No end in sight to Gaza "hell"
Diplomats and aid workers admit they are no closer to securing ceasefire in Gaza Strip, described by Tony Blair as "hell"
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Tuesday, 06, Jan 2009 07:16
Diplomats and aid workers have admitted they are no closer to securing a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip as Israeli military action showed no sign of ending.
More than 560 Palestinians have died since Israel began air-strikes in Gaza in response to Hamas rocket-fire when a six-month truce ended on December 19th.
But aid agencies have warned that civilian casualties are occurring on an "unprecedented scale".
According to Amnesty International UK a "spiralling humanitarian crisis" is being witnessed in Gaza, where the civilian death-toll is at least 100; most of the victims being children.
Its Middle East and North Africa programme director Malcolm Smart said Israeli was "recklessly endangering civilians and causing a mounting toll of civilian casualties" by employing artillery fire, sometimes from gunboats, against Hamas positions.
Leaflets seemingly dropped at random across Gaza, home to 1.5 million people, telling them to get out and leaves their homes despite being prevented from doing so by an Israeli blockade have caused further distress, Amnesty International said.
One Gaza resident, a supporter of Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party, said: "My children see the leaflets and go crazy with fear, they want to leave home; but we have nowhere to go.
"My family and my wife's family live close to the border, in even more dangerous areas; and we can't just stay outside, it is equally dangerous, children have been killed walking or playing in the street. There is no electricity, we can't even find food, and we are not safe even in our homes.
"We have nothing to do with Hamas, I've been detained and harassed by Hamas, but the Israeli bombardments are indiscriminate. No one is safe."
Save the Children's Dominic Nutt, speaking from Jerusalem, gave inthenews.co.uk a similar line.
"By trying to target Hamas leadership you are almost certain to be causing injuries and deaths to innocent women and children," he told inthenews.co.uk.
"The situation will not improve, it can get as bad as it can get: many people will die.
"People in Israel are in direct line of rocket fire, but in Gaza we will never find out how bad it can get.
"The history of the Middle East says you cannot bomb your way to peace, there is no end game; it won't happen... whether you stop firing today or wait for three weeks, in the end you might as well do it now."
Earlier today former UK prime minister Tony Blair, now envoy for the Middle East quartet, admitted that the humanitarian situation in Gaza was untenable.
"The truth is, for anyone living in Gaza, it's hell," he told the BBC. "It's bound to be.
"You have a situation where you are living in an effective war zone. The Gaza Strip is about 20 miles by four miles. It's not a very large piece of territory... Of course, Hamas and their positions are well dug in within the civilian population. The notion that you can have a war going on around Gaza that is going to be anything other than a civilian catastrophe is absurd, obviously."
Amnesty International UK is calling on Israeli authorities to readmit foreign aid workers, monitors and media workers into Gaza.
"With only a few exceptions, humanitarian workers and journalists have been barred from Gaza by the Israeli military since early November," said Mr Smart.
"Their presence now is urgently required to independently assess humanitarian needs and report on the situation on the ground, including abuses of international law."
Mr Blair meanwhile insisted he continued to push for a "quick halt" to the fighting.
"I think the position is that there are circumstances in which we could get an immediate ceasefire and that's what people want to see," he said.
"I think the circumstances focus very much around clear action to cut off the supply of arms and money from the tunnels that go from Egypt into Gaza. I think if there were strong, clear, definitive action on that, that would give us the best context to get an immediate ceasefire and to start to change the situation."
International efforts to end the fighting have so far failed, with delegations led by the Czech foreign minister and French president Nicolas Sarkozy failing to achieve anything of note.
And the United Nations security council has been unable to agree on a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire owing to objections from the United States, while UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon is meeting Arab foreign ministers in New York today.