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OCHA: Gaza Situation Report

31 January 2007


The ceasefire between Palestinian factions announced by Palestinian Foreign Minister, Mohammed al Zahar in the early hours of this morning is holding. The ceasefire follows the heaviest loss of life from inter- factional fighting recorded by OCHA with at least 34 deaths and 133 injuries vbetween the evening of 25 January and the evening of 29 January. Three Palestinians, including a 17 year-old boy, were killed and 15 injured by the IDF in January. The majority of casualties occurred in the northern Gaza Strip. Overall, Palestinian access in and out of the Gaza Strip remains severally restricted. The extent of the power outages during the 2006- 2007 winter period is unprecedented. 

Blowback in Lebanon

Mohamad Bazzi 31 January 2007


Arab regimes and the United States are rushing to shore up Siniora’s government. On January 25, the same day of the bloody protests and curfew in Beirut, Siniora attended a donors conference in Paris, where he received pledges of $7.6 billion in aid and loan guarantees. Some of the funding will go toward reconstruction after last summer’s war, but much of it will be used to make interest payments and refinance Lebanon’s crushing $41 billion public debt. The country’s debt-to-GDP ratio is now about 180 percent—the second-highest in the world (after Malawi). A large proportion of the pledges received at the Paris III conference are tied to unpopular economic reforms that Siniora has vowed to undertake, including raising taxes and privatizing state assets. Most of these measures—such as raising gasoline surcharges and the value-added tax—will most heavily affect Lebanon’s poor and working classes, who are disproportionately Shiite. 

LA Activists to protest Israel Philharmonic

31 January 2007


International and Palestinian human rights leaders have asked supporters worldwide to begin cultural and economic boycotts, along with divestment and sanction campaigns to end Israel’s Occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem and to end Israeli Apartheid in Palestine. When they learned that the Israel Philharmonic would be stopping at Disney Hall while on their U.S. tour, Women in Black-LA joined the international campaign by launching their call for a Boycott of the orchestra, after first writing a letter to the Israel Philharmonic asking them to publicly oppose the occupation. 

Al Mezan alarmed at internal fighting in Gaza

31 January 2007


The state of insecurity saw a severe deterioration during January 2007. Al Mezan has documented the killing of 63 Palestinians (8 children), the injuring of 306 (33 children), and the kidnapping of 90 people during this month. The number of killings since the beginning of 2007 has exceeded the rate of all killings since 2003. 18 persons were killed in infighting in 2003 and 57 persons in 2004. The toll of January 2007 has reached more than 60% of that of 2005, and over 25% of the entire of 2006. Those years witnessed ascending deterioration of the state of insecurity. 

US inquiry into use of cluster bombs

31 January 2007


Israel may have violated agreements regarding the use of American-made cluster bombs during its war in Lebanon in July 2006, the US State Department said on Monday. Spokesman Sean McCormack did not give details about the possible violations but said the results of a preliminary investigation were being forwarded to Congress. During the war, Israel used cluster munitions, possibly dropping one million such bombs, including in civilian areas. Many of the munitions - according to the United Nations, up to 40 percent - did not explode and now pose a hazard to residents of south Lebanon. Unexploded ordnance has killed at least 27 people and injured more than 143 since the war ended. 

Israeli rhetoric on Iran mismatched with realistic analysis

Gareth Porter 31 January 2007


When Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declared last week at the Herzliya conference that Israel could not risk another “existential threat” such as the Nazi holocaust, he was repeating what has become the dominant theme in Israel’s campaign against Iran — that it cannot tolerate an Iran with the technology that could be used to make nuclear weapons, because Iran is fanatically committed to the physical destruction of Israel. The internal assessment by the Israeli national security apparatus of the Iranian threat, however, is more realistic than the government’s public rhetoric would indicate. 

Israel's Economic Stranglehold a Silent Killer

Nora Barrows-Friedman 31 January 2007


Over the last year, Palestinians have faced a siege that has taken its toll in every city across the West Bank and Gaza. It is not a siege of missiles and gunfire, but a calculated attack on the backbone of the entire occupied territories. Through the Israeli, U.S. and European move to paralyse the precarious Palestinian economy over the last year, daily life has become a constant struggle for the ordinary Palestinian trying to put food on the table or run a business within a choking, round-the-clock military occupation. Additionally, since February 2006, Israel has worked hard to pressure international aid organisations and donor countries to suspend aid projects in Palestine. 

Palestinian killed by unknown gunmen; another injured

31 January 2007


Hussein Khayri El-Shobasi (30) from Khan Yunis was killed yesterday by unknown gunman in Khan Yunis; and Bashir Mohammad Issa (40) was injured in Gaza in similar circumstances. PCHR’s preliminary investigation indicates that at approximately 12:15 on Wednesday, 31 January 2007, Bashir Issa was moderately injured by several bullets in the feet. Gunmen traveling in a car fired at Issa, who works in Force 17, in Jala Street in Gaza City. He was taken to Kamal Odwan Hospital in Beit Lahia for treatment. 

The Case of Rasem Inad Ahmad Obeidat

31 January 2007


Mr. Obeidat has been arrested by Israel five times: in May 1978, he was detained for 3 months; in May 1982, he spent 102 days in detention - under interrogation the entire time - and was then released without charge; on 11 December 1985, he was arrested, interrogated and was sentenced to prison for 2 years for being a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP); on 30 March 2001, he was arrested and interrogated for 54 days in the Russian Compound detention center in Jerusalem. During this period of detention, he was subjected to severe physical and psychological pain and suffering and was imprisoned until January 2003, again for membership in the PFLP. 

UN to hold seminar next week on aid to Palestinians in light of Israeli occupation

31 January 2007


A United Nations Seminar on Assistance to the Palestinian People will be held in Qatar next week in an effort to ease the social, economic and humanitarian emergencies in the Occupied Palestinian Territory stemming from the Israeli occupation. “The role of donor countries and institutions, as well as that of other international actors is of vital importance,” the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People said in a statement on the meeting it is organizing on 5 and 6 February in Doha, the Qatari capital. It had been observing with concern the deepening economic and social crisis unfolding in the territory.