HUMAN WRONGS WATCH

Human Wrongs Watch

By Roberto Savio* 

Rome, 26 November 2012 – In recent weeks, we have seen the media presenting a homogeneous reading of the last act of the Palestine drama.

**By Gringer (talk) 14:01, 8 January 2009 (UTC) | Wikimedia Commons

Hamas started launching rockets against Israel. The Israelis retaliated with punishing aerial raids and when the Palestinians did not stop, Israel decided to invade and eliminate the Hamas structure.

At that point, US President Barack Obama got very worried and sent Hillary Clinton to the area. Clinton persuaded President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt to intervene, who was able to mediate successfully, and there is now a truce between Hamas and Israel. This, more or less, is what we have all read.

Human Wrongs Watch

The head of the United Nations agency tasked with helping Palestinian refugees said that the ceasefire halting the recent violence between Israel and Palestinians in Gaza offered a chance to “address the real problems underlying the crisis.”

Scene of the impact of the bombing of the Israeli air force, at the Palestine Stadium in Gaza. UN Photo/Shareef Sarhan

“It is of crucial… importance that we seize the opportunity provided by this tragic escalation,” the Commissioner-General of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNWRA), Filippo Grandi, on 26 November said in remarks at a meeting of the body’s Advisory Commission, taking place by the Dead Sea in Jordan.

“Difficult political work would have to be carried out, including promoting and supporting lasting Palestinian unity,” he noted in reference to divisions among the wider Palestinian leadership, according to an UNRWA news release. “But failing to act now will have dire consequences,” he added.

In his remarks, Grandi also noted that an Israeli blockade on Gaza, imposed since 2007, was illegal, and the “greatest danger is to return to the status quo ante, and restore the prison-like conditions of Gaza.” He said it would be “only a matter of time (until) violence resumes” if there was such a return.

Grandi called for the blockade, which Israel has reportedly said it maintains for security reasons, to be “lifted in all its aspects.”