Gaza: An Elegy for Human Rights!
The Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip contravenes international law and has forcibly deprived 1.5 million Palestinian men, women and children of their most basic human rights for months.
Mothers are being turned away from UN refugee food centers without powdered milk for their babies, while the UN agencies have been unable to get supplies in, even for children.
"This is in direct contravention of international human rights and humanitarian law. It must end now," says Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
The Zionist regime has turned deaf ears to calls by the United Nations as well as other international and humanitarian organizations to facilitate passage of essential humanitarian goods into Gaza, including food, medical supplies and fuel, to allow the immediate restoration of electricity, water and other essential services, and to lift restrictions on the movement of civilians for medical, educational and religious purposes.
"Decisive steps must be taken to preserve the dignity and basic welfare of the civilian population, more than half of which are children," Ms. Pillay said.
"Only a full lifting of the blockade followed by a strong humanitarian response will be adequate to relieve the massive humanitarian suffering evident in Gaza today," she said.
Meanwhile, top UN relief official in the occupied Palestinian territory has appealed to donors to provide urgent funds to address the deteriorating humanitarian situation there, particularly in Gaza, where continued border closures in recent weeks have prevented the delivery of vital food, medicine and fuel supplies.
"This is an assault on human dignity with severe humanitarian implications," UN Humanitarian Coordinator Maxwell Gaylard said.
"Many people, especially in the Gaza Strip, are paying a heavy price, struggling daily to have enough food and water to feed and wash their children," he said.
According to UN sources, continued border closures in Gaza have given rise to a rapid and significant increase in poverty and unemployment in the last year.
The high levels of poverty and unemployment, coupled with other factors such as rising food and fuel prices and severe weather conditions, have led to increased dependency on humanitarian assistance.
Earlier, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon telephoned Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to express his deep concern over the consequences of the deteriorating humanitarian situation inside Gaza.
Hamas-Israeli hostilities aside, Gaza has now been turned into a location for lamentation: a place for recital of an elegy for human rights!
The 41 km coastal strip of land along the Mediterranean Sea, bordering Egypt on the south-west and Israel on the north and east has a total area of 360 square km but shelters 1.4 million Palestinian Arab (or Gazan) residents.
With the Israeli atrocities continuing in Gaza, the only thing the civilized world is doing is to issue statements and voice sympathy with the Gazans. What about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? Why the UN Security Council so impotent?
It seems that the UNSC is good at taking advice from Israeli officials. After the US vetoed a UNSC resolution in condemnation of Israeli aggressions and atrocities in Gaza two years ago, the Tel Aviv ambassador to the UN Dan Gillerman explicitly stated that the Security Council was just wasting its time because Israel would not heed its resolutions anyway.
Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says no one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Article 9 says no one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.
Article 11 says no one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed.
Article 13 says everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state and everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.
Article 25 motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance.
Article 29 says these rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
But the Tel Aviv government in open violation of these principles continues to mock the Universal Declaration of Human Rights though 60 years have passed since its inception.
The Gazans are paying a heavy price due to the savage acts of the Zionist regime and its blatant disrespect for the Human Rights Declaration.
Thanks to the silence and impotence of the international community and the so-called advocates of human rights Gaza is now turning into a human tragedy under siege.
www2.irna.ir/en/news/view/line-203/0812034266104603.htm