Text file below:
 
NEWS RELEASE:
Palestinian Canadians & Others Demand Siege on Gaza be Broken.
January 21, 2008.
Gaza City was plunged into darkness Sunday after Israel blocked the shipment of fuel that powers its only electrical plant. 1.5 million Palestinians civilians who live in Gaza are already besieged and are suffering from severe food, medicine and life essentials shortages imposed on them by the inhumane Israeli aggression. Israel who occupies the Palestinian lands are committing a 21st century Holocaust against the Palestinians by starving and killing them hoping to force them into submission and into accepting the illegal occupation of Palestinian land and to forgo the right of return. 
We the Palestinian Canadian community and our Canadian friends, signatories below, demand that the Canadian government, our politicians, our MPs:
 
1.       Condemn the latest Israeli aggression against the Palestinians in Gaza,
2.       Demand an immediate halt to all Israeli brutal use of military force against the Palestinians which is taking a serious humanitarian toll on civilians,
3.       Lift the blockade on the Palestinian people and allow all living essentials, food, medicine and energy to enter the territories without any delay.
4.       Allow an independent international tribunal to enter the Palestinian territories to investigate the Israeli war crimes in the Gaza Strip and
5.       Call upon the international community and Canada in particular to act immediately to stop these crimes;
6.      And call upon the international community and Canada in particular to renew the call to the High Contracting Parties of the Fourth Geneva Convention to fulfill their responsibility under Article 1 of the Convention, to ensure that it is respected under all circumstances, and their responsibility under Article 146 to pursue persons suspected of perpetrating serious violations of the convention. We affirm that Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) violations are considered war crimes under Article 147 of the Convention and under its first protocol.
We ask that our Mayor, our MPs, MPPs and MNAs join the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and international human rights groups who have warned that the blockade will cause a health catastrophe, will drastically affect hospitals, sewage treatment and water facilities and to condemn Israel and force it to lift these inhumane measures which defy basic humanitarian standards.
BACKGROUND:
Israel is responsible for creating an impossible balance of human suffering on both sides of the border. Basic foods such as rice, flour and cooking oil are in acute shortage; bakeries stopped operating because they had neither power nor flour. People are dying in hospitals and homes because dialysis machines are not working and medicine supplies are gone.
Although Israel supposedly pulled out of Gaza in 2005, Israel still controls most land, sea and air access to the territory. Israel must lift the blockade because of the humanitarian crisis developing in Gaza.
Gaza is a prison where 79 percent of households live in poverty, and children scavenge through dumpsters. It is also an Israeli target range, where schools, bridges and electric plants have been destroyed.
In the West Bank, Israel continues to expand its settlements and build its wall deep inside Palestinian territory, destroying dozens of Christian and Muslim Palestinian communities. Meanwhile, Palestinians are the first ever occupied population to be placed under international sanctions.
The international community including Canada must ensure that the Israelis meet their legal obligations, without discrimination against the Palestinians and to respect and recognize their right to live in freedom and dignity.
 
The Israeli military and economic siege of Gaza has led to a collapse in Palestinian living conditions and many people only survive by looking for scraps of food in rubbish dumps. The siege created mass despair, anger and a sense of hopelessness and abandonment.
 
Israel closed the entry and exit points into the Gaza Strip, home to 1.5 million Palestinians, this last week and has conducted frequent raids and bombings that have killed well over 35 people and wounded hundreds for the past week. The crisis in Palestine has been largely ignored by Canada. People are eating only one meal a day, bread with tomatoes or cheap vegetables, the crisis has worsened; some 80 per cent of people in Gaza could not meet their family's food needs. People are raiding garbage dumps. Not only do Palestinians in Gaza get little to eat but what food they have is eaten cold because of the lack of electricity and money to pay for fuel. In one month alone 6 per cent of Gaza's agricultural land was destroyed by Israeli bulldozers. The total closure imposed by Israel, supplemented by deadly raids, has led to the collapse of the Palestinian economy. The 35,000 fishermen cannot fish because Israeli gunboats will fire on them if they go more than a few hundred yards from the shore.
 
The people of Gaza are paying a heavy price for being Palestinian; for merely inhabiting the land which every nation in the world has confirmed belongs to the Palestinian people. We believe that this Zionist escalation is the result of Bush's visit and a natural result of the cover supplied by Bush to the Israeli occupation authorities to go forward in their aggression against the Palestinian people, particularly in the Gaza Strip. 115 Palestinians have been killed by the IDF since the end of the Bush's Annapolis Peace Conference.
 
Signatories,
Palestinian Association of Hamilton, Wael Ghuniem, president waelgh@yahoo.co.uk 905-870-7905
Niagara Palestinian Association, Susan Howard-Azzeh, chair: niag_pal@yahoo.ca 905-984-6515
The Canadian Palestinian Foundation of Quebec – La Fondation Canado-Palestinienne du Quebec CPFQ, Faraj Nakhleh, president: faraj.nakhleh@gmail.com 514-233-2737, Zahia El-Masri, executive director 514-233-2737
Parole Arabe, Ehab Lotayef, Denis Kosseim: ehab.lotayef@mcgill.ca 514-941-9792
Canadian Arab Federation, Khaled Mouammar, national president: benwalid@rogers.com 416-879-6766
Palestine House, Issam al Yamani executive director: ialyamani@aol.com 905-270-3622
Palestinian Association of Brantford, Ibrahim Kanaan, president:  pabrantford@yahoo.ca  519-770-4501
Niagara Coalition for Peace Susan Howard-Azzeh: susanha103@yahoo.ca 905-984-6515
 
 
=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.
EMERGENCY PICKET: END THE SIEGE ON GAZA! 
=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.
Date: Friday Jan. 25
Time: 5pm 
Place: Israeli Consulate at 180 Bloor St. West,
Toronto, Ontario
=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=
Organized by Palestine House and the Jewish Women’s 
Committee to End the Occupation.
info@palestinehouse.com
=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=.=
 
At approximately 8pm on Sunday, January 20th, the
Gaza Strip power plant ran out of fuel and shut down,
plunging the Gaza Strip into darkness. The closure of
the Gaza power plant, in addition to Israel's
continuing tightened siege of the Gaza Strip, will
have a catastrophic effect on the 1.5 million
residents of Gaza, who are already suffering chronic
shortages of fuel, medicine and basic food stuffs.
 
 
After months of increasingly harsh sanctions, Israel
imposed a total closure on the Strip's border
crossings, even preventing the delivery of
humanitarian aid.  Meanwhile the Israeli army
continues its attacks on the imprisoned Palestinian
people of Gaza, demolishing homes, factories and
agricultural land and carrying out arrests.  In the
week of Jan 10 –16 alone, the Israeli military killed
26 Palestinians, and wounded 44 others in Gaza. Fatal
bombing raids continue, killing Palestinian men, women
and children.  United Nations Special Rapporteur on
Human Rights, John Dugard said “Gaza is a prison and 
Israel seems to have thrown away the key.” 
 
Israel is counting on our apathy to see how far
 they
can go on starving the people of Gaza – so we need 
to act, be loud and clear – that the collective
punishment of Palestinians is a crime against
humanity. 
 
Come out to this picket – Stand with
 the people of
Gaza!
 
Toronto picket organized by Palestine House in
conjunction with the Jewish Women’s Committee to 
End the Occupation weekly Friday pickets. 
Endorsed by various Arab and social justice
 organizations.
FACTS ABOUT THE SEIGE ON GAZA  
To date, IOF have closed all border crossings to the
Gaza Strip for almost 18 months continuously. The
total siege imposed by IOF on the Gaza Strip has had a
disastrous impact on the humanitarian situation
 in
Gaza, and has violated the economic and social rights
of the Palestinian civilian population, particularly
their rights to appropriate living conditions, health
and education. It has also paralyzed most economic
sectors. Furthermore, severe restrictions have been
imposed on the movement of the Palestinian civilian
population. The siege of the Gaza Strip has severely
impacted the flow of food, medical supplies and other
necessities, such as fuel, construction materials and
raw materials for various economic sectors. After the
Hamas' takeover of Gaza in June 2007, IOF further
tightened the siege imposed on the Gaza Strip, and the
living and economic conditions of Palestinian civilians in 
Gaza have subsequently deteriorated. On 19 September 2007, 
the Israeli government declared the Gaza Strip “A hostile entity” 
and measures of collective punishment against the
 civilian population
of Gaza escalated from this point. Since September
2007, the Israeli Government have severely limited the
goods exported to the Gaza Strip to just nine basic
materials. Consequently, local markets have run out of
many goods, causing sharp increases in prices, which
in some cases have amounted to 500%. 
NUMBERS
. 69 is the death toll in the Gaza strip due to lack
of medical drugs or due to Israel preventing patients
from leaving for medical treatment. 
. ZERO will be the stock balance of 360
 basic drugs at
the Ministry of Health stores in Gaza by February 2008
due to the Israeli siege.
. ZERO is the stock balance of 60 blood bank supplies
and lab materials at the Ministry of Health in Gaza
due to the Israeli siege .
. 624 students are prevented from leaving Gaza to
their universities due to the Israeli siege. 
. 900 workers lost their jobs in the light drinks
factories alone due to the Israeli siege on Gaza.
. 25,000 workers lost their jobs in the textile sector
due to the Israeli siege on
 Gaza.
. 6,000 workers lost their jobs in the furniture
factories in Gaza due to the Israeli siege.
. 120,000 workers lost their jobs inside the green
line due to the Israeli siege on Gaza.
- end -