[R-G] Gazans Do Not Blame Hamas

[Anthony Fenton]

MIDEAST:  Gazans Do Not Blame Hamas
By Mel Frykberg
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45468

RAMALLAH, Jan 19 (IPS) - Humanitarian aid is being rushed into Gaza as  
Israel and Egypt open their borders temporarily to allow convoys of  
aid to pass through.

While Israeli drones circle the skies above, Hamas security men are  
back on the streets attempting to restore some semblance of law and  
order. Policemen are directing traffic. Several looters have been  
arrested.

Gazans who survived the battering inflicted by Israel's 22-day  
military campaign, codenamed Operation Cast Lead, are venturing out  
and trying to pick up the pieces of their lives.

"People are feeling dazed and confused. Many are desperately trying to  
contact family members and friends on the few remaining phone lines  
that operate to see if they are still alive or if they are injured,"  
Abdallah Al-Agha from Khan Yunis in the south of Gaza told IPS.

"Others are leaving UN shelters for the first time in days to see if  
and what remains of their homes," added Al-Agha.

Elena Qleibo, a Gaza-based aid worker from Oxfam and an ex-Costa Rican  
ambassador to Israel, said parts of Gaza resembled an apocalypse.

"The destruction wrought on Beit Lahiya, in northern Gaza, and the  
Zeitoun suburb in eastern Gaza city is immense," Qleibo told IPS. "The  
sewage is flowing in the streets. Electricity pylons, water and sewage  
works, municipal and medical buildings, and homes have been levelled."

Initial estimates state that 15 percent or 20,000 of the Gaza Strip's  
buildings have been damaged, with nearly 30,000 Palestinians forced to  
find shelter in UN Relief and Welfare Agency (UNRWA) shelters and with  
family.

Nearly 1,300 Gazans lost their lives, around a third of these  
children, with a total of more than half of the deaths civilian. The  
number of injured is pushing 4,000.

"People are extremely angry and the level of hate against Israel is  
very high. I have lived and worked in Gaza for many years and I have  
never seen such hatred from the population," said Qleibo.

Gazans are not blaming Hamas, contrary to Israel's wishes. "People  
laugh at Israel's claims that this was a war against the Islamic  
resistance organisation and not one aimed at civilians.

"They see this as a war against all Palestinians. The number of  
civilians killed and maimed and the destruction wrought was way too  
extreme," said Qleibo.

"The scale of death and destruction is most definitely counter- 
productive. Throughout this conflict so many experts and global  
leaders have highlighted there is no military solution to this  
conflict - an effective political solution is needed," John Ging, the  
head of Gaza's (UNRWA), told Maan News Agency.

UNRWA's main compound in Gaza city, which feeds 750,000 Gazan  
refugees, half of the total population, was destroyed in an Israeli  
attack Jan. 15.

Ging said that 50 aid trucks entered Gaza Saturday, the day Israel  
announced its unilateral ceasefire.

"But we need hundreds of trucks. The needs are growing exponentially  
and the pipeline for humanitarian supplies is very narrow. Even those,  
such as Palestinian Authority (PA) employees, who were not dependent  
on UNRWA assistance, have become dependent. There is nothing on the  
market and there is no cash," Ging told Maan.

"We cannot contemplate that the crossings will remain closed; there  
must be a better future. The ordinary people here during this siege  
have paid the price of this conflict and this operation. For them,  
their singular priority is access to restore dignity to their existence.

"The closures have driven thousands into aid dependency against their  
will - that has to end. A solution that prioritises the needs of the  
ordinary people must be found," said Ging.

Egypt allowed 42 seriously injured Gazans to pass through the Rafah  
crossing in the south to travel to Egyptian hospitals. Tonnes of  
international medical supplies and three ambulances from Qatar entered  
Gaza from Rafah. Forty-nine doctors from abroad are supplementing  
exhausted teams of Palestinian medical staff at Gaza's main hospitals.

In addition to medical supplies, 401 tonnes of food donated by Libya,  
Morocco, Oman and Jordan entered Gaza from Egypt. Ninety tonnes of  
food entered Gaza from an Israeli crossing point.

Egyptian civil society organisations donated nearly 12,000 blankets to  
replace those destroyed during Israel's attack on the UN warehouse.

"While international food and medical aid is desperately needed, it is  
also imperative that in the longer run urgent socio-psychological  
treatment is extended to a severely traumatised civilian population,"  
Qleibo told IPS.

Meanwhile, rescue teams are pulling out bodies from underneath  
mountains of rubble, something Israeli soldiers stationed in the area  
previously prevented. Once all bodies are recovered, the death toll  
may rise significantly.

Muawiyah Hassanain, director of Ambulance and Emergency Services in  
the Health Ministry in Gaza, said that dozens of bodies were  
extricated on Sunday alone.

The full scale of the horror is yet to be revealed as the  
international foreign corps based in Israel continues to fight for  
unrestricted access into Gaza to report first-hand. Israel has  
enforced a ban for close on two months on all media other than a few  
handpicked reporters embedded with Israeli forces, who were permitted  
entry.

"Professionals should be allowed into the battlefield," said Foreign  
Press Association secretary Glenys Sugarman, unimpressed by the  
reporters the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) spokesperson's unit let in.

"You can't just send journalists to join the military forces who show  
them around. That is not independent and open reporting. In the  
modern, open world, when there are people that see and are willing to  
comprehend what's going on here - this is an important message," added  
Sugarman. (END/2009)