Israel’s blockade of Gaza has been going on for 2 years. Before Israel’s three-week invasion of Gaza, half of Gazans lived below the poverty line, unemployment was at 60%, average income was $650 a year.
Amnesty international, Human Rights Watch, and even Jimmy Carter condemned Israel’s brutal blockade of Gaza as collective punishment, illegal under the Geneva Conventions.
Hamas rockets killed 17 Israelis in 2008. Most of them before July 2008, when Israel and Hamas entered into a ceasefire. The ceasefire held for four months until Israel violated it on November 4 when it sent troops into Gaza and killed several members of Hamas, and then Israel further tightened the blockade.
Hamas offered to renew teh ceasefire for a year if Israel would lift the blockade. Israel responded by bombing and invading gaza.
Hamas rockets killed 17 Israelis. Most before the ceasefire in July. The ceasefire that Israel violated.
Hamas offered to renew the ceasefire for a year if Israel would lift the blockade. Israel instead responded with a war. Israel killed 300 palestinian children and 200 adult civilians in three weeks.
Israel justified this war on teh grounds that it needed to stop Hamas rockets. Rockets that had stopped during the ceasefire. THe ceasefire that Israel had violated. A ceasefire that Hamas had offered to renew for a year if Israel would lift its blockade. A blockade that is a human rights crime on Israel’s part.
There were plenty of effective ways to stop the rockets that did NOT require the loss of hundreds of innocent palestinians.
Israel chose this war.
