The Causes of the Catastrophe in Gaza

Frederic Bush [mailto:fredericbush@cox.net]

January 21, 2009

A couple of months ago, I was asked to give a lecture on the Israeli Palestinian conflict at the annual luncheon of the Orange County chapter of the United Nations Association. Before the Israeli attack upon the Gaza Strip began on December 27, I had intended to talk of how the Separation Wall, which is being built by the Israelis in the area of Bethlehem, was shutting in and strangling that city. But, it was just not possible to talk of how bad things were in Bethlehem given the terrible tragedy that was transpiring in Gaza. So I changed the content of my presentation to a discussion of the causes that led up to the terrible and inhumane Israeli attack on Gaza. It is critically important to address this subject, since, to my knowledge, these causes have simply not been published in our normal American sources of information. The Israeli and American Zionist narrative is all that is available. After considerable research, I have written the article below.

The Causes of the Catastrophe in Gaza: Why and How Did the Ceasefire End?

By Dr. Fred Bush, January 18, 2009

Our newspapers and TV news have been filled with reports of the horrible effects of Israel’s inhumane and unconscionable attack on the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip, in the course of which the Israeli military destroyed or badly damaged their homes, places of worship, schools, universities, factories, fishing boats, police stations - in short, everything that sustains civilized and orderly life.

It was, and is, a catastrophe.

The Israeli government justifies its attack by claiming that (1) Israel had no choice but to attack in response to the barrage of Hamas rockets fired from Gaza into Israel over the past eight years, and (2) only Hamas violated the six-month ceasefire and on Dec. 19th only Hamas refused to re-institate it. Thus, only Hamas bears responsibility for what happened.

And in America? The major U.S. media outlets have simply repeated the Israeli government pronouncements. On January 8th, Shervan Sardar published in the website the Electronic Intifada (see http://electronicintifada.net) an extensive study of the coverage of the conflict in the op-eds and editorials of major American newspapers, entitled The Us Media and the Attack on Gaza. He writes, “In the first three days of the Israeli offensive from 28-30 December, editorials and op-eds from the major papers overwhelmingly adopted the official US and Israeli government talking points.” Let me cite just two of his examples, The Washington Post stated that Hamas “invited the conflict by ending the six month old ceasefire and launching scores of rockets and mortar shells at Israel.” Similarly, in The New York Times, Benny Morris maintained, “In November and early December, Hamas stepped up the rocket attacks and then, unilaterally, formally announced the end of the truce.” And the American government? Congressional leaders of both parties have unequivocally taken Israel’s side. “I think what the Israelis are doing is very important,” said top Senate Democrat Harry Reid. “I think this terrorist organization, Hamas, has got to be put away.” The Israeli narrative is a plausible one, and there is, of course, truth in it, for the indiscriminate shooting of rockets against a civilian population is immoral and unconscionable, and must stop. But the causes set forth by Israel, parroted by the American media and government, is inaccurate, for it omits crucial facts. If we want to understand the reality that lies behind this war, we need to rewind a year and review what led up to it. To do so, I want to talk about two periods. (1) What the situation in Gaza was after Hamas drove out the forces of Fatah and took over sole control of the Strip in June 2007, and (2) what transpired during the period of the six-month truce, which was inaugurated June 19th and ended on Dec. 19th.

So first period (1). During the 12 months from June 2007 until June 2008, violence by both sides continued unabated. Extremists in Gaza, some of them under the control of Hamas and some not, such as members of the Islamic Jihad, continued to fire rockets into Israel and seriously disrupt the life for Israel’s southern towns. In an attempt to end this, the Israeli military regularly engaged in bombing attacks and military incursions into the Gaza Strip.

But, in my opinion a more important factor in what has led up to the current catastrophe has been the drastic deterioration of the quality of life of the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip. That quality of life was bad enough prior to the summer of 2007. John Wolfensohn, who had left his position as head of the World Bank, was a special envoy to the “Quartet,” whose job was to help implement the peace process during and after the removal of the Israeli settlements from Gaza in the summer of 2005. In April 2006, he resigned his job. In an interview with the Haaretz newspaper in 2007, Wolfensohn explained why he did so. “Shortly after the disengagement in summer 2005,” he said, “Israel and the US violated the agreement that was made to ensure the border crossings into Gaza remained open after the Jewish settlers left.” “Every aspect of that agreement was abrogated,” he said. The economy collapsed as a result, as Gaza’s farmers saw their produce rot at the crossings, and unemployment and disillusionment among Gazans rocketed. He concluded, “Instead of hope, the Palestinians saw that they were put back in prison. And with 50 per cent unemployment, further conflict is inevitable.” As we have seen, Wolfensohn’s last comment was prescient indeed.

That was clearly bad enough. But, as a result of the Hamas takeover in 2007, the Israeli government placed the Gaza Strip under an unremitting blockade, which placed far more severe limits upon the amount of electricity, food, medicine and other necessities that may enter the Gaza Strip than had been permitted previously. The UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs issues a monthly report on conditions in the occupied Palestinian territories called “the Humanitarian Monitor.” The report monitors key humanitarian indicators and includes field observations collected by UN agencies including those of the health, education and food aid sectors.

(To access the monitor, go

To: www.ochaopt.org. Click on “Report Centre” at the top left. When the Report Centre opens, choose “The Humanitarian Monitor” under “sort by type” on the left, and scroll down to the report you wish.) The Gaza Humanitarian Monitor for October 2007 included the following statement: “Following . . .an Israeli cabinet decision, on 28 October the Government of Israel started implementing a proposed series of economic sanctions on the Gaza Strip.” The new sanctions included the following severe restrictions: (1) the closure of Karni, the largest commercial crossing; (2) the prohibition of all exports from Gaza and the suspension of most industrial imports that were not of a humanitarian nature; (3) a severe reduction in the amount of fuel allowed entry; (4) a ban on the movement of Palestinians through Erez, the sole passenger crossing for Israel and the West Bank; and (5) an almost total closure of the Rafah crossing point, the only crossing on the border with Egypt. As Richard Falk, the UN Special Rapporteur for The Occupied Palestinian Territories has noted: “Such a blockade is unlawful, a massive form of collective punishment, and as such is in violation of Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and also a violation of Article 55, which requires that the occupying power ensure that the civilian population has sufficient food and that its health needs are addressed.” (See www.transnational.org/Area_MiddleEast/2009/Falk_GazaStatement_9.01.09.html) Under such an unremitting blockade, conditions in Gaza grew steadily worse as the months of 2007 went by. It is difficult to exaggerate the economic collapse of Gaza caused by all of this. An article in the British newspaper, The Guardian, written by Soumaya Ghannoushi, a freelance writer and a researcher at the University of London, described conditions in Gaza early in 2007 as follows: Gaza is at Israel’s mercy. It depends almost totally on it for electricity and fuel, a result of the 38 years of Israel’s direct control over of the Strip. This dependence has grown since June 2006, when Israel bombed Gaza’s only power station. This was forced to close on Sunday when Israel blocked fuel shipment to the Strip. And, of course, no electricity does not mean dark candlelit nights only; it means no heating in the cold Gazan winter, and, more crucially, no water, with no fuel to pump, treat, or deliver the vital liquid to homes, schools, medical clinics or hospitals.

For months a terrible cloud of stench has been hanging over the tiny coastal strip. The sanitation system is in a state of paralysis. Raw sewage is spilling out on to the streets, homes and fields, and in order to save fuel, the city has stopped collecting garbage — 400 metric tons a day.

The siege has reduced 85 percent of Gaza’s 1.5 million inhabitants to total dependency on food aid, the highest rate anywhere in the world. More than 95 percent of businesses and factories have been forced to close their doors . . .

The health system is crippled, with rapidly declining medical supplies, generated by the blockage of international aid. Hospitals are out of funds. . . . [T]he number of patients permitted to leave for medical treatment has ground almost to a halt, leading to tens of deaths.

(See www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jan/23/gazaexplodes) I was in Gaza city in May 2007, visiting my friend and former student at Fuller Seminary, Hanna Massad, the Pastor of the Gaza Baptist Church, Conditions were as bad as Ghannoushi describes. Garbage collection had not been made for many weeks. I can still remember the stench, since many of the piles of garbage were burning. The clouds of smoke were not only noxious, but very unhealthy.

The effects of this were nothing short of catastrophic, and it affected the children worst of all. Prior to 2005, when conditions were not as bad as they are now, Dr. Jean Ziegler, UN special envoy for the UN Human Rights Commission, spent 10 days in the occupied territories, from which he prepared a report for the UN General Assembly on conditions there. In a press briefing on his report held in the UN Briefing Room, the main findings were,

22% of Palestinian children under five are suffering from malnutrition-a three-fold increase from 2000.

9.3% suffer acute malnutrition-an eight-fold increase from 2000.

15.6% suffer acute anemia, which can lead to permanent impairment of physical and mental development.

Peter Hansen, who was UNRWA Commissioner-General in the same period, assessed the significance of findings like these. He wrote: The world has grown used to the idea that hunger manifests itself only in the hollow cheeks and distended stomachs of an African famine. But today in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, a dreadful, silent malnutrition is stalking the Palestinians.

In the terminology of experts, the Palestinians are suffering in the main from micronutrient deficiencies - what the World Health Organisation calls “Hidden Hunger.” It may be less dramatic than the protein-energy malnutrition that stalks African emergencies, but on the scale that it is being found among the Palestinians it is just as serious. Micronutrient deficient children fail to grow and develop normally; their cognition is damaged, often severely and irreversibly. Their immune systems are compromised. In both adults and children, mental and physical capacities are impaired. In extreme cases, blindness and death result. The mental and physical development of a generation of Palestinian children hangs in the balance. An ongoing study funded by the United States Agency for International Development has found that four out of five children in Gaza and the West Bank have inadequate iron and zinc intake, deficiencies that cause anaemia and weaken the immune system. . . .

The stark fact is that [22 per cent of the] Palestinian children are suffering from acute or chronic malnutrition for purely man-made reasons. No drought has hit Gaza . . . , no crops have failed . . . . But . . . the destruction of the economy by Israel’s closure policy have had the effect of a terrible natural disaster.

After setting forth further aspects of the situation, Hansen concluded his article: There are as yet no skeletal faces in Gaza for the television cameras to record, no bloated bellies to shock the world to action. Instead, the Palestinians face hidden hunger and the quiet horror of a generation that will be physically and mentally stunted for the rest of their lives.

(See: www.hindu.com/2002/12/10/stories/2002121004291200.htm)

Having looked then at conditions in Gaza after the Hamas’ takeover, let us look now more closely at what has happened during the last six months. As a result of the terrible conditions in Gaza that I have just described and the fact that, during the same period, Qassam rockets from Gaza had caused widespread disruption of life in southern Israeli towns and had killed four Israeli civilians in the first six months of 2008, last June 19th, Israel and Hamas enacted a cease fire brokered by the Egyptian government. The terms of the cease fire were as follows:

1. Hamas would halt all rocket attacks into Israel.

2. Israel would halt all bombing raids and military incursions into Gaza.

3. Israel would begin to significantly reduce its military blockade of Gaza.

(On these conditions see Jimmy Carter, “An Unnecessary War,” The Washington Post, Thursday, January 8, 2009; p. A15 See: www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/07/AR2009010702645) In the order that they are mentioned, let us briefly consider how each side met these terms. Term (1): On the Hamas side, the ceasefire was remarkably effective. In fact, the rate of rocket and mortar fire from Gaza into Israel dropped almost to zero, and stayed there for four straight months. The evidence for this has been set forth, surprisingly enough, in a chart of all the rockets fired from Gaza into Israel during 2008, prepared by the Israeli Embassy in New York City (which source can hardly be charged with a pro-Hamas bias): Figure 1. Number of Palestinian rockets fired in each month of 2008 (adapted from The Israeli consulate in NYC [pdf])

(See www.israelpolitik.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/gaza_fact_sheet.pdf. The evidence is also dealt with in an article published on the Huffington Post Blog, click on www.huffingtonpost.com/nancy-kanwisher/reigniting-violence-how-d_b_155611.html, from which this chart is taken)

A little arithmetic will show that during the first 6 months of 2008, the monthly average of rockets fired from Gaza into Israel was 179. However, for the first 41/2 months of the truce, from June 19 through the end of October, the contrast is dramatic and striking. Only 11 rockets were fired, and 8 of those eleven were fired in August. Hence, for 3 of the first 4 months of the ceasefire, only one rocket each month was fired into Israel. The data shows clearly that Hamas can indeed control the violence if it so chooses, and sometimes, when it has the right incentives, it does for long periods of time. However, from November through December 19, the end-date of the ceasefire, the situation was completely reversed. Once again, numerous rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel. For that 6-week period, the number of rockets fired per month rose to an average of 112. Then, on Dec. 19, Hamas declared that it would not continue the ceasefire. What caused this drastic reversal in Hamas’ actions and decisions? To determine this, one must ask how Israel fulfilled the terms of the ceasefire. So, let us turn to the terms of the ceasefire incumbent upon Israel, and let’s begin with term 2, the condition that Israel would halt all military incursions into Gaza. Evidence for this is set forth in the monthly reports of The UN Humanitarian Monitor for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, (access to wich has been given above) Here is a selected portion of the chart of the monthly report of Palestinian deaths and injuries for October 2008:

As the chart shows, on the Israeli side also, the ceasefire was remarkably effective in reducing the violence. As with the number of rockets fired from Gaza, the contrast from the first 6 months of 2008 is dramatic. A little arithmetic would show that, during the first 6 months an average of 70 Palestinians were killed each month in Gaza by the Israeli military, and an average of 153 Palestinians were injured. But, for the 41/2 months from June 19 to the end of October, only 1 Palestinian was killed by direct military action, and only 9 were injured. However, in November and December the situation was completely reversed, exactly as was the case with the rockets from Gaza into Israel. The text of the monthly report of The UN Humanitarian Monitor for the Occupied Palestinian Territories for November states that 15 Palestinians were killed and 24 injured from Israeli military incursions, and concludes, “This figure represents a sharp increase compared with the single Palestinian fatality during the four months (July - October 2008) immediately following the truce.” What happened to end this eminently successful ceasefire and bring on a new and tragic round of violence between the two sides? Before we can answer this, we must look at the second condition of the ceasefire that was incumbent upon Israel, term 3, the requirement that Israel would begin to significantly reduce its military blockade of Gaza. Tragically, from the outset of the ceasefire, Israel not only did not meet this obligation, but, in fact, did little to ease its military blockade. As a result, during the 41/2 months from June 19 to the end of October, in which the ceasefire was so very effective, Gazans continued to suffer from a lack of food, fuel, financial aid, electricity, clean water, medical supplies and more, to a degree that can only be called horrendous and unconscionable. Indeed, as the summer months went by, the situation actually deteriorated. The UN Humanitarian Monitor for July, dated August 12, states: In Gaza, . . .the population of Gaza saw little tangible dividend from the truce. The amount of commodities remained far below actual needs as the level of imports was 46% below the level in May 2007 (one month before the Hamas takeover that triggered the full closure). The restrictions on imports, combined with the total ban on exports, kept 95% of Gaza’s local industry closed.

And the Monitor for August, dated Sept 12, states:

Despite the re-opening of the Kerem Shalom commercial crossing, the amount of imports allowed to enter Gaza continued to decrease over the month, August imports constituted around 70% of July imports and 23% of the imports in May 2007, before the Hamas take-over. The lack of raw materials, combined with the continuous prohibition on exports prevented economic reactivation.

And yet, despite the fact that Hamas saw no tangible relaxation of the desperately serious living conditions in the Gaza Strip, they maintained the ceasefire from June 19 through October.

So, finally, let us ask again the question that I have raised twice before in this presentation, what did happen to end the eminently successful ceasefire and bring on a new and tragic round of violence between the two sides? The answer is crystal clear and unmistakable. In spite of the fact that the ceasefire had accomplished the end of violence by both sides, and especially the end of the rocket attacks upon the residents of southern Israel for 41/2 months, an end which Israel had been ceaselessly demanding, the cease fire was broken, not by Hamas, but by the Israeli military. Late in the evening of November 4th, while Americans voted for a new president (one cannot help but wonder if the two events are connected), Israeli troops raided the Gaza Strip. Israeli military authorities claim that the target of the raid was a tunnel that they said Hamas was planning to use to capture Israeli soldiers, but the tunnel was located 250 meters from the border fence. In the course of the action 6 Palestinian militants were killed. On November 5, Hamas resumed sending rockets into Israel. With hindsight, the Hamas leadership was doubtless stupid for reacting like robots to the Israeli provocation. But, having seen no tangible relaxation of the desperately serious living conditions in the Gaza Strip while they maintained the truce for 41/2 months, one presumes they acted out of pure frustration. However that may be, for the last six weeks of the six-month truce, from November 5 to December 19, the cease fire, to all intents and purposes, existed on paper only.

One result of the failure of the ceasefire for the Palestinians of Gaza was drastic indeed. Following the resumption of violence on November 5, Israel virtually sealed the Gaza Strip. On Dec. 23rd, 4 days before the Israeli offensive began, Prof. Sara Roy, who teaches at Harvard’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies, published an article in The London Review of Books in which she discussed the extent and ramifications of this new siege of Gaza. Let me quote just a little of her report.

On November 5, the Israeli government sealed all the gates and entrances into Gaza. Food, medicine, fuel, parts for water and sanitation systems, fertiliser, plastic sheeting, phones, paper, glue, shoes and even teacups were no longer getting through in sufficient quantities or at all. According to Oxfam only 137 trucks of food were allowed into Gaza in November. This means that an average of 4.6 trucks per day entered the strip compared to an average of 123 in October this year and 564 in December 2005. . . . UNRWA alone feeds approximately 750,000 people in Gaza, and requires 15 trucks of food daily to do so. Between 5 November and 30 November, only 23 trucks arrived, around 6 per cent of the total needed; during the week of 30 November it received 12 trucks, or 11 per cent of what was required. There were three days in November when UNRWA ran out of food. . . . On 18 December UNRWA suspended all food distribution for both emergency and regular programs because of the blockade.

30 out of 47 commercial bakeries in Gaza have had to close because they have run out of cooking gas. . . . As the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has made clear, cooking-gas canisters are necessary for generating the warmth to incubate broiler chicks. Shortages of gas and animal feed have forced commercial producers to smother hundreds of thousands of chicks. By April, according to the FAO, there will be no poultry there at all: 70 per cent of Gazans rely on chicken as a major source of protein.

Gaza’s Coastal Municipalities Water Utility (CMWU), which is not controlled by Hamas, is supposed to receive funds from the World Bank via the Palestinian Water Authority (PWA) in Ramallah to pay for fuel to run the pumps for Gaza’s sewage system. Since June, the PWA has refused to hand over those funds, perhaps because it feels that a functioning sewage system would benefit Hamas. . . . The CMWU has also asked Israel’s permission to import 200 tons of chlorine, but by the end of November it had received only 18 tons - enough for one week of chlorinated water. By mid-December Gaza City and the north of Gaza had access to water only six hours every three days.

In his report to the Special Session Of The Human Rights Council On The Situation In The Gaza Strip, held on 9 January 2009, Richard Falk the UN’s Special Rapporteur For The Occupied Palestinian Territories, summarized the situation in Gaza prior to Dec. 27th as follows: [U]p to 80% of Gaza was living under the poverty line, unemployment totals approached 75%, and the health system was near collapse from the effects of the blockade.

Finally, given the fact that Israel had not only not met the most important obligation that the cease fire imposed upon her, namely the easing of the blockade, but had in fact virtually sealed the strip, so that conditions in Gaza had become unimaginable, on December 19th, Hamas decided that to continue the ceasefire was pointless.

Yet, according to the Israeli press, as late as December 23rd, 4 days before Israel began her bombing campaign, Yuval Diskin, the head of the Israeli security service Shin Bet, “told the Israeli cabinet that Hamas is interested in continuing the truce, but wants to improve its terms.” Diskin explained that Hamas was requesting two things: an end to the blockade, and an Israeli ceasefire on the West Bank. The cabinet - eager to appear tough with elections coming in February - rejected these terms.

Clearly, as this study has shown, the cause of the current catastrophe has far more to do with Israel’s refusal to relieve the injurious and inhumane blockade of the Gaza Strip than it does with Hamas’ refusal to control the rockets fired into Israel. For Hamas has demonstrated that, with sufficient incentive, it can control the rockets. Israel, however, has demonstrated its unwillingness to allow the people of Gaza a life worth living. Until Israel is willing to end the occupation and to grant the Palestinians their own state - a state with such dimensions and character that they do indeed have a life worth living, there will be no peace for either side in this tragic conflict.