An 'explosive' Red Cross report leaked today documents the "devastating" effect Israel's siege is having on the population of Gaza. Heavy economic restrictions and a limited supply of basic goods are causing a "progressive deterioration in food security for up to 70 per cent of Gaza's population".

Nearly everyone has heard of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier who was captured by armed Palestinians in June 2006 and is currently being held hostage pending a prisoner exchange. The fate of Salwa Salah and Sara Siureh, two Palestinian girls kidnapped by Israeli forces in June, by contrast, remains virtually unknown:

"[O]n Thursday June 5th, 2008, between 1:30 and 2:00 a.m., Salwa Salah and Sara Siureh (both 16 years old) were arrested by the ISA [Israeli Security Agency] at their respective homes in Bethlehem. In both cases, Israeli forces used excessive force when they arrested the girls by handcuffing and blindfolding Salwa and by storming Sara's house and shouting at her. Both girls are relatives (cousins) and one of the girls is still at school. The ISA claimed that the girls were involved in militant activities. However, no charge has ever been issued against them."

"What happened in the Dahiya quarter of Beirut in 2006 will happen in every village from which Israel is fired on ...

"We will apply disproportionate force on it [the village] and cause great damage and destruction there. From our standpoint, these are not civilian villages, they are military bases...

"This is not a recommendation. This is a plan. And it has been approved".

A coalition of 21 prominent aid agencies, including the likes of Oxfam International, Save the Children UK, CAFOD, CARE International UK and Christian Aid, published a report (.pdf) this week condemning the failure of the 'Quartet' ( the EU, Russia and the UN, led by the U.S.) to achieve significant humanitarian or political progress in the occupied territories. They conclude that in five of the ten areas targeted for improvement by the Quartet, including the "three areas where progress is now most urgent" (settlements, restrictions on movement and access and ending the blockade of Gaza), "there has been either no progress or an actual deterioration in the situation."

The "only democracy in the Middle East" once again resorts to force in order to silence dissent:

"[T]he American academic Norman Finkelstein has been arrested and ordered deported from Israel. Finkelstein arrived in Tel Aviv earlier today on his way to the Occupied Territories. He was immediately detained and told he is banned from Israel for ten years. He's expected to be deported tomorrow. Finkelstein is known one of the most prominent  academic critics of Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza."

I've just returned home from the World Against War demo today in London. It was a fantastic event, with an excellent turnout (between 10-40,000, according to the BBC) and a great atmosphere. The march was called to mark five years since the invasion of Iraq, although Israel's recent crimes in Gaza were definitely on everyone's mind - which is excellent, of course. The march was convened by the Stop the War Coalition around three basic demands: troops out from Afghanistan and Iraq, no attack on Iran and an end to the siege of Gaza. On all three, as Tony Benn was sure to remind us, the marchers spoke for the majority of British and world public opinion.

Three Palestinian children aged 10, 12 and 14 were killed this evening in an Israeli air-strike in northern Gaza, bringing today's Palestinian death toll to 12. Five members of Hamas' Al-Qassam Brigades were killed this morning in two targeted assassinations in Gaza, while this afternoon two Palestinian farmers were killed by Israeli tank fire.

In retaliation for the killing of its activists, Hamas fired at least 30 Qassam rockets into Israel, killing a student in Sderot and wounding several others. Olmert indicated that the campaign of assassinations will continue, declaring that "no one in Hamas, not the low-level officials nor the highest echelon, will be immune against this war." To prove his sincerity, Israeli jets bombed the Hamas Interior Ministry (again), killing a six-month old baby and wounding at least 14 bystanders.

Here's a nice Spitting Image sketch, from the 1980s/early 1990s:

(h/t to Jews sans frontieres)

I refer, of course, to the recent encounter between President Bush's derrière and Matt Frei, butt-kisser extraordinaire. Not for Frei are half-measures and almost-there's, like standard BBC reporting which, while undoubtedly deferrential to power, typically affects at least a pretense of concern about 'balance' and 'impartiality'. No: Frei is content with nothing less than total and utter servility to power, and by God no amount of ethical standards or (perish the thought!) residual journalistic integrity will stand in his way.

There is a debate currently raging in official Israeli circles on how to deal with the Qassam rockets from Gaza. At the dovish end of the spectrum, we have Vice Premier Haim Ramon, former Minister of Justice, arguing against a full-scale military assault on the grounds that it "would cost many IDF casualties" and advocating instead that Israel collectively punish the entire population of Gaza by reducing their supply of electricity, necessary for the operation of such luxuries as hospitals and sewage treatment. "If they fire a rocket, then there should be no electricity, or water or fuel'' that day, he said.

Over half the population of the Gaza Strip has left for Egypt in the past three days, a stark illustration of the extent of the deprivation imposed on them by the Israeli government and the "international community". When Palestinians smashed through the wall separating Gaza from Egypt earlier this week, liberating themselves from Israel's brutal siege, the reactions around the world were quite interesting. Far from expressing joy and exhilaration at the sight of hundreds of thousands of starved Palestinians flooding out of the Gaza prison camp, enjoying what for many of them was the first taste of freedom in their lives, one could instead sense a tangible whiff of fear and even panic underlying much commentary on the breakout.

Suppose I were to argue that, given Israel's numerous and gross war crimes against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, the international community should impose sanctions on Israel of such severity that 80% of the Israeli population would be reduced to reliance upon UN food aid for mere survival, and over 65% of Israeli households would be forced to live in 'deep poverty' (i.e. on less than $474 per month). The blockade would be so tight that only 41% of Israel's food import needs would be met, and supplies of 91 out of 416 essential drugs and about a third of essential medical supplies (including most children's antibiotics) would run out.