the collective punishment of Gaza under apartheid:
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“Horrible situation for children”, Israel blocks UN committee from entering
Source: Missionary International Service News Agency (MISNA)
June 29, 2008
'Half of the population of Gaza is made up by minors: their current situation is horrible and could worsen still’, said a special UN committee that accused Israel of having forbidden its access to Gaza 'to hide the violations of human rights perpetrated against Palestinians’. In Cairo, Prasad Kariyawasam, president of the committee and Sri Lanka’s ambassador to the UN, said that Israeli authorities have blocked the group’s access to Gaza, forcing it to 'interview local witnesses by phone and to speak with humanitarian operators to understand what is happening on the ground’. After outlining the damage done to the population by the longstanding blockade of Gaza, Kariyawasam stressed the serious situation faced by children, described as 'the first victims of the siege’.
According to pediatricians 'child mortality rates have increased to become the highest in the region’ while the 'psycho-somatic symptoms that many children have developed can be linked directly to the suffering they are forced to endure’. The children, said the UN representative, 'see their fathers being subjected to daily humiliations and insults and they lose hope, and with it, their childhood’. The international community 'has the moral duty to intervene – said Kariyawasam – to save an entire generation of children that shall have to build the Palestine of tomorrow’.
Meanwhile, in Gaza, the atmosphere is tense following the announcement – for the third consecutive day – of the closure of cross-border points in response to the launch of two Qassam rockets toward the Negev, though these did not provoke any victims. Isralei leaders have chosen to shut down all borders, even thoughy their gradual re-opening was a major point of the latest 'ceasefire’ accords. Only a small amount of fuel is getting through, moving through the Eretz border. [AB]
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