Israel's declaring Gaza "hostile" is but a way to justify its unwarrantable starvation of Palestinians under occupation, writes Saleh Al-Naami Half an hour after the debate between them grew heated, Mahmoud Al-Radi had no choice but to agree with his wife, Hinadi, to purchase a new gas cylinder to use for light during electricity outages in their home in Al-Nuseirat Refugee Camp in the central Gaza Strip. Lighting has become a pressing matter following the decision of the Israeli government to consider Gaza a "hostile entity" leading Israel to cut off the Strip's electricity. With winter approaching, many Gazan families are trying to deal with the repercussions of Israel's draconian stand. While some Palestinians are able to cope with temporary electricity outages, there is no dispute that Gaza's residents will not be able to weather other means of collective punishment approved by the Israeli government. Israel provides the Gaza Strip with 150 megawatts of electricity per month, which constitutes 45 per cent of Gaza's electricity needs. According to the first stage of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's plan, if locally manufactured missiles continue to be fired at Israeli settlements in the Negev, Israel will significantly cut back electricity supplies. The plan clearly states that supplies will only suffice hospitals and health facilities. The second stage of the plan includes significantly limiting the amount of fuel that is allowed to enter Gaza. This step would mean that the Palestinian electricity generation station, which meets 50 per cent of the Strip's electricity needs, would stop working. Its operation depends on the fuel that Israel allows to be imported through Al-Mantar commercial crossing. Thus, approximately 90 per cent of present electricity supply would not be available, Gaza immersed into darkness. The plan also calls for limiting the list of goods that can be imported into Gaza to medicine and foodstuffs only. Suleiman Al-Salayma, 51, runs a mechanic's workshop for car repairs. He told Al-Ahram Weekly that implementation of the second stage of the Olmert plan would effectively destroy his business. Israeli Minister of Defence Ehud Barak, who ordered the collective punishment plan to be prepared, told government colleagues that the plan sought to significantly decrease the standard of living for Palestinians. Implementation would mean that all facilities that depend on electricity and fuel would stop working. Along with factories and workshops, construction and public transportation would grind to a halt. And in order to cut off further Ismail Haniyeh's dismissed government, the plan calls for a doubling up of Israeli financial monitoring of the Strip. If Olmert declaring Gaza a "hostile entity" leads to the imposition of collective punishment, is this legal under international law? Legal consultants in the Israeli Ministry of Foreign affairs stressed that declaring Gaza a "hostile entity" was necessary to provide "legal formulations" that would allow for the imposition of collective punitive measures on Gaza as an "entity" that continues to fire missiles into Israeli territory. Yet international law continues to treat the Gaza Strip, like the West Bank, as occupied territory, and thus places responsibility on the occupying power for all basic humanitarian needs of Palestinians in the two areas. In addition, collective punishment is forbidden under international law. Even Yediot Aharonot, the widest circulating Israeli newspaper, reported the opinions of a number of top legists in Israel who confirmed that the Israeli government's decision to consider Gaza a "hostile entity" does not release Israel from its obligations as an occupying power. It is striking that the Israeli decision received stern criticism in Israel, particularly from the security establishment. Israeli newspapers quoted a number of top officials in the Ministry of Defence itself who have warned that the decision was taken hastily and in order to appease a desire to avenge Palestinians. These officials stressed that the imposition of collective punishment, rather than targeting Hamas, will only recruit more Palestinians to the struggle against Tel Aviv. Undoubtedly the Israeli decision delivered a harsh blow to efforts exerted to convince Hamas and Palestinian resistance factions to halt firing on Israel. Shortly before the decision was taken, these efforts had reached a decisive point -- some government circles in Israel had opened channels of communication with the government of Haniyeh. Ghazi Hamed, former spokesperson of Haniyeh's government, told the Weekly that there had been indirect communications between himself and General Matan Vilnai, the Israeli deputy minister of defence, with the goal of reaching an agreement that would guarantee the resistance movements' commitment to halting operations targeting Israel in return for Israel halting its operations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Hamed added that the decision of Olmert's government had put an end to these communications and that everything had gone back to square one. According to former Israeli minister of justice Yossi Beilin, any Israeli government that overlooks an opportunity to dialogue with Hamas in order to maintain calm is "committing a strategic error". Beilin stresses that Israel's numerous attempts to settle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through military means or by way of economic pressure "will never succeed". This view was backed recently by a large number of Israeli writers and intellectuals who signed a statement demanding that Olmert refrain from waging military campaigns or imposing collective punishment. Sami Abu Zahri, official spokesperson of Hamas, stresses that the Palestinians will treat the Israeli decision as a declaration of war and will act accordingly. He holds that it will be difficult for President Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad's government to convince the Palestinian people of the point in continuing to meet with Israeli officials, demanding a boycott of the international meeting scheduled for November in Washington. Ahmed Youssef, political adviser to Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, told the Weekly, "we will not accept or submit to a fate that Israel plans for us, and decision-makers in Tel Aviv will realise that their last decision was nothing more than stupidity." Ibrahim Ibrash, minister of culture in Fayyad's government, says the Israeli decision has gone beyond usual allegations of Hamas being a "terrorist" organisation to painting more than one million Palestinians in Gaza as aggressors in an attempt to justify Israel's siege and starvation policy. Ibrash, like many Palestinians, sees the declaration also as a further attempt to split Gaza from the West Bank. When Israel said that it would treat Gaza as a hostile entity this suggested that areas under Palestinian Authority control are not hostile to Israel, which could "deepen differences between Palestinians and incite strife among them."
