{"id":2844,"date":"2008-01-23T15:18:09","date_gmt":"2008-01-23T20:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=2844"},"modified":"2008-01-23T15:18:09","modified_gmt":"2008-01-23T20:18:09","slug":"sonja-karkar-gazas-last-gasp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=2844","title":{"rendered":"Sonja Karkar: Gaza’s last gasp"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sonja Karkar, The Electronic Intifada,<\/em> 23 January 2008<\/a><\/font><\/strong> <\/a><\/p>\n

Over 1,000 Palestinian civilians have gone out on the streets in protest and to beg the world to put an end to this enforced starvation and siege. People are queuing up to find bread, but no one is baking because there is no electricity. Connections with the outside world are dwindling as mobile phones and laptops run out of battery power. There is no water because the pumps need electricity. Washing machines, cook tops and ovens are useless. People cannot get to work because there is practically no fuel for cars and buses. Hospitals with generators are running out of fuel to power them, halting all surgery procedures. Babies in incubators will die once the power goes. Asthmatics on ventilators will suffer. People needing dialysis machines and heart monitors will collapse. Clinics and laboratories will lose their tests and vaccines. Soon, all communication with the outside world will cease and what are we going to do about it?<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

Najwa Sheikh Ahmad who works for UNRWA in Gaza and began the Candles for Gaza Campaign with her husband last year in October has written to say, “The Israeli side is doing its best to steal every joyful moment in our lives. Starting from treating us like another weird species that should have no mercy, to destroying the best happy moments that a family can have, the wedding of a son, to the slow killing of my people, like banning their right to have medical treatment outside Gaza which has seen 72 people die already, to finally controlling every border and banning the regular rights of having electricity, water and fuel — basic needs that no one should have to bargain over. I am sitting in the dark cold with my three children and I try to keep them busy, but the days are long and dark and they feel bored and are starting to make trouble. Oh God, how exhausting it is to live this way in the 21st century.”<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

John Dugard, UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Palestinian territories said that “The killing of some 40 Palestinians in Gaza in the past week, the targeting of a government office near a wedding party venue with what must have been foreseen loss of life and injury to many civilians, and the closure of all crossings into Gaza raise very serious questions about Israel’s respect for international law and its commitment to the peace process.”<\/font><\/font><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

[Read the report<\/a>] <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sonja Karkar, The Electronic Intifada, 23 January 2008 Over 1,000 Palestinian civilians have gone out on the streets in protest and to beg the world to put an end to this enforced starvation and siege. People are queuing up to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdXTf-JS","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2844\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}