I may update this page as I become aware of more summaries of key issues involving Israel's military restraints as well as provision of services to Gaza.
As noted elsewhere, I trust the Israeli government implicitly as regards its release of information, and with rare exception, may accept the main body of straight (no op-ed or "analysis) Israeli or Jewish reportage at face value. If the Israeli Defense Ministry, for example, claims it sent N tons of cement to Gaza, I'm disinclined to question the claim. If it turns out such shipments are monitored from delivery to application on site--i.e., for repairs to a hospital damanged in the 2009 winter war in Gaza--then all to the good, for who and what behaviors would be to blame for the mobilation of Israeli air power or Palestinian use of civilian personnel and municipal sites for war operations?
If it has been quiet, so far, this year, there's probably a good reason for it. Whatever reason you may have in mind, be sure not to miss the information, even reduced to data, in these few references.Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs. "Behind the Headlines: the Israeli humanitarian lifeline to Gaza." May 25, 2010: http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/About+the+Ministry/Behind+the+Headlines/Israeli_humanitarian_lifeline_Gaza_25-May-2010.htm
Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Flickr Photostream (includes IDF images of weapons found aboard the Mavi Marmara): http://www.flickr.com/photos/israel-mfa/
Israel Ministry of Defense. "Gaza Strip Merchandise and Humanitarian Aid: Detailed Crossing Activity - In the Year 2009: http://www.scribd.com/doc/32598706/Gaza-Strip-Merchandise-and-Humanitarian-Aid-2009-2010
Israel Ministry of Defense. "Gaza Strip Merchandise and Humanitarian Aid Report: May 30 to June 5, 2010: http://www.scribd.com/doc/32650677/Gaza-Strip-Merchandise-and-Humanitarian-Aid-May-30th-June-5th-2010
Julian, Hana Levi. "Israel's Aid to Gaza: 'No PA Arab Denied Medical Care." Arutz Sheva - Israel National News, May 26, 2010: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/news.aspx/137709
Gaza Lifestyle - Photography by Abed Rahim Khatib
I've posted three positive and one negative (more by title than anything seen) photo story by the busy photojournalist Abed Rahim Khatib. Make of them what you will--Gaza and its residents may look better in pictures than in the verbal propaganda, which would have the whole lot living primitively and starving. Should any reader wish to see photographs in which refugees do in fact live in the most makeshift manner while starving in earnest, a few examples of that may be found in the next section.
Khatib, Abed Rahim. "Israel allows shipment of cement and steel to Gaza." Demotix, May 13, 2010: http://www.demotix.com/news/329368/israel-allows-shipment-cement-and-steel-gaza
Khatib, Abed Rahim. "Israel allows shipment of clothes and shoes into the Gaza strip." April 4, 2010: http://www.demotix.com/news/294004/israel-allows-shipment-clothes-and-shoes-gaza-strip
Khatib, Abed Rahim. "Palestinians prepare flowers for export to Europe." December 17, 2009: http://www.demotix.com/news/206411/palestinians-prepare-flowers-export-europe
Khatib, Abed Rahim. "Gaza's farmers are entering their third year of export restrictions, imposed by Israel." October 10, 2009: http://www.demotix.com/news/206978/gazas-farmers-are-entering-their-third-year-export-restrictions-imposed-israel
Other Refugees
War torn environments may not all look alike, but they may in some ways work alike, and that comes across in the photography, transience being the first observable fact of life associated with martial violence. Unlike processes involving expulsion, murder, and persecution outright and subsequent resettlement (for survivors) elsewhere, there seems to be strata subject to the same horrors but in which temporary accommodations become permanent, the shelters of sticks and textile refuse become tents the become small buildings that become concrete structures. Still, close in time to the trauma, little of it looks pretty and most of it may be decidedly underserved.
Blass, Michael. "Is the world failing Somali refugees?" Radio Netherlands Worldwide, September 3, 009: http://www.rnw.nl/international-justice/article/world-failing-somali-refugees
McLellan, Ian. "Kakuma Camp." Demotix, July 21, 2009: http://www.demotix.com/news/kakuma-camp
Murdock, Heather. "Tougher Times Ahead for Somali's Refugees." VOA News via Refugees United Australia, January 25, 2010: http://refuniteaustralia.wordpress.com/2010/01/25/tougher-times-ahead-for-yemens-somali-refugees/
Pistilli, Francesco. "FerrHotel Occupato - Somalian Refugees Occupy Abandaoned Hotel in Bari." January 12, 2010: http://www.demotix.com/news/277089/ferrhotel-occupato-somalian-refugees-occupy-abandoned-hotel-bari
Refugee - United Nations Definition
“A person who is outside of his or her country of nationality or habitual residence; has a well-founded fear of persecution because of his or her race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion; and is unable or unwilling to avail himself or herself of the protection of that country, or to return there, for fear of persecution.”
Article 1, 1951 Refugee Convention
Updates
August 2, 2010:
http://www.alresalahtalk.net/vb/showthread.php?t=3636<br />
Use "Google Translate" to interpret the photographs of the opening of a large shopping mall in Gaza.
While it's prudent to question claims about Gaza's poverty using development milestones as evidence otherwise, it may also be fair to question both the ownership of such enterprises locally and the potential "mansions and mill shacks" development story that such may represent.
By way of historical analogy, the possession of "dacha" or summer homes on the Black Sea by Communist Party cronies by no means signaled the presence of affluence across the broad constituency of the Soviet Union. On the other side of any so-called "Jewish Question" or most contemporary anti-Zionist rants frankly reside forms of mobocracy that would wish those less fortunate would look toward some other than their leaders for their hapless state.
In any case, we may see from the above that Gaza possesses some wealth: what impedes the widening of its distribution?
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