by AlicetheCurious » Wed Jul 12, 2006 11:09 am
<!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Palestinian injuries suggest Israel is using chemical weapons in Gaza</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br>Date: 10 / 07 / 2006 Time: 22:07<br><br>Salfit- Gaza- Ma'an- The Palestinian ministry of health revealed on Monday that the Israeli army has used a new type of explosive in its offensive on the Gaza Strip. These explosives contain toxics and radioactive materials which burn and tear the victim's body from the inside and leave long term deformations.<br><br>The ministry called upon the international community and the humanitarian organizations to send an international medical community to examine the victims and confirm the truth about these banned weapons that Israel appears to be using.<br><br>The ministry showed that most of the injuries which the hospitals receive result from huge explosions which cause burning and severing of limbs, including the inner parts of the body. This causes long term deformations.<br><br>It is added that doctors in Gaza have been forced to amputate limbs of at least 12 injured Palestinians as a result of injuries sustained in the current Israeli offensive on the Strip.<br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=13044">www.maannews.net/en/index...p;ID=13044</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br><hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Entry denied: Deporting witnesses of Israeli occupation and unilateralism</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br>Maureen Clare Murphy, The Electronic Intifada, 11 July 2006<br><br><br>In another Israeli move designed to further isolate Palestinians from the rest of the world community, it is being reported that the Israeli army will be declaring the West Bank closed to foreign nationals. The Gaza Strip has already been made virtually inaccessible to foreign nationals; those who wish to enter must apply to the Israeli authorities, weeks in advance, to receive elusive permits. The effect is that the plight of the Palestinian civilian population living under Israeli occupation becomes all the more invisible to the international community.<br><br>The recent trend of deportation of foreign nationals (including foreign passport-holding Palestinians) working in Palestinian civil society, studying at Palestinian universities, and those living with a Palestinian family gives further cause for concern that West Bank Palestinians will no longer be allowed visitors to their open-air prison. <br><br>..Israel has long been denying entry to scores of internationals whether they are activists or not -- a policy that has been intensified in recent months. <br><br>...On the Jordanian side of the [Allenby] bridge, security officials there told me that scores of international passport-holders -- Palestinian-Americans in particular -- were being denied entry into the West Bank.<br><br>...A European friend working for a Palestinian civil society organization recently rang the Beit El/DCO checkpoint, which houses an Israeli West Bank civil administration office. She was told that to cross the checkpoint, she would need a work permit from Israel and that she should apply for one from the Israeli Ministry of Social Affairs. However, the Israeli official added, "I will tell you now that it will be impossible because they will refuse you once they know you are working for an organization that is working in the territories."<br><br>...Access is restricted even internally within the West Bank, making it difficult or impossible for many individuals from Jenin or Nablus to travel to Ramallah or Hebron and vice versa. The Israeli military controls all Palestinian movement with its hundreds of forms of movement restrictions in the West Bank and its restrictive permit system. <br><br>Most Palestinians holding a green or orange West Bank or Gaza ID have not been able to access East Jerusalem, considered part of the West Bank under international law, in over ten years as they are not allowed to do so without a rarely issued Israeli permit. And these days, not even members of the Palestinian government (save President Mahmoud Abbas) are able to travel from the West Bank to Gaza, and vice versa.<br><br>...These movement restrictions are becoming increasingly formalized by million dollar checkpoints-cum-terminals, suggesting that the intention is actually to strengthen Israel's grip on the occupied territories and establish "facts on the ground" to preempt a negotiated resolution to the conflict.<br><br>...<br>Earlier this year, then-Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the Israeli daily Ha'aretz of the new scope of impunity that Israel enjoys following last year's unilateral disengagement from Gaza. <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Regarding the state's illegal assassination operations in Gaza, he bragged, "there is not a single word of criticism anywhere in the world. And do you know why? Because the disengagement gave us degrees of freedom in carrying out everyday security activities, which we never had before ... The day before yesterday we carried out a targeted interception [sic] in Gaza. The day before that we did another targeted interception [sic]. Not a critical remark, not a hint of critical remark, has come from anywhere in the world.'"<br><br>The international community's silence has been deafening as Israel routinely drops missiles onto Gaza -- one of the most densely populated areas of the world -- in its illegal extrajudicial assassinations, and is currently embarking on its indefinite deployment there. Of course, the civilian casualty count has been predictably high. </strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br>When asked to, Israel justifies such operations as necessary to deter the launching of crude, homemade Qassam rockets from the Gaza Strip into Israel. But such measures are not in compliance with the legal principle of proportionality, and the daily shelling of the Gaza Strip amounts to another form of collective punishment of the Palestinian civilian population. Meanwhile, Olmert has been meeting with world leaders to secure international support of his "convergence plan," ...<br><br>... But the foundation of these unilateral plans has already been laid. With much of the Wall and the new permanent checkpoints in place or under construction, the architecture for new, Israeli-determined borders is already there.<br><br>...<br><br>With the international community's boycott of the democratically elected Palestinian government, half of them currently in Israeli detention, the Palestinians are as powerless to claim their rights as ever. <br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Worsening the situation, now that it is becoming increasingly difficult for international observers to access the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Palestinian civil society institutions will be losing invaluable conduits of advocacy to the outside world. The international community will become all the more blind and deaf to human rights abuses and rights violations committed in the occupied Palestinian territories. While Olmert will continue to enjoy the warm company of fellow statesmen, Palestinian civilians will become increasingly isolated under Israeli occupation.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article4859.shtml">electronicintifada.net/v2...4859.shtml</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--> <p></p><i></i>