.
GAZA CITY (AFP) May 10 — The Hamas-led Palestinian government welcomed moves by the Middle East quartet to resume aid payments but expressed anger at the continued political boycott of the regime. “The government appreciates the efforts deployed by the international parties to alleviate the economic siege imposed on the Palestinian people,” government spokesman Ghazi Hamad said.
Coupled with Israel’s earlier decision to stop handing over customs duties that it collected on behalf of the Palestinian Authority, the suspension of aid has left the government unable to pay salaries in March and April for its 160,000 employees, including members of the security forces.
EU external relations commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner told reporters in New York that details of the “temporary international mechanism” would be fleshed out in the coming weeks.
While Hamas welcomed the prospect of an easing of the financial crisis, it tempered its reaction with criticism of the quartet’s insistence that aid would not be channelled to the government until it renounces violence, recognises Israel and respects previous peace accords.
● Drugless in Gaza – The Palestinian Genocide ◊ by Londonbear
Tue May 2nd, 2006 at 06:50:17 PM PST
NABLUS, West Bank (AP/ABC) May 10 — Palestinian gas stations began shutting down and motorists lined up at pumps after an Israeli fuel company cut off deliveries today, deepening the humanitarian crisis that has followed Hamas’ rise to power.
An end to fuel supplies for the West Bank and Gaza could cripple hospitals, halt food deliveries and keep people home from work a devastating scenario for an economy already ravaged by Israeli and international sanctions.
Dor Energy, the Israeli company that has been the sole fuel provider to the Palestinians since interim peace agreements were signed in the mid-1990s, cited growing debts for its decision, Palestinian officials said.
Warren Buffett Invests $4bn In ME Peace Effort
Israeli tycoon urges help for Palestinians
TEL AVIV, ISRAEL (BBC News) July 17, 2002 — One week before a groundbreaking ceremony at a joint Israeli-Palestinian industrial park on the outskirts of the Gaza Strip, the latest Intifada broke out.
- “People are dangerous when they have nothing to los “
Stef Wertheimer
The project – brainchild and long-time dream of Israeli industrialist Stef Wertheimer – never materialised, and the dusty piece of land which once promised to transform the Middle East through economic growth and co-existence now lies barren and deserted.
Jordan would be the first country to receive aid
under Mr Wertheimer's plans
Two years later, thousands of Israelis and Palestinians are dead. There is no peace process, and both societies are in the grip of economic crises.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
.
MOGADISHU, SOMALIA (AFP) – Islamist militants have been gaining the upper hand in fighting in Mogadishu and now control roughly 80 percent of the Somali capital, according to a UN Security Council report.
The council panel which monitors the UN arms embargo on Somalia released its report as fresh fighting raged in lawless Mogadishu between Islamist militants and gunmen loyal to a US-backed alliance of warlords.
Both groups are opposed to the establishment of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) as a central government.
Machine gun, artillery and rocket fire echoed through the city’s streets after a ceasefire called by Islamic courts collapsed.
The UN report said the warlords alliance had been “severely degraded” by a series of bloody fights with the Islamic militants, who managed to strengthen their hold over large areas formerly held by the warlords.
The recent Mogadishu fighting pits the fundamentalists against the US-backed Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT). The newly-formed alliance has vowed to curb the growing influence of the Islamic courts that have gained backing by restoring a semblance of stability to areas in Mogadishu by enforcing Sharia (Islamic) law.
The UN report made it clear that all warring factions — the TFG, the fundamentalists and the warlord alliance — are supported by other unnamed states. “The clandestine support of individual states is narrowly defined and motivated by self-interest,” it said. “As a result, the (UN) Monitoring Group sees no end to the trend of continued clandestine state support and, therefore, no end to the ongoing militarization in the near future.”
The Islamic militants were said to be using foreign fighters as well as shoulder-fired anti-tank weapons and to have overrun APRCT territory, killing or capturing alliance militia members.
Somalia has been without a functioning central government for nearly 15 years and has been wracked by warlord-fuelled violence since the 1991 ouster of strongman Mohamad Siad Barre.
● At Least 96 Killed in Somali Fighting
● Somaliland Times
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
.
SHIFA, Palestinian Territory (Haaretz) May 11 — At least four people suffering from kidney diseases died in the Gaza Strip in April, after the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority Health Ministry cut the Shifa Hospital’s budget for the necessary dialysis treatments.
“There are 650 people suffering from kidney diseases in the Gaza Strip, and 300 of them are treated at Shifa Hospital,” hospital spokesman Dr. Guma’a Al-Saka said Tuesday. “However, since the end of March, [the hospital] was forced to reduce their treatments from three per week to two, and at least four people did not survive the reduction.”
According to Al-Saka, the hospital’s oncology and cardiology departments are facing similar problems.
Rima al Majdalawi, a mother of four, has metastatic ovarian cancer and needs chemotherapy. But there are no drugs for it at Shifa, any more than there are antibiotics for certain specific uses. Instead, the only treatment Ms Majdalawi, 28, is receiving is symptomatic. This includes paracetemol for fever and morphine for the pain, a drug which itself is in short supply and issued only when it is desperately needed. “We could run out of it any minute,” Saleh al Dali, the hospital’s haematology and oncology chief nursing officer, says.
“We have nothing to do with Fatah or Hamas,” Ms Majdalawi’s mother, Ataf, said. “But we are paying the price. We are always facing pressures but now they want the Palestinians to overturn their government.”
Ms Majdalawi should have been seen by doctors in Israel’s Tel Hashomer hospital recently, but was refused permission. “I am dangerous,” she said. “I am a security risk.”
But while security reasons are often cited for not allowing patients into Israel, Dr Basem Naim, the Palestinian Health Minister, said that many of the 270 patients awaiting visits to Israeli hospitals were unable to go because the PA simply did not have the money to pay for their treatment.
Collapse of the Palestinian Health System
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
Mercy Corps is front paging the Gaza crisis. They must have found a charity to work with that hasn’t been conveniently put on a terrorist list.
We support puppets and traitors who would rather do our bidding (or Israel’s) than do the best for their own people.