Spending Christmas and New Year in the Holy Land was to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. But in December of 2008, there was little to celebrate in Israel and the Palestinian Territories. As I landed on Christmas Day, tension between Israel and Hamas had escalated to the point where an official declaration of war was imminent. Many had expected Israel to respond to Hamas rocket fire with military force sooner than it did.
Two days after Christmas, Israel began its Operation Cast Lead.
My main purpose for traveling to the region was to research the proposed Red-Dead canal project - a joint effort by Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority to construct (after considering a feasibility study) a 112-mile canal and tunnel system from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea. The project aimed to alleviate the region's water crisis and revive the Dead Sea. My schedule included stops in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Ramallah and the Dead Sea shore in Ein Gedi. But the outbreak of war in Gaza necessitated a visit to the Israeli-Gaza border first.
The Israeli-Gaza Border and Hamas Rockets
Hamas rocket fire steadily increased during 2008. According to GlobalSecurity.org, Hamas fired a total of 1,750 rockets into Israel that year. Another 771 rockets and mortars were reportedly fired at southern Israeli cities such as Sderot and Ashkelon during the three-week operation.
In the months leading up to the military offensive, Israel kept journalists out of the Gaza Strip. In November of 2008, major media organizations including CNN, BBC, the Associated Press and Reuters, among others, sent a letter to then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, demanding that Israel allow reporters to cover the conflict from within Gaza. Israel blamed it on security concerns.
| Timeline of events between November 2008 and January 2009, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. | |
|
Nov. 5, 2008 |
Without any prior notification to media organizations, Israel's military authorities stopped allowing foreign journalists into the Gaza Strip. |
| Nov. 19 | Heads of major media organizations including CNN, BBC, the Associated Press and Reuters, among others, sent a letter to then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, demanding that Israel allow reporters to cover the conflict from within Gaza. |
| Nov. 24 | The Foreign Press Association in Israel (FPA) petitioned Israel's Supreme Court asking it to rule on the legality of the ban. |
| Nov. 25 | The Supreme Court ordered the government to respond to the FPA's inquiry within 15 days. The government failed to meet that deadline. |
| Dec. 27 | Israeli defense officials imposed extensive "closed military zones" inside Gaza and throughout a two-mile strip around its perimeter. |
| Dec. 31 | The Supreme Court ruled that the government must grant 12 journalists entry into Gaza each time the Erez Crossing on the northern end of the strip was opened. The government failed to respond to the Court's decision. |
| Jan. 2 | The Court recommended on Jan. 2 that eight foreign journalists – two chosen by the defense ministry and six picked through a lottery – be granted access each time the Erez Crossing was opened. |
| Jan. 22 | Israeli authorities granted access to a total of eight journalists – far fewer than the number ordered by the Supreme Court. |
| Jan 23 | Israel removed all the restrictions that it had put in place in early November. |
| Jan. 25 | The Supreme Court issued a final ruling on the issue, overturning the blanket ban on the entry of foreign journalists and stating that reporters are to be granted access to Gaza "unless the security situation changes drastically in such a way that the Erez Crossing has to be closed completely for security reasons. |
On Dec. 28, I purchased a round-trip ticket to Ashkelon at the Tel Aviv Central Bus Station with the intent of reaching the Erez crossing. Seeing the equipment draped on my body, the man at the ticket counter smiled and asked "journalist?" I smiled and nodded, took my ticket and proceeded to the boarding platform.
There weren't too many passengers to Ashkelon but many of the ones on the bus were young men and women of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), probably in their early 20s (if not still teenagers). One by one, as they walked down the aisle to find a seat, their M16 rifles brushed against my shoulder. On this second visit to Israel and having become quite comfortable with public transport, the presence of so many guns on the bus had stopped attracting my attention.
The central bus stations in both Tel Aviv and Jerusalem are typically crowded with young Israeli soldiers, in their olive-green uniforms, either on their way to the frontlines or going home on leave.
In Ashkelon, residents were, for the most part, going about their day-to-day lives, though fearing the next Hamas rocket attack. The Committee to Protect Journalists reported that Israel declared a two-mile area around the Gaza Strip "closed military zones" on Dec. 27. However, there was no visible barrier restricting access a day later. No checkpoints along the main roads and no major military presence on the streets. At that time, the mass influx of journalists had not taken place.
The Erez border crossing is roughly 10 miles from Ashkelon. The taxi driver agreed to drive me to the crossing and back. I decided I would cross over to Gaza if I was permitted but was fairly certain I would not be allowed.
As I approached the security terminal at Erez, a Palestinian woman and two children were seated on the bench waiting to cross over to Gaza. The guards, as expected, turned me away, and I returned to Ashkelon. As we were heading back - another rocket attack - this time in a residential neighborhood.
The rocket had landed in the middle of the street. No one was hurt this time. As a small group of local journalists gathered, an Israeli soldier spoke to me anonymously. He had just been called from the reserve - one of approximately 7,000 soldiers Israel called up when the Gaza war broke out. This soldier was forced to interrupt his master's degree program to serve in the army. He said he personally wished that Israel would not move into Gaza.
Welcoming New Year 2009 in the West Bank
After Ashkelon, the next stop was the West Bank city of Ramallah in the Palestinian Territory. Surprisingly, there was no checking at the border crossing, and I arrived by nightfall.
As I checked into my usual hotel near Al-Manara Square, I requested a room with a street view to keep an eye on the situation below. The atmosphere in the city was noticeably different from when I visited in 2006. There was little to celebrate as the New Year began.
Follow Anuradha K. Herath on Twitter: www.twitter.com/AnuradhaKHerath
Tthe press association released a statement saying, “The unprecedented denial of access to Gaza for the world’s media amounts to a severe violation of press freedom and puts the state of Israel in the company of a handful of regimes around the world which regularly keep journalists from doing their jobs.”
Israel has nothing to hide. Their soldiers "brutality" is less than the US and Britain soldiers in Afghanistan. Israelis don't shoot Gazan citizens by purpose but Hamas terrorists that hide behind citizens. Although Israel uses precise weapons, sometimes civilians hit. You have to blame the Hamas for that.
Tell Associated Press to ask the US to let them to express their journalistic freedom in Afghanistan. Especially when they refer to "freedom" as a clearance to be biased against Israel.
You'll be surprised (or dismayed) to see the same things (the shooting of civilians by Israel, the Gazan's having to smuggle in food to survive, and the excusing of Israel's actions) playing out 50 years ago.
You can also see some excerpts from his book here http://us.macmillan.com/BookCustomPage.aspx?isbn=9780805073478&m_type=4&m_contentid=16725#cmscontent
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KntmpoRXFX4&feature=related
It's time for Isreal, the Palestinians, the Gazans, Egyptians, Syrians, and whomever else has skin in that game to grow up. Please end "The Never Ending Song" of war and strife and write yourselves a new harmony. Please.
But, after Cast Lead, and the casual violations of the Geneva conventions by Israel, and a US response to that of trying to protect Israel from the consequences of its actions, it will take more than politely listening to concerns expressed, and a promise to bear them in mind in future. He would need to show some willingness to do more than just slap Israel on the wrist while feeding them candy to take away the sting. And, like all temporary babysitters (and that is what the President is on this issue, the real parents of the US policy towards Israel and the Middle East aren't in the White House), he can't discipline, even for the sake of the child, when the parents have clearly said no disciplining is allowed.
{{{{greatefully fanned}}}}}}
Consequently-- the current period of relative calm.
You call the deaths of hundreds of children fortunate??? You call the destruction of thousands of homes and essential infra-structure, schools, hospitals, acres of farmland for tu nate??? You call homelessness and being deprived for an entire year of building materials and for 3 years of humanitarian aid FORTUNATE???
Your comment exposes extreme insensitivity.
No further elaboration about this woman & her children by the author of this piece. No detail of description or even giving a voice to this woman or even a small show of concern that the mother & her kids might be dead or badly injured or lose the home they were returning to within a very short time. Increasingly, there are individuals like us around the world who no longer accept this presentation of the Palestinian families as "otherized" with no individuality, no humanity & no voices worthy to be heard. We are not necessarily alone. Even Bloomberg news (a huge surprise to me as one of my favorite targets is the MSM) keeps airing the Rashid Khalidi debate in which the undecideds in the audience were influenced by the end of the debate to question the special relationship between the USA & guess who? It's time for the leaders in the USA & Europe to act in concert to end the cruel & spiteful siege of Gaza before any more Palestinian children lose their lives.
Israel's Gaza invasion was perfectly timed as a political move to boost Kadima in the polls against Likud and show that they were big on "security", but what this invasion turned into was a massive slaughter of hundreds children and civilians, total destruction of property and essential infrastructure executed with illegal weaponry in a densely populated city, together with a heavy-handed attempt to hide it all from the press.
If firing rockets in the vicinity of civilians who have moved into places that have been ethnically cleansed for them is 'heinous and immoral', what words would you use to describe firing at people who are trying to scavenge enough material from the bombed out remains of buildings to allow them to build some sort of shelter, other than mud huts, because Israel will not allow anything better to enter Gaza?
Anuradha, this is an interesting blog but I think you have some of the facts wrong. The rocket fire from Gaza didn't steadily increase during 2008, there was a ceasefire from June onwards when the rockets dropped down to just a few a month. You can check the details here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Israel–Hamas_ceasefire
Your timeline is interesting because it demonstrates that far from being a response to rockets Cast Lead was carefully planned. Israel broke the ceasefire on November 4 with an incursion into Gaza, killing six people, then started shutting journalists out the day after.
(from your source)
Can't blame Israel entirely for this one.