative funding mechanisms, undermining their ability to treat the most vulnerable sections of society. According to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, these policies are thus "actually causing poverty and suffering" (see report 1).

By mid-June 2006, the World Health Organisation (WHO) had already described the health situation in Gaza as "very dangerous". Reported cases of disease have increased significantly; diarrhoea, for instance, has increased by 163% compared to the same period last year. The most recent crisis in the Gaza Strip brought on by the Israeli occupation, since June 25th, has only further hindered the capacities of the Palestinian health related facilities and brought them to near collapse (see Al Mezan’s report 2).

Al Mezan believes that Israel and the international community have imposed humanitarian, rather than economic, sanctions against the PNA.3 The sanctions effective target was not trade nor development assistance, but very essential humanitarian assistance. Moreover, when a complete closure of the Strip is seen is this light – closure to supplies and funds as well as movement – it becomes clear that the Israeli government and occupation forces are trying to create an economic and humanitarian disaster in Gaza.

Israel is acting to paralyse the Palestinian government…
The results of the January 2006 elections of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) saw the political emergence of Islamic opposition movement, Hamas. According to the electoral monitoring campaign by Al Mezan, and other local and international monitoring bodies, the elections were free and democratic. They also reflected an important change in the Palestinian political perspectives. However, Israel has sought to undermine the democratically elected government.

On the 28th of June, Israeli forces raided Palestinian territory and arrested 64 Hamas officials, including 8 cabinet officials. The majority of these men (including 6 cabinet ministers) remain in Israeli military prisons, under administrative detention. With these actions, the Israeli government and armed forces have totally corroded the ability of the government to function, and have breached the vital Palestinian right to determine who governs them.

Unfortunately the indirect results of these elections have also been dire for human rights in the Occupied Territories as it ushered in a period of increased infighting within Gaza and the West Bank. In order to maintain an element of authority, the former ruling political party, Fatah, responded by participating in clashes with members of Hamas. By arresting so many government officials, by halting the tax revenues, and by encouraging the international community to halt aid flows, Israel has fanned the flames of this fire. As such a large section of the population has not received its pay, civil unrest has increased dramatically. The government is unable, in this context, to restore law and order: it cannot pay the salaries (for which it is blamed) and cannot gain the acceptance of the PNA security forces (which largely remain loyal to the opposition). Moreover, the fragmentation of the Palestinian Territories by Israel, added to the hardships faced by the Palestinian population, has also contributed to make the reality of unrest so possible.

Conclusion…

While Israel continues to demand that the Hamas government recognise Israel as a condition for the release of funds and the loosening of its suffocation of the Occupied Territories (and Gaza Strip in particular), it is worth noting that at no point has Israel ever recognised Palestine nor renounced its own right to violence. Instead, Israel continues to control almost every facet of Gazan life, and is responsible for mass human rights violations and war crimes in the Gaza Strip. Operation Summer Rains has only increased these atrocities.

Moreover, there have been no Palestinian suicide bombers from Gaza since the start of the second intifada (2000), and the Qassam rockets which Israel claims to be defending itself from have killed (in relative terms) few Israelis (9 Israeli civilians were killed in the last six years), and caused only minor damage. However, in response, Israel has killed hundreds of Palestinian civilians, devastated the Gaza strip, and made the lives of 1.4 million Gazans a constant struggle.

Yet despite Israel's extensive control over the Gaza Strip, the Israeli government has stated that the implementation of the unilateral disengagement plan would "invalidate the claims against Israel regarding its responsibility for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip." Since then, the State Attorney's Office has argued that, with the termination of the military government in the Gaza Strip, Israel has no obligation whatsoever under international law toward residents of Gaza, who should now direct all their claims and requests to the Palestinian Authority.

However, the laws of occupation apply if a state has "effective control" over the territory in question; that is, a certain area may be deemed occupied even if the army does not have a fixed presence throughout the whole area, as long as it is controlled in vital ways by an outside force. And on top of this, there has indeed been a sustained and continuous Israeli military presence in the Strip – there is little basis on which to hope that Israel’s military presence in Gaza will end in the near future.

In view of these facts, Al Mezan, and other human rights organisations, assert that the Israeli government’s denials of continued occupation and responsibility are groundless. The broad scope of Israeli control in the Gaza Strip – the continued incursions, the control of the territory from the crossing points, the destruction of the economy and the abduction of civilians and government officials – all provide numerous examples of the ways in which Israel continues to exercise effective control, to occupy, and to be directly responsible for the spiralling of human rights violations within the Gaza Strip.

The occupation is a criminal structure and must be dismantled. We maintain that an immediate and definitive end to the occupation is indispensable to a just solution based on international law, human rights, and dignity for the Palestinians and all other concerned people.