Israel's foreign ministry: there is no siege of Gaza

   Behind the headlines:
______________________The myth of an Israeli siege on Gaza

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Israel

17 Aug 2014

Hamas would like the world to believe that it launched its rockets at Israeli cities and towns in an attempt to “end the siege.” Nothing could be farther from the truth.

There is no Israeli “siege” on the Gaza Strip. First of all, Gaza shares borders not only with Israel, but with Egypt as well. There is a 13 kilometer (8 mile) frontier between Gaza and Egypt. That country, and not Israel, controls the Rafah crossing into Gaza which has been used primarily by people travelling to and from Egypt, and from there to the rest of the world.

Most importantly, for the past four years all goods are allowed to enter Gaza from Israel, except for weapons and a short list of dual-use items which can be exploited by terrorists. The ban on weapons and the restrictions on dual-use items stem from the fact that since 2007, Gaza has been ruled by a terrorist organization, namely Hamas, whose declared aim is the destruction of Israel. They are in place solely to protect Israel’s citizens from Hamas’ ongoing terrorist attacks.

Not only do food, medicine, fuel and aid enter freely at all times, but in peacetime, commodities and consumer goods of every type are transferred daily from Israel to Gaza through the land crossing. The types and amounts of consumer goods are determined by Palestinian merchants and depend primarily on market forces in Gaza. For the more affluent, Gaza offers a variety of consumer opportunities, from a modestly-sized mall to upscale restaurants. Even during the latest hostilities in Gaza, an international journalist reported on shopping at one of Gaza’s supermarkets, which offered “all kinds of goods.”

Given the free entry of almost all goods, it is impossible to legitimately claim that the Gaza Strip is under siege. For example, in the first five months of 2014, over 18,000 trucks carrying nearly 228,000 tons of supplies entered Gaza. Included in the deliveries were construction materials: since January, over 4,680 trucks carrying 181,000 tons of cement, wood, gravel, iron and other building supplies passed through the Kerem Shalom land crossing into Gaza.

In addition to facilitating the transfer of goods, humanitarian aid and fuels, Israel also supplies the Gaza Strip with 10 million cubic meters (2.6 billion US gallons) of water annually and more than half of its electricity.

While Israel faces a serious threat from terrorists in Gaza, it still allows the supervised movement of people into Israel. In the first five months of 2014, approximately 60,000 individuals entered Israel from the Gaza Strip. Many of these were patients and their escorts who received medical treatment in Israel and elsewhere, while large numbers of Gazan businessmen and merchants also visited Israel.

In light of all these facts, not only is it obvious that there is no siege on Gaza, but it is also not reasonable to say that as a whole the Gaza Strip is under an Israeli blockade.

Anti-Israeli activists often cite the maritime blockade as proof of a general blockade on Gaza itself, but that is deliberately misleading.

In modern times, Gaza has relied almost exclusively on land crossings for the import of goods: it has never had the type of port capable of handling shipping containers (and only had a functioning airport for approximately three years).

The maritime blockade is legal under international law. In 2011, a special panel convened by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon examined the maritime blockade. The UN Panel found both the naval blockade and its enforcement, including in international waters, to be legal. This panel of experts emphasized that all assistance to Gaza should be transferred only through the designated land crossings.

The panel also found that Israel had legitimate security concerns regarding violence by Hamas and that weapons trafficking to Gaza permitted Israel to enforce a naval blockade. Repeated attempts to smuggle dangerous weapons via the sea – including powerful long-range rockets from Iran – attest to the fact that the maritime blockade is an essential security measure.

Indeed, the dangers posed by Hamas are well-documented. It is internationally recognized as a terrorist organization, including by the European Union, Australia, Japan, Egypt and the US.

The economic plight of the Gaza Strip does not stem from a mythical siege, but from its rule by a recognized terrorist organization dedicated not to the welfare of its people, but to violence and destruction. When Israel left Gaza in 2005, its aspiration was that the Gaza Strip would become a prosperous and peaceful territory. These hopes, and concrete plans for developing Gaza, were dashed by the incessant cross-border terrorist and rocket attacks, particularly after Hamas seized control in 2007.

Furthermore, Gaza’s existing resources are systematically abused by Hamas for its own nefarious goals. Enormous amounts of money are used for procuring and producing weapons, training and funding terrorists, building terror infrastructures and for the enrichment of Hamas’ leaders. Almost unimaginable quantities of cement were diverted from the construction of housing, schools and hospitals to building an underground city of terror tunnels and bunkers for Hamas members.

Hamas would like the world to believe that it launched its rockets at Israeli cities and towns in an attempt to “end the siege.” It would like the international community to think it is acting in the interests of residents of Gaza. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

If Hamas cared about the welfare of the civilians in Gaza, it would not have started the current hostilities with its rocket barrages. It would have agreed to the Egyptian-proposed ceasefire already on 15 July (before the ground operation began), saving many lives on both sides. It would have respected the numerous humanitarian ceasefires Israel initiated for the benefit of the residents of Gaza. Most tellingly, it wouldn’t have launched frequent rocket and mortar attacks on the Kerem Shalom border crossing, the main entry point into Gaza for goods and humanitarian aid.

What Hamas truly cares about is advancing its agenda to destroy Israel. This terrorist organization seeks to end any control or supervision over what enters and exits Gaza so that it can freely import offensive weapons, including long-range rockets, explosives, military technologies, terrorist trainers, funds and supplies for its terrorist infrastructures. None of these things will help the residents of Gaza; rather, they will only serve to ignite future conflict.

This detailed map of Gaza helps explain the conflict

Updated by Zack Beauchamp, Vox, on July 18, 2014
@zackbeauchamp zack@vox.com

Since Israel withdrew its military forces and settlers from Gaza in 2005, the relationship between the Palestinian territory and Israeli authorities has been, to say the least, fraught. This map does a great job laying out that relationship and how, from an aerial view, it looks.

The Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs (PASSIA) built this very detailed map of Gaza in 2007, so many of the specific figures and designations may be dated, but in broad strokes the map displays many of the most important and enduring features of Israel-Gaza:

Here are a few of the most important features.

• There’s a serious Israeli blockade of Gaza. You’ll notice Israeli fences, boundaries, and supervised crossings all around Gaza. Israel heavily controls the flow of goods through these channels, including food, medicine, construction materials, and the like. The stated reason it does that is to limit Hamas’ ability to resupply itself militarily; for instance, Hamas and other militant groups often home-build rockets that get fired into Israeli towns and cities. These restrictions also severely affect civilians. To deal with the military and civilian effects of the blockade, Hamas built well over a thousand tunnels out of Gaza — mostly into Egypt. Israel’s stated reason for the ground incursion into Gaza is shutting down tunnels into Israel built for attacks, but it also may want to shut down Hamas supply tunnels into Egypt.

• There used to be a lot more border crossings into Israel. The map shows five border crossings out of Gaza, but the majority of the crossings (per the UN) are closed today. Erez, in the north, and Kerem Shalom, in the south, are the big ones today. These are the places where Israel lets through the goods and persons that are allowed to cross the blockade, and they’re occasionally shut down for security reasons.

• The Rafah crossing into Egypt is the only above-ground way in or out not controlled by Israel. Between the border fence, Israel’s control of the water outside of Gaza, and the Israeli crossings, the Rafah crossing with Egypt in the south is the only real way to get out. That’s why it’s a big deal that the Egyptian military is restricting access to it and shutting down the tunnels that go under it: it’s very hard for Hamas to circumvent Israeli restrictions otherwise.

• The fishing limits have a huge impact on the Gaza economy. Though Israel has withdrawn from Gaza, it still sets many of the terms for the Gazan economy by virtue of its blockade. The fact that Israel controls where Gazans can fish is a big part of this. Though the map correctly displays the permitted fishing zone at six nautical miles, Israel sometimes reduces it to three. Even the six mile boundary excludes the best fishing grounds; Gaza’s fishing industry has collapsed since Israel imposed it. Catches are under 50 percent of what they were about 10 years ago, and 95 percent of Gaza’s fishers and their families depend on foreign food aid. It’s a microcosm of how Israeli restrictions on the Gazan economy and shipping have such a massive effect on life in Gaza even without Israel.

• The border fence shows how this conflict persists even when there isn’t an invasion. Israel uses the border fence, as it does in the West Bank, to prevent Palestinians (including militants) from sneaking into Israel. It’s quite effective at that; as we saw just before the current invasion, Hamas operatives looking to strike in Israel are forced to dig under the fence, which can be risky and unreliable for them. However, there are zones near the fences that Palestinians cannot enter, according to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, without risking Israeli fire — and sometimes death. Between December 2013 and March 2014, about 55 civilians were injured on the border and four were killed. Israeli authorities say they were trying to sabotage the fence.

The point here is that this invasion and war doesn’t come out of nowhere: even when the Israeli-Palestinian conflict isn’t at full war levels, there’s always a slow burn of violence, provocations, and counter-provocations.

Note: Vox.com is the political ‘brand’ of seven digital brands produced by Vox Media. It is run by former Washington Post staff.