Sherine Tadros; 24/4/08
From the moment I set foot in Gaza there was one question everyone kept asking me: “When are they going to open the crossings?” For almost a year now the two points at which people can get out of Gaza – the Erez and Rafah crossings - have been closed to all Palestinians. Even the Hamas forces guarding the crossings were asking me the same question. They are all prisoners in Gaza. But there is a larger problem beyond the closed crossings, one that will last long after deals on opening Rafah and Erez are made - Israel is using a controversial residency law to prevent Palestinian holders of Jerusalem identity cards currently living or even visiting Gaza from going back to their city. Israel unilaterally annexed Arab East Jerusalem in 1967, declaring its unification with predominantly Jewish West Jerusalem into what it called “the eternal capital of Israel”
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/70166EA0-93E8-47F6-AF75-CF5B7AF61C8A.htm
UN: Food aid to Gazans halted due to Israeli fuel cutoff
Avi Issacharoff and Yuval Azoulay
An official has said the United Nations stopped distributing food to Palestinian refugees in Gaza because its vehicles have run out of fuel following Israel’s blockade of the Strip. The official, Adnan Abu Hasna, said 700,000 Palestinians who depend on the UN for basic food packets, won’t be getting them. He said the United Nations Relief Works Agency used the last of its fuel on Thursday. That forced it to stop distribution. Israel shipped fuel to Gaza to run its electricity power plant but maintains a ban on gasoline and diesel fuel, following a deadly terror attack at a fuel depot in Nahal Oz on April 9, which left two Israeli civilains killed.
See; http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/977733.html
IDF hasn’t begun court-ordered rerouting of fence
Akiva Eldar; 24/4/08
Eight months after the High Court of Justice ordered the state to dismantle the segment of the separation fence near the Palestinian village of Bil’in within “a reasonable amount of time,” the Defense Ministry has yet to do so. It has not even begun to plan an alternative route there, in accordance with the court’s instruction. These steps are not included in the Defense Ministry’s work plan for 2008. A spokesman for the ministry, Shlomo Dror, said yesterday that the omission stems from budget constraints, and said he hoped that planning the alternative route would be included in the work plan for 2009 - in other words, a year and a quarter after the High Court ruling, at the very least.
See: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/977469.html
Tags: health, Human Rights, Israel, Separation Fence, Terrorism, UN