Morys Ireland's diary

The following is an article by Joharah Baker at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue:

Apparently, the Gazans have had enough. This morning, after two days of demonstrating at the Rafah border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, armed Palestinians dynamited several holes in the barrier and scores of angry and beleaguered Gazan citizens surged into Egyptian territory to stock up on basic supplies.

Citizens brought back food, fuel, clothes and even cigarettes after months of a brutal Israeli-imposed siege and two days of total darkness. On January 17, Israel refused to allow fuel into the Strip, forcing Gaza’s main power plant to shut down. The majority of Gaza’s 1.5 million residents were plunged into darkness during two of the coldest days of the year.

The suffering endured by Gaza’s residents is obvious – Israel has clamped a tight siege on the Strip ever since Hamas overtook the 360 square kilometer territory last June, only opening the border crossings intermittently to allow basic necessities through. Israeli military operations have been ongoing, escalating at times while ebbing at others. Since January 15, 39 Gazans have been killed by Israeli operations, many of these unarmed civilians.

Israel claims the fuel cut was one more tactic to halt the Palestinian rockets being fired into Israeli territory, calling on citizens to reject Hamas, on which it pinned all of the peoples’ woes. The power cut inevitably led to bakeries closing their doors and hospitals running on generators, emergency rooms only accepting the direst of cases. The second day of the sanctions, Israel took its punishment up a notch, barring any laptop computers or even mini devices such as MP3s into Gaza. Schools were obviously disrupted as were businesses and any food left on the shop shelves skyrocketed in price.

So, it is no surprise that Wednesday morning hundreds of residents stormed the Rafah Crossing and forced their way into Egypt. Still, while this may solve the problem for a few days, the real question is what will happen to Gaza in the long run.

The good news is that not all the world is completely indifferent to the plight of the Gaza Strip. Following the fuel cut and the subsequent electricity blackout, demonstrations in solidarity with the Palestinians of Gaza broke out both in the Palestinian territories, the Arab world and elsewhere. Thousands of people took to the streets in Mauritania, Denmark, and Lebanon among others, demanding that Israel lift the siege. Under international pre...