Gazans prevent Egypt sealing border

[Tom Joad]

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/ABC697EB-004A-4552-B2F2-BD1A41D876A9.htm
Hamas fighters have defied Egyptian attempts to reseal the border with Gaza by using a bulldozer to smash through the chain and concrete fence.

Riot police watched on Friday as hundreds of Palestinians entered Egypt for the third consecutive day in search of supplies, denied them by an Israeli blockade of Gaza.

Despite the fighters' challenge to Egyptian authority, Hamas leaders accepted an offer by Cairo to host talks with the rival Fatah faction.

Fatah, led by Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, controls only the West Bank after Hamas seized total control of the Gaza Strip in June last year.

__________________

I love this defiance of "order". An order that is intent on satisfying the elite in Israel and the US. I hope Fatah sees fit to join in talks with Hamas too, so they can unite peacefully and fight this despicable occupation and siege together.

PS i meant to remind people, that in just hours from now, Israeli peace groups are going to the border of Gaza, and will give supplies to the people of gaza.

End the blockade – completely !

Ceasefire now – for the sake of Sderot and of Gaza!

Saturday 26.1.08: A countrywide relief convoy and Israeli demonstration in solidarity on the Gaza border with a parallel Palestinian demonstration in the Strip.

It is impossible to keep one and a half million people in a huge prison, and if you try an explosion is bound to happen, as happened today at the Gaza Strip's border with Egypt. The residents of the Gaza Strip, like those of Israel and every other place in the world, have the fundamental right of free access to the outside word, for people and goods.

The Israeli Coalition Against the Siege continues preparations for the protest convoy to the Gaza border, on Saturday January 26, in coordination with the Palestinian Coalition which prepares parallel actions inside Gaza and in Ramallah, demanding a complete end to the blockade of Gaza.The policy of naked force, undertaken by Olmert and Barak, has utterly failed. It is neither desirable nor possible to renew the blockade. Nor will the continuing military offensive on Gaza end the shooting of missiles at Israeli territory. We’ll go to the Gaza border, in co-operation with Palestinian partners inside Gaza, to show there’s an alternative to siege and rocketfire – an alternative of ceasefire, peace and quiet, and the flourishing of Sderot and Gaza alike.
http://gush-shalom.org.toibillboard.info/gaza_eng.htm

[Tom Joad]

1. ain't no power like the power of the people...

cuz the power of the people don't stop.

[kayecy]

12. This seems to have been a relatively 'weaponless' mass-action .....

Tom - This seems to have been a relatively 'weaponless' mass-action.

Could it be used as a model for Ghandi type passive action against West bank road-blocks, the security-fence etc?

[ProgressiveMuslim]

13. Is it not a beautiful thing?

My sister was telling me how Charlie Gibson was choked up on ABC world news tonight, as he was describing the exodus of people into Egypt...

There is something amazing about the human spirit which refuses to die...

[papau]

2. borders - what borders - - law - what law - we're victims & can do what we want-interesting concept

[Tom Joad]

3. laws that are used to starve people should be wildly disobeyed.

[papau]

4. Folks shooting at you need not be fed by you

[Tom Joad]

7. but you oppose opening up the border of egypt too?

so that the people of Gaza should go suffer more?

[Tom Joad]

8. You seem to forget the Geneva Conventions, that forbid

collective punishment for a people under occupation, and that the Occupying power has an obligation for the welfare of the people.

[msmcghee]

9. From the Geneva Conventions - Q & A

2. When does the law of occupation start to apply?

The rules of international humanitarian law relevant to occupied territories become applicable whenever territory comes under the effective control of hostile foreign armed forces, even if the occupation meets no armed resistance and there is no fighting.

The question of "control" calls up at least two different interpretations. It could be taken to mean that a situation of occupation exists whenever a party to a conflict exercises some level of authority or control within foreign territory. So, for example, advancing troops could be considered bound by the law of occupation already during the invasion phase of hostilities. This is the approach suggested in the ICRC's Commentary to the Fourth Geneva Convention (1958).

An alternative and more restrictive approach would be to say that a situation of occupation exists only once a party to a conflict is in a position to exercise sufficient authority over enemy territory to enable it to discharge all of the duties imposed by the law of occupation. This approach is adopted by a number of military manuals.

http://www.icrc.org/web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/htmlall/634kfc?opendocument

Since Israel is neither exercising control from within the territory (control of its own border is not occupation) nor able to discharge all (or any) of the duties of occupation, then a legal state of occupation can not exist according to the Geneva Conventions.

[azurnoir]

10. Who's border is the Gaza coasline and water?

It between approx not exact 31.40N and 31.20N? Is that Gaza's?
Does Gaza have free access in and out of it's coastal waters?
Israel is at the very least blockading Gaza and exercising control over more then its own border.

[msmcghee]

14. A blockade is a legal . .

. . action when a state is engaged in war with an enemy according to international law. A blockade is not the administrative control of the society that's being blockaded. That means the laws of occuparion do not apply.

In fact, a blockade is "collective punishment" according to you and others here - yet it is an accepted form of international conflict - which means your interpretation of collective punishment is basically - bullshit.

The Geneva rules regarding collective punishment were put in place to criminalize the Nazi practice of selecting fifty or a hundred people from an occupied town and executing them - because the partisans in the town had killed a German or two.

These rules were never designed to cover anything that causes hardship to an occupied population. If the hardship has a credible purpose - like checkpoints and barriers in the WB that protect Israeli citizens from deadly attack - then that hardship is not collective punishment. It is self defense - which is the core principle around which all international laws of conflict are built.

[azurnoir]

17. yes a blockade is legal

however the 4th Geneva which covers civilians in time of conflict and not just those under occupation.

Article 4 defines who is a Protected person: Persons protected by the Convention are those who, at a given moment and in any manner whatsoever, find themselves, in case of a conflict or occupation, in the hands of a Party to the conflict or Occupying Power of which they are not nationals. But it explicitly excludes Nationals of a State which is not bound by the Convention and the citizens of a neutral state or an allied state if that state has normal diplomatic relations with in the State in whose hands they are.

and yes the rule was drafted with a different situation in mind, that does not explicitly exempt the current situation. It was what they "had in mind" not the absolute definition

By collective punishment, the drafters of the Geneva Conventions had in mind the reprisal killings of World Wars I and II. In the First World War, Germans executed Belgian villagers in mass retribution for resistance activity. In World War II, Nazis carried out a form of collective punishment to suppress resistance. Entire villages or towns or districts were held responsible for any resistance activity that took place there. The conventions, to counter this, reiterated the principle of individual responsibility. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Commentary to the conventions states that parties to a conflict often would resort to "intimidatory measures to terrorize the population" in hopes of preventing hostile acts, but such practices "strike at guilty and innocent alike. They are opposed to all principles based on humanity and justice."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Geneva_Convention

[papau]

15. And after the withdrawel who is "occupying" Gaza?

[Scurrilous]

5. "borders - what borders - - law - what law - we're victims & can do what we want.."

Isn't that Gush Emunim's mission statement?

[Tom Joad]

6. yeah, strange that... Israelis should go where ever they please

to set up settlements and what-not, but others are so angry that Palestinians go into Egypt to buy necessities.

[Vegasaurus]

18. I am delighted that the Palestinians went to Egypt

I am not so delighted that the Egyptians are anxious to seal up their borders and not deal with the Palestinians.

[Tom Joad]

19. so you are opposing Israeli government demands that Egypt seal the border?

Israel demands that Egypt restore order at Gaza-Egypt border
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/948051.html

The head of the security-political task force at the Defense Ministry, Amos Gilad, demanded over the weekend that Egypt restore order in Rafah, where thousands of Palestinians have been crossing into Egypt from the Gaza border town through a ruptured barrier since Wednesday.

At the request of Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Gilad spoke to Egyptian officials and demanded that the Egyptian authorities take action to prevent the unsupervised crossing of Gazans back and forth between the two territories.
____________________________

So we agree on something at last.

[Scurrilous]

20. Defense Ministry conferring with Egypt over open Rafah border crossing

"The head of the Defense Ministry's political security department, Amos Gilad, is currently engaged in intensive talks with senior Egyptian government officials in order to solve the issue of the open Gaza-Egypt border crossing.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak instructed Gilad to talk to the Egyptians about returning the Rafah border crossing to its status quo ante."

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3498995,00.html

[Tom Joad]

21. looks like Ynet is spreading a conspiracy theory

... :sarcasm:

[Vegasaurus]

22. Yes, I oppose those demands nt

[azurnoir]

11. Just Gush Emunim * ??????

Seems to be at least attitude of most of the parties involved, on both sides.

* admit I had to look them up

[papau]

16. true - and equally wrong when they use it