58 Norwegian organisations are demanding in an appeal that Norway put pressure on Israel to end the country’s blockade of the Gaza Strip.
On Tuesday, representatives of the organisations convened at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Oslo to hand over the appeal to Foreign Minister, Ine Eriksen Søreide (H).
The initiative comes from the Norwegian People’s Aid, the Trade Union, Defense of International Law and Ships to Gaza Norway, which has been endorsed by among others, by YMCW- YMCM Global, Norwegian PEN, Changemaker, the parties SV and Red Socialists, the Oslo Labour Party and the Center Party Youth division.
The Gaza Strip was occupied by Israel in 1967 and today is home to over 2 million Palestinians. Israel withdrew in 2005, but imposed a severe blockade after Hamas won the elections in the Palestinian territories the following year. Israel has carried out three major military offensives and responses against the area since.
Want countermeasures
The UN has long demanded that Israel abolish the blockade of the Gaza Strip, but has not put power behind this demand.
UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Michael Lynk, recently urged the world community to take countermeasures against Israel as a result of the country’s serious and persistent violation of international law.
The Gaza Strip health care system is suffering from an acute shortage of medicines, equipment and doctors, and education and was breaking down even before the Corona pandemic hit.
War Crime
“The Palestinians, a population under occupation and blockade, are a high-risk group for both infection and disproportionate control measures from the ‘occupying power’ ,” says Norwegian People’s Aid Director of Development and Humanitarian Cooperation, Gry Ballestad.
– We urge the Foreign Minister to take immediate action against the UN and other international bodies in order to put an end to Israel’s collective punishment of the Palestinians, an act which according to the 1949 Geneva Conventions is regarded as a war crime, it states further.
© NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today
The Gaza Strip should be moved a couple of its lengths west into Egypt, and its people moved there. There is just going to continue to be unending trouble otherwise.
Israel then has the obligation to provide monetary support and mass desalination technology and construction, to make the desert there bloom.
As to Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Christians and Muslims elsewhere within it, Christian lands around Bethlehem and Nazareth should be returned and those religions’ holy sites should stay protected. And like for Gaza, Israel incurs the responsibility to see that those it displaces from the West Bank move into better conditions and lives, wherever that might be. (Assad/Syria has treated everyone fairly, as long as they don’t try to overthrow him.)
As just one individual American, I am profoundly sick of hearing about Israel and the Mideast generally and – like most who supported Trump (rather than Hillary’s World War 3, starting in Syria) – want our servicepeople OUT of there ASAP.
According to BulgarianMilitary com the Israelis are claiming the Iranians are pulling out of Syria. Israel has been incessantly attacking Iranian/Hezbollah assets in Syria and even Syrian Air Force aircraft on the ground. If the Iranians are in fact pulling out of Syria, this may indicate Hezbollah will be less of a threat.
Meanwhile, both Turkish and *Russian* forces are building up in northern Syria for an apparent showdown.
NATO SecGen Jens Stoltenberg’s recent foolish claim that NATO will support Turkey *in Syria* goes beyond Article 5 collective *defense* and – unless NATO vetoes this – makes the chance of a direct NATO vs. Russia confrontation – WAR – World War 3 – not just likely but probable.
(So, again, how *are* Norway’s civil defenses now … for *everyone* … after the De Glemte Rommene TV report?)
Isn’t Jens’s tenure as SecGen about finished? Hopefully? (He *had* been a very moderate, rational element helping to avoid war with Russia.)