A lot has happened over the past week or so. Abbas calls an election but Hamas says you must be joking. Israel tries to dissipate some of the Goldstone heat by making known its intention of reviewing the internal military inquiry into its Gaza war crimes. This Wednesday the UN General Assembly is due to to deliberate on the Goldstone report.
In the real world beyond the make believe bubble of Abbas and his Israeli 'partner', the outrages at the al-Aqsa mosque continue as Clinton declares she sees no problem with peace talks going ahead in tandem with the continued building of Israeli settlements on Palestinian land; what further evidence is need that the peace process is dead. Echoing this sentiment Jordanian trade unionists recently marched in Amman, Jordan, demanding the ending of the peace treaty with Israel.
Meanwhile, in Gaza the situation for residents deteriorates by the day. What passes for a sewage system is near collapse and the number of Gazans out of reach of clean drinking water is growing dangerously, as raw sewage seeps into the groundwater. And just as the water crisis intensifies the Israelis, in an attempt at some kind of sick joke, allow tea through their blockade for the first time. Most of the water in gaza is now unfit for drinking according to the Palestinian Water Authority. On the West Bank Amnesty International reports that the 450,000 illegal settlers get more water than the 2.3 million Palestinians
“The 450,000 Israeli settlers, who live in the West Bank in violation of international law, use as much or more water than the Palestinian population of some 2.3m,” the report states.And the struggle for life has seen two more die in tunnel collapses and a further 16 injured over the past week alone.
Amnesty concludes: ”Israel must uphold its obligations as the occupying power by putting an immediate end to the current policies and practices which arbitrarily restrict the Palestinians’ access to and availability of water in the [occupied Palestinian territories].”
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