Gaza today can be described as Israel's Guantanamo Bay or Gitmo as it has come to be called, albeit a million times larger and with as many more inmates. There are too many similarities. The entire strip with its 1.5 million inhabitants has been turned by Israel into a large prison with all its sides and entry and exit points sealed The whole population has been incarcerated in the area without any proven charge against them or trial by any court, and they have been denied even basic necessities of life.
Gaza is hemmed in by Israel in the east and north, while to the west is Mediterranean Sea patrolled by Israeli gunboats. The border with Egypt also does not provide unrestricted entry and exit for the Gaza residents.
Inside Gaza, the continued Israeli blockade has brought thousands of families on the verge of starvation. It is now a big humanitarian crisis in Gaza with extreme shortage of food, medicines, a" fuel and even drinking water, deliberately created by Israel to beat the Palestinians into complete submission and surrender.
According to reports quoting relief agencies, the Israeli government has been barring trucks from entering Gaza to feed the nearly one million Palestinians who depend on international relief from groups such as UN Relief &Works Agency (UNRWA). "The loss of life from crumbling healthcare facilities, disastrous electricity cut-offs, from broken public water systems does not get totaled", says Ralph Nader writing for a well known journal Counterpunch. Other reports say cancer patients are deprived of their chemotherapy, kidney patients are cut-off from dialysis treatment and premature babies cannot receive blood-clotting medications. The misery, mortality and morbidity worsen day by day.
The worst aspect of the Gaza situation is that the US and the EU, though fully in the know of every detail of it, have been keeping a deliberate and sinister silence in the matter. The Commissioner General of the UNRWA sums it up saying, "Gaza is on the threshold of becoming the first territory to be intentionally reduced to a state of abject destitution, with the knowledge, acquiescence, and some would say, encouragement of international community." Alongside this slow murder by sickness and starvation, Israel has also unleashed its killing machine on the unarmed Palestinians caught in this large prison. During the past four years over 1000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli air raids and land attacks, almost half of them women and children. In the few months of the so called 'Hot Winter', Israeli planes and mortar fire killed 123 Palestinians, 39 of whom were infants and 12 mothers.
The plight of the Palestinians in Gaza reminds one of the Nazi concentration camps, as much as that of Guantanamo Bay prison of the US. No rights exist for the inmates. They are held without trial and killed for no fault of theirs. The only collective crime they are charged with is 'rocket fire from Gaza'. The few primitive rockets fired by the Hamas in four years are said to have killed 13 persons on the Israeli side. In retaliation, Israeli bombardment has killed more than 1000 Palestinians in two years. In fact, the Israeli officials are openly threatening the Palestinians of Holocaust.
What is really shocking is the complete silence maintained by the western media and leadership over these war crimes of Israel. It seems like a well planned conspiracy. Far from censuring Israel for this continued massacre of Palestinian citizens, the west has been blaming it on the Palestinians themselves!
