From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Organization: Antiimperialist Camp News Reply-To: "Antiimperialist Camp News" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2002 05:13:53 -0600 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Anti-imperialist solidarity delegation for Palestine in Gaza On January 4 and 5 the Anti-imperialist Solidarity Delegation to Palestine managed to visit the Gaza strip. In reality Gaza is nothing less than a giant internment camp, which is being strangled step by step. Not by accident it happens to be the most densely populated non-urban area of the planet. Enduring Zionist colonisation 3.000 settlers have been robbing about 40% of Gaza’s territory since 1967 using appalling violence. Meanwhile 1.2 million Palestinians are forced to live on 60% of the land. The process of colonisation has neither been stopped nor slowed down with Oslo but on the contrary even accelerated. With our own eyes we could see the systematic destruction of residential areas in the Rafah camp in the extreme south of the strip as well as close to the “checkpoint of death” in Khan Younis. By air-borne attacks, missiles and tank grenades the Israeli army makes Palestinian houses uninhabitable. In some housed Israeli agents even put bombs. Subsequently heavy machinery is used to level down the remaining ruins. Behind that front line there is an entire zone of buildings there the inhabitants are threatened by snipers. Many of the affected Palestinians are forced to live in tents, only some manage to be received hospitality by relatives in overcrowded flats. With the pretext of enlarging the zone of security not only residential buildings are demolished but also agricultural lands destroyed. Palestinians are no more allowed to work and enter their land. Subsequently the ethnically cleansed piece of land is incorporated into the adjourning settlement. About 4.500 Palestinians have been locked into the Jewish settlement near to Khan Younis. Like in Hebron they are exposed without any protection to the settlers who are driven by racists hatred. Their houses have been burned several times resulting in many injured and killed. They are not allowed to work their fields. Therefore they are completely dependent on the food relief of the UN. They can leave the settler’s territories only with a special permission – if they want to return. With all imaginably arbitrary measures the army and the settlers try to hinder the return of the Palestinians to their homes, even those who got a permission. In order to avoid the final displacement many of the “inmates of the camp” have not left it for years. The biggest part of the settlements are located close to the sea blocking Palestinian access to it. Palestinians can only enter the sea in the area of Gaza city. A connection road between the settlements and Israel for the exclusive use of the settlers is about to be built resulting in huge expropriations of Palestinian land. It completes the picture of an Apartheid state. Palestinians to wither and to saltificate As everywhere in the region water is a scarce resource in Gaza. But there is an additional specific problem. Israel is pumping enormous quantities of drinking water from the settlements into Israel. The settlements have been erected in those areas with the best water reserves. Due to the permanent deficit in the water budget caused by the extraction by far exceeding the natural regeneration salty sea water is pressed into the ground water. Many cultures like citrus fruits have died away. The process of saltification is accelerating. Cynically Israel is selling to the Palestinians expensive drinking water pumped out of the ground water of Gaza! Destruction of the agriculture By all means Israel is trying to destroy the agriculture of the Palestinians in the Gaza strip and to make its population dependent on Israeli produce. The saltification of the water resources and of the soils is only one aspect of it. With our own eyes we could see acres of destroyed land and irrigation facilities close to Beit Lahia in the north of Gaza. Trees of all kinds have been cut and uprooted. Any attempt to plant new cultures is prompted by destruction by the IDF. The direct export of Palestinian agricultural products is de facto banned. The Israeli authorities systematically delay shipments in order to have the goods rotten on arrival. Therefore all export contracts must be done via Israeli intermediaries who skim the profits. An own commercial port has been denied so far to the Palestinians while the international airport of Gaza has been destroyed repeatedly. Anti-imperialist Camp Vienna, January 10, 2002 First part of the report: www.antiimperialista.com/en/view.shtml?category=9&id=1010064521&keyword=+ ************************************ Antiimperialist Camp PF 23, A-1040 Vienna, Austria Tel&Fax +43 1 504 00 10 [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.antiimperialista.com/en ************************************ _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki Phone +358-40-7177941 Fax +358-9-7591081 http://www.kominf.pp.fi General class struggle news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Geopolitical news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________
