Three Years after Israeli War Crimes in Gaza.
"We live in an Orwellian world where humanitarian activists are persecuted and war criminals get wined and dined in five star hotels."  --

Three years ago between 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009 Israel unleashed its latest carnage on the starving Palestinians in Gaza.  Gaza is a small beach side strip of around 365 sq miles by the Mediterranean Sea. Sandwiched between Egypt and Israel this territory of about 1.6 million Palestinians is one of the most densely populated in the world. Most of the inhabitants are refugees who were chased out at gun point by Jewish terror gangs, such as Irgun and Hagana and their lands grabbed to set up the Jewish state of Israel in 1948.  During the June 1967 Israeli war of aggression Gaza was brought under Israeli occupation. Since then the people there were subjected to untold oppressions, cruelties and miseries besides daily killings, arbitrary arrest and torture.      

Unable to face the fierce Palestinian opposition, Israel withdrew its forces from Gaza in 2005 after 38 years and handed over control of the Rafah border, Gaza's sole contact with the outside world, to Egypt while Palestinian forces, monitored by European Union officials, too were stationed.   Almost four decades of systematic Israeli oppression and repeated border closures have driven Gazans to poverty and inevitably around 80 percent of them depend on food aid without which they would die in a matter of days. 

 Elections

 In a spotless democratic election, held in January 2006 under the supervision of former US President Jimmy Carter who described it as free and fair, Hamas was elected with an overwhelming majority.

However Israel, it’s US and European supporters and Arab collaborators wanted Hamas crushed at any cost as they did not want democracy in the Middle East.

They wanted to install pliant Palestine Authority in power .Israel, backed by US and Europe stopped all donations and cut off the flow of all money to starve Palestine into submission. The Arab regimes too joined this financial blockade knowing very well the misery they were causing to the Palestinians who needed this money to keep body and soul together.

In the midst Israel, under the guise of trying to free a captured soldier, bombed Gaza Strip in June 2006 with its F-16 fighter planes, helicopter gunships and artillery fire from tanks and turned Gaza into a virtual slaughter house. Within days roads, bridges, power plants, water supply, universities, schools, hospitals, play grounds, mosques  and even tombs and ministry buildings were bombed and destroyed causing untold misery to the  people already starving. In an unprecedented lawlessness, and the violation of international law, Israel started mafia-style abduction of Hamas cabinet ministers, mayors and parliamentarians. 

Palestinians slaughtered by Israel.          Palestinian children killed by Israel

As usual there was deafening international silence in Washington, London, Paris, Moscow and Arab capitals while Egypt joined Israel in closing the border and virtually sealing and cutting off Gaza from the rest of the world.   

Since June 2007, 90 percent of Gaza's local industries too were forced to shut down, leaving 70,000 laborers jobless. There was no fuel to keep the plant running because Israel imposed a complete lock-down with no movement in or out of the Gaza Strip for people, or any kind of shipments in of vital food, fuel supplies and medicines.  It was a slow death. Palestinians in Gaza and even in the West Bank were made virtual prisoners in their own homes and in a dire economic situation while Israel continued its air strikes. This was a grave war crime and in fact after World War II German leaders were sentenced to death for lesser crimes.  
 

This situation continued for 20 long months until 17 January 2008 when Israel imposed a complete blockade and shut down Gaza’s only power plant plunging the entire territory into chaos.They were only allowed to breathe the air which Israel could not blockade.  

People started queuing for bread, but there was no bread as it cannot be made without electricity. Connections with the outside world started fading as mobile phones and laptops ran out of battery power. There was no water because the pumps needed electricity.  People could not go to work because there was no fuel for cars and buses. Hospitals with generators ran out of fuel to power them, halting all surgery procedures. In desperation, Palestinians tried to enter Egypt through the Rafah crossing, but the Egyptian border guards drove them out. Over 1000 Palestinians went out to the streets begging the world to end this cruel enforced starvation to death.  

Starving Palestinians breaking open the border post and entering Egypt.

Princeton academic Richard Falk described Israel’s siege as a” prelude to a genocide” while John Dugard, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories said  it was  serious violations of international law.  However who cares?  Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery said “The message of Jews, the US and Europe to Palestinian is that you will reach the brink of hunger, and even beyond, if you do not surrender. You must remove the Hamas government and elect candidates approved by Israel and the US. You must be satisfied with a Palestinian state consisting of several enclaves, each of which will be utterly dependent on the tender mercies of Israel’

It was on these starving Palestinians in Gaza, once again Israeli unleashed its military might on 27 December   2009 using US supplied latest of bunker buster missiles, F16 bombers and other latest of destructive weapons.