Don’t expect accurate reporting from Gaza

Monday Jul 16 2007

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) reports that Hamas’ Executive Force attacked three journalists who were covering a demonstration organized by national factions in Southern Gaza. The journalists were detained and forced to delete all their video footage and photographs before being freed. The demonstration had been organized by factions of the PLO, who called for dialogue, Palestinian unity and the raising the Palestinian flag, while condemning the military showdown. They met with a larger demonstration organized by flag-raising supporters of Fatah who chanted slogans against Hamas and its leaders.

PCHR is ‘deeply concerned’ over the detention and threatening of journalists and stressed that they must be afforded protection to be able to carry out their jobs freely and enjoy their right to the freedom of expression.

Meanwhile, Palestinian Industrialists report that 80% of Gaza’s factories have temporarily shut down after Israel closed border crossings in response to the Hamas takeover of the coastal strip.

“The factory closures make Gaza’s 1.5 million residents increasingly dependent on humanitarian aid,” said Michael Bailey of Oxfam International.

“Before the latest closures, some 85 percent of Gazans received some form of aid,” he said. “If the crossings between Gaza and Israel aren’t opened soon, the slide into all-out dependency will be swift and inevitable,” he continued.

Israel said it keeps Gaza’s main cargo crossing closed for security reasons and because it cannot coordinate truck shipments with Gaza’s Hamas rulers.

“Since the fall of Gaza to Hamas, Israel has only permitted food and medicine to enter Gaza,” said Bassim Khoury, head of the Palestinian Federation of Industries. Palestinian businesses have been unable to import raw materials or export goods.

Mohammed al-Talbani, who owns the Al Auda cookie factory in Gaza, said he has laid off 270 of his 370 workers. “It is a mistake to think that choking Gaza will work against Hamas,” he said in a statement.

“Quite the contrary - the economic stranglehold is driving people to extremism. In Gaza, people receive food assistance from Hamas, and they are blaming Israel for the closure,” he continued.

However, Shlomo Dror, a spokesman for Israel’s coordinator of policy in the Palestinian territories, said that Israel is doing its best under difficult circumstances to avert a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. He noted that Hamas militants have fired at Gaza crossings, and that this makes it difficult to increase truck shipments.