Four-Year-Old Gaza Girl Dies as a Result of Power Outage

By Richard Edmondson

One of the most deceitful and dishonest claims you almost always hear made by Israeli hasbarists is that Israel “withdrew” from Gaza in 2005. Yes, to be sure, Israel dismantled illegal settlements in August that year, but then in January 2006, after Hamas emerged the winner in democratically-held elections, sanctions were imposed on the territory followed by a full-scale blockade the following year. This blockade has continued ever since, creating economic hardships as well as shortages of medicines, building supplies, and other necessities. Thus the claim by Israel that it has “withdrawn” from Gaza—while at the same time it still controls land, sea, and air access to the territory, restricting the flow of goods—is misleading at best, and at worst an outright lie bordering upon perfidy. This is made all the more egregious by the fact that people have died because of this blockade. The justification, of course, as always, is the firing of rockets. But if my own town were under an embargo of this sort, and tragedies were occurring around me such as the one befallen the four-year-old girl mentioned in the article below, I dare say I might be tempted to fire a rocket or two myself.

I am not in any manner excusing the complicity of the Egyptian government in all this—a complicity which has continued even into the post-Mubarak era. And oh yes, by the way—ever since the fall of Mubarak we keep hearing these stories about how Cairo plans to relieve the situation by opening the Rafah border, oh “any time now,” but somehow it never happens other than on a sporadic and temporary basis. Thus I’m not sure what conclusion you can draw other than that the present leaders of Egypt are just as responsible for this girl’s death as those of Israel. And then of course there is the infant also mentioned in the story. Two deaths—and both could have been so easily avoided had those in authority exercised a little humanity.

Four-year-old girl perishes in Gaza power outage

From Press TV

Officials in the Gaza Strip have announced that a four-year-old girl has died due to power outage in a hospital in the besieged coastal area, Press TV reports.

The Ministry of Health in Gaza said on Monday that the four-year-old child died as a result of failure in hospital back-up generators, a Press TV correspondent reported.

On Friday, an infant also died in the coastal enclave after the generator powering his respirator ran out of fuel.

The Israeli blockade of Gaza has inflicted many sufferings, including fuel shortages on Palestinians.

Gaza has been relying on fuel imported from Egypt, but Cairo has recently cut off the supplies, causing 18-hour-a-day power cuts. Prolonged power outages caused by shortage of fuel continue to take their toll on hospital patients in the Gaza Strip.

Last week, thousands of people staged a protest in the Gaza Strip and called on Egypt to resume the flow of fuel to the besieged territory.

And of course on top of the humanitarian situation in Gaza, comes news that Israel is halting all cooperation with the United Nations Human Rights Council following its decision to launch a fact-finding mission into Israel’s settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem:

Israel’s Foreign Ministry slammed the UNHCR for anti-Israeli bias, further isolating itself from the international community by moving to completely shun the inter-governmental body.

“We’re stopping all and any cooperation with the council,” a senior Foreign Ministry official said Monday, The Times of Israel reports.

“From now on, we will no longer work together in any way, shape or form with any officials from the council, including the High Commissioner,” he continued. “If anyone from the council calls us, we just won’t answer the phone."

Following the announcement of the fact finding mission, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said “the council should be ashamed of itself,” calling it a “hypocritical council with an automatic majority against Israel,” the Haaretz daily cites him as saying.

Last Thursday, the UNHCR voted to send a probe to “investigate the implications of the Israeli settlements on the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem."

The council also called on Israel “to cooperate fully with the mission."

The 47-member body adopted the draft resolution with 36 votes in favor and 10 abstentions. The United States was the only country to vote against it. (read more )

Interestingly, while other nations around the world are making commendable steps toward renewable energy, Israel seems to be going in the opposite direction, threatening to bulldoze a cluster of solar panels being used by a Bedouin community in south Hebron. Here’s the latest report on that from RT:

Funny how Israel’s refusal to cooperate with the UNHCR seems to be tying into other issues as well—the solar panels—funded by Germany—being one example, and the Dolphin-class submarines—also supplied by Germany—being another:

A few days ago, Israel and Germany signed an agreement for the supply of a sixth Dolphin submarine to Israel. Last November, Germany had conditioned the agreement on Israel’s unfreezing moneys of the Palestinian Authority. While the ink on the new agreement is still drying, Israel has announced yesterday, March 25, a planned re-freezing of Palestinian budget. The offensive move was strengthened by a decision to ban the Human Rights Council of the UN. “Ignore all phone calls from Rights Council Commissioner,” said Israel’s Foreign Affairs Minister to the Israeli envoy in Geneva.

Germany didn’t react yet to this rude Israeli move. Moreover, it is unlike to react directly because Israel is justifying it on the decision of the UN Human Rights Council to establish the International Investigative Committee on the West Bank Settlements. Israel decided to punish both—Palestinian Authority and UN Human Rights Council—for this decision, though no final pronouncement on the retribution has been made. Israel’s Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz, Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya'alon and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman—3 out of the 8 ministers forming Israel’s Government Cabinet— have already announced they support the freezing of Palestinian moneys. “We are dealing with Al-Qaida terror on the one hand and diplomatic terror by Abu Mazen on the other,” were Lieberman’s disgraceful words on the issue. ( read more )

The submarines of course will give Israel a nuclear strike capacity at virtually any nation on earth—enabling it to launch nuclear warheads “from hidden locations at sea even if its nuclear weapons stored on land are harmed in an enemy strike.”

Why is it this “shitty little country,” as a French diplomat once famously put it, is allowed to get away with things like this? Who will be able to stop it?

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian  

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