UN Secretary-General enters Gaza Strip through Israel for high-level visit
Marian Houk
January 21, 2009
UN SG BAN Ki-Moon entered the Gaza Strip from Israel on Tuesday in a convoy of armored UN vehicles flying the UN flag, on a day of uncertainty about the two-day old cease-fire that ended 22 days of unprecendented Israeli attacks on Gaza.
BAN urged both Israel and Hamas to exercise restraint.
At the infamous Erez border crossing, the UN group stopped to put on baby-blue bullet-proof vests before driving through in the bullet-proof cars.
BAN was driven directly to an UNRWA compound in Gaza City that was hit last Thursday by what UN officials said they believed were three white phosphorous shells, which burned a large quantity of donated and badly-needed humanitarian relief supplies that the UN had just managed to bring into the Gaza Strip. The IDF said that it had responded to s firing coming from in or around the compound.
BAN apparently stayed in the UN compound for the duration of his visit. There was a Hamas-organized demonstration right outside -- one of several being held simultaneously on Tuesday.
Ban made a statement in front of the still-smoldering ruins with clouds of swirling white smoke providing a dramatic backdrop. "White phosphorous burns for a long time, and it is very hard to put out", said one UN spokesperson.
According to a Reuters report published in the Washington Post, BAN said: "I have seen only a fraction of the destruction. This is shocking and alarming". This report also said that Ban called for Palestinian reconciliation and said the UN would work with any united Palestinian government to rebuild the Gaza Strip.
Ban's remarks were to have been aired live by several international television broadcasters -- but they came too late, and none of the TV stations wanted to interrupt their live coverage of Barack Hussein Obama's Inauguration ceremony. The audio of the statement was apparently not sent to UNHQ by Ahmad Fawzi, the spokesperson travelling with Ban, and was unavailable from the entire UN system -- including the UN's audio library in New York.
Apparently, the noise made by one of the Israeli surveillance-and-targeting drones might also have interfered with the audio recording.
Ban had been in the region for about a week. His trip was planned, before his departure from New York, to last from 14 to 20 January.
Ban was on a mission to stop an unprecedented 22-day Israeli military offensive aimed, according to Israeli officials in Jerusalem, at improving the security situation in Israel's south by stopping rocket, mortar, and missile fire that had come, irregularly, from Gaza, over the past eight years.
His visit to the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip is a delicate mission, because of his role as one of the four members of the Middle-East Quartet that has said it will not deal with Hamas unless and until it complies with three conditions -- recognition of Israel, acceptance of all previous agreements endorsed by the P.L.O. (notably the Oslo Accords, and subsequently the Road Map), and renunciation of violence.
Two recent UN Security Council resolutions (1850 + 1860) have called on the international community and the UN to recognize only the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, which has demanded that Hamas roll back its June 2007 military take-over in Gaza.
The background is a bit convoluted: Hamas contested January 2006 elections for the Palestine Legislative Council, running a slate of candidates for a then-newly-created political grouping, the Change and Reform Party. After their victory in the polls, and the constitution of a Hamas-dominated government, the Palestinian Authority became the target of a regularly tightened regime of sanctions that were first applied mainly by the U.S., with the active complicity of European members of the UN Security Council. A National Unity government was created in March 2007, after Saudi mediation in Mecca between Hamas and Fatah, but that did not do much to dismantle the sanctions regime. By June 2007, Hamas reportedly became concerned about a "plot" by the Fatah organization, and the Hamas Executive Forces moved militarily to oust the Fatah Preventive Security apparatus. In response, the Ramallah-based Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas dissolved the National Unity Government, and constituted an Emergency Government that is still in place today. After that, Quartet sanctions against the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah were lifted, while the sanctions against Hamas in Gaza were progressively tightened.
BAN Ki-Moon met with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert before heading to Gaza on Tuesday morning -- and it appears BAN's trip to Gaza was both cleared and coordinated with the Israeli leadership.
A UN statement informed us that "The Secretary-General told the Prime Minister that he was going to Gaza today in solidarity with United Nations staff who have worked heroically ... and to demonstrate his respect and concern for all Gazans who lost friends and families" -- since the 27 December start of an unprecedented Gazan military operation against Gaza.
Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad told journalists in his office in Ramallah on Monday that what had happened in the last three weeks is a "catastrophic event which has shocked to the core the Palestinian people. Fayyad reported that at least 1300 Palestinians had been killed during the three weeks' of attacks, and at least 5,500 have been wounded -- and the death toll may rise still further, he said, as many hundreds of the injured are in critical condition.
He acknowledged that the bitter rivalry between Hamas in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority posed a number of practical problems -- including the question of how internationally-pledged funds for Gaza's reconstruction wiill actually get to Gaza -- but he made a plea that financial help should not be given in a way that will cause further division, but that will instead will help the Palestinians "reunite".
"This is not a time to settle scores, or to debate who are the winners and who are the losers", Fayyad said.
Fayyad also said that a massive rebuilding effort can't happen unless the crossings into Gaza are reopened -- adding that "they never should have been closed in the first place". And, he said, "We Palestinians have long called for an international presence in the occupied Palestinian territory ... so why only at Rafah -- so why only at Rafah"? -- along the border with Egypt.
Basic building materials such as cement, pipes (steel or plastic pipes), wood, and glass, have all been unavailable, except at exorbitant cost, for more than a year, under the progressively-tightened Israeli military-administered blockade that began in October 2007, following an Israeli cabinet declaration that that Hamas-run Gaza was an "enemy entity" or "hostile territory".
After returning to the Erez terminal to leave the Gaza Strip, the UN Secretary-General visited the Israeli town of Sderot, which has often been shelled by rocket, mortar, and artillery fire coming from Gaza, and commiserated with the inhabitants.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert proclaimed a unilateral Israeli cease-fire that went into effect at 2am on Sunday in Gaza. Later on Sunday, Hamas announced its own unilateral cease-fire, that it said would allow for a week for all IDF troops to withdraw from the Gaza Strip -- one of the most densely-inhabited parts of the planet.
Israel initially said it would not pull out of Gaza until all firing from Gaza ceased. Then, Israeli political sources said that the intention was to have all Israeli soldiers out by the time that Obama takes the oath of office in his inauguration ceremony in Washington -- it was not clear if that withdrawal was completed on time.
BAN urged both Israel and Hamas to exercise restraint.
At the infamous Erez border crossing, the UN group stopped to put on baby-blue bullet-proof vests before driving through in the bullet-proof cars.
BAN was driven directly to an UNRWA compound in Gaza City that was hit last Thursday by what UN officials said they believed were three white phosphorous shells, which burned a large quantity of donated and badly-needed humanitarian relief supplies that the UN had just managed to bring into the Gaza Strip. The IDF said that it had responded to s firing coming from in or around the compound.
BAN apparently stayed in the UN compound for the duration of his visit. There was a Hamas-organized demonstration right outside -- one of several being held simultaneously on Tuesday.
Ban made a statement in front of the still-smoldering ruins with clouds of swirling white smoke providing a dramatic backdrop. "White phosphorous burns for a long time, and it is very hard to put out", said one UN spokesperson.
According to a Reuters report published in the Washington Post, BAN said: "I have seen only a fraction of the destruction. This is shocking and alarming". This report also said that Ban called for Palestinian reconciliation and said the UN would work with any united Palestinian government to rebuild the Gaza Strip.
Ban's remarks were to have been aired live by several international television broadcasters -- but they came too late, and none of the TV stations wanted to interrupt their live coverage of Barack Hussein Obama's Inauguration ceremony. The audio of the statement was apparently not sent to UNHQ by Ahmad Fawzi, the spokesperson travelling with Ban, and was unavailable from the entire UN system -- including the UN's audio library in New York.
Apparently, the noise made by one of the Israeli surveillance-and-targeting drones might also have interfered with the audio recording.
Ban had been in the region for about a week. His trip was planned, before his departure from New York, to last from 14 to 20 January.
Ban was on a mission to stop an unprecedented 22-day Israeli military offensive aimed, according to Israeli officials in Jerusalem, at improving the security situation in Israel's south by stopping rocket, mortar, and missile fire that had come, irregularly, from Gaza, over the past eight years.
His visit to the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip is a delicate mission, because of his role as one of the four members of the Middle-East Quartet that has said it will not deal with Hamas unless and until it complies with three conditions -- recognition of Israel, acceptance of all previous agreements endorsed by the P.L.O. (notably the Oslo Accords, and subsequently the Road Map), and renunciation of violence.
Two recent UN Security Council resolutions (1850 + 1860) have called on the international community and the UN to recognize only the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, which has demanded that Hamas roll back its June 2007 military take-over in Gaza.
The background is a bit convoluted: Hamas contested January 2006 elections for the Palestine Legislative Council, running a slate of candidates for a then-newly-created political grouping, the Change and Reform Party. After their victory in the polls, and the constitution of a Hamas-dominated government, the Palestinian Authority became the target of a regularly tightened regime of sanctions that were first applied mainly by the U.S., with the active complicity of European members of the UN Security Council. A National Unity government was created in March 2007, after Saudi mediation in Mecca between Hamas and Fatah, but that did not do much to dismantle the sanctions regime. By June 2007, Hamas reportedly became concerned about a "plot" by the Fatah organization, and the Hamas Executive Forces moved militarily to oust the Fatah Preventive Security apparatus. In response, the Ramallah-based Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas dissolved the National Unity Government, and constituted an Emergency Government that is still in place today. After that, Quartet sanctions against the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah were lifted, while the sanctions against Hamas in Gaza were progressively tightened.
BAN Ki-Moon met with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert before heading to Gaza on Tuesday morning -- and it appears BAN's trip to Gaza was both cleared and coordinated with the Israeli leadership.
A UN statement informed us that "The Secretary-General told the Prime Minister that he was going to Gaza today in solidarity with United Nations staff who have worked heroically ... and to demonstrate his respect and concern for all Gazans who lost friends and families" -- since the 27 December start of an unprecedented Gazan military operation against Gaza.
Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad told journalists in his office in Ramallah on Monday that what had happened in the last three weeks is a "catastrophic event which has shocked to the core the Palestinian people. Fayyad reported that at least 1300 Palestinians had been killed during the three weeks' of attacks, and at least 5,500 have been wounded -- and the death toll may rise still further, he said, as many hundreds of the injured are in critical condition.
He acknowledged that the bitter rivalry between Hamas in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority posed a number of practical problems -- including the question of how internationally-pledged funds for Gaza's reconstruction wiill actually get to Gaza -- but he made a plea that financial help should not be given in a way that will cause further division, but that will instead will help the Palestinians "reunite".
"This is not a time to settle scores, or to debate who are the winners and who are the losers", Fayyad said.
Fayyad also said that a massive rebuilding effort can't happen unless the crossings into Gaza are reopened -- adding that "they never should have been closed in the first place". And, he said, "We Palestinians have long called for an international presence in the occupied Palestinian territory ... so why only at Rafah -- so why only at Rafah"? -- along the border with Egypt.
Basic building materials such as cement, pipes (steel or plastic pipes), wood, and glass, have all been unavailable, except at exorbitant cost, for more than a year, under the progressively-tightened Israeli military-administered blockade that began in October 2007, following an Israeli cabinet declaration that that Hamas-run Gaza was an "enemy entity" or "hostile territory".
After returning to the Erez terminal to leave the Gaza Strip, the UN Secretary-General visited the Israeli town of Sderot, which has often been shelled by rocket, mortar, and artillery fire coming from Gaza, and commiserated with the inhabitants.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert proclaimed a unilateral Israeli cease-fire that went into effect at 2am on Sunday in Gaza. Later on Sunday, Hamas announced its own unilateral cease-fire, that it said would allow for a week for all IDF troops to withdraw from the Gaza Strip -- one of the most densely-inhabited parts of the planet.
Israel initially said it would not pull out of Gaza until all firing from Gaza ceased. Then, Israeli political sources said that the intention was to have all Israeli soldiers out by the time that Obama takes the oath of office in his inauguration ceremony in Washington -- it was not clear if that withdrawal was completed on time.
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