Talk:Blockade of the Gaza Strip/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Request change to article - "is" to "was"

Currently says, "In the September 2011 Palmer Report, the UN investigative committee for the 2010 Flotilla to Gaza said that the Israel's naval blockade of Gaza is legal under international law." under Blockade_of_the_Gaza_Strip#The_United_Nations

The report can be downloaded from https://web.archive.org/web/20110903091711if_/http://www.un.org/News/dh/infocus/middle_east/Gaza_Flotilla_Panel_Report.pdf. The link should be updated to this archived copy. On page 44, it says, "The Panel therefore concludes that Israel’s naval blockade was legal." Was, not is. "Is legal" is not found anywhere in the document, unless split up by a newline. A short analysis can be found here: https://pastebin.com/4kGvrL6t

"Was legal" is easily confused with "is legal", and is therefore likely to mislead readers if this is the only change made, but at the very minimum, the "is" in this article should be changed to "was". 23.121.191.18 (talk) 13:32, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Fixed. Onceinawhile (talk) 12:11, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Obyn

In https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_the_Gaza_Strip#June_2007_%E2%80%93_January_2008 it mentions "Hamas gained complete control of the Gaza Strip obyn 15 June", with obyn seeming to be a typo made by mixing by+on8ya (talk) 11:24, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Fixed Onceinawhile (talk) 12:11, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

2005-2007 blockade

The article, so far, does not mention the economic blockade taking place between Israeli disengagement in August/September 2005 and 2007. But if you read James Wolfensohn's 2010 book A Global Life (he was the envoy of the Quarter for the Middle East), it's clear that an economic blockade was in place at least between January 15, 2006 and 2007.

Before January 15, 2006:

"Gaza had been effectively sealed off from the outside world since the Israeli disengagement, and the humanitarian and economic consequences for the Palestinian population were profound. There were already food shortages. Palestinian workers and traders to Israel were unable to cross the border" (p. 422-423, describing October or November 2005)

No trucks could pass through the Karni border crossing (though some were able to cross the border when a bribe was paid - p.431), so even when the crossing was open, all the produce had to be unloaded, spread on a "sun-exposed blacktop for lengthy inspections" and then loaded on other trucks (p.431). Another source said than on a good day, 3 truckloads per day were processed, but 25 per day would be needed to make the greenhouse project viable. Most of the produce, meant to be exported via Israel to Europe, was lost.

And the November 2005 deal, the "Rice Agreements" - specifying the opening hours of the crossings, the number of trucks to pass through them, all to be implemented in the coming months - obviously were not implemented (p. 428-429). About the convoys that were supposed to link Gaza to the West Bank: "Neither bus nor truck convoys began to operate by their respective deadlines of December 15, 2005, and January 15, 2006" (p.430)

And then, on January 15, 2006 (interestingly, that's when truck convoys from Gaza to the West Bank were supposed to start):

"The Karni crossing had finally been closed for exports from Gaza. After January 15, it had been restricted to the import of basic humanitarian goods." (p. 433)

(these exports from Gaza previously included furniture and textiles) (p. 430)

So, according to Wolfensohn, exports from Gaza to Israel (and then to Europe) were blocked since January 15, 2006. And only then came Hamas' victory in the elections (January 25, 2006) and the Hamas-Fatah military conflict (June 2007).

I think the article should include this information. If the article is supposed to be only about the time period from Summer 2007 onwards, then this information should go in the "Background" section. Periwinklewrinkles (talk) 09:08, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

@Periwinklewrinkles: You made a couple other edits, any special reason why you didn't edit this in as well? If it is as adequately sourced as it appears, no reason for something not to go in Background.Selfstudier (talk) 19:01, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Inaccurate and improperly sourced information

In the last sentence of the 4th paragraph" In 2014 and subsequent years, Abbas supported Egypt's crackdown on smuggling tunnels, which were Gaza's last lifeline to the outer world, and welcomed the flooding of the tunnels by Egypt in coordination with the PA."

The bold text seems to be conjecture and also is not properly backed up by the citation. Also, the rest of the sentence is about Abbas's support for the tunnel crackdown, so the bold part seems to be out of context as well. I simply suggest removing the bold statement between the parenthetical commas. --Amarg9494 (talk) 19:12, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

 Done. It looks like someone else has made that edit. Volteer1 (talk) 13:23, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

2006 elections during blockade

There is a dispute about this sentence:

The January 25, 2006 Palestinian legislative elections took place during a full blockade on exports and imports to and from Gaza (including food supplies).

I provided two UN reports as sources; one of them contains a graph showing 0 truckloads exported and imported to/from Gaza from mid-January to early February. @SoaringLL: you removed it as WP:SYNTH because these sources do not mention the elections. So I'd like to add a source which makes the connection betwen the nonfulfillment of the border-crossings agreements and the elections:

On January 25, 2006, the Palestinian people demonstrated that they were fed up with the performance of the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority. Ten years after the last elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council had been held, Palestinians voted overwhelmingly for a parliament in which the Hamas candidates were the dominant force. Of course, the January 2006 Hamas election victory did not arise solely [emphasis mine] from the collapse of the border-crossings agreement. It grew out of a long history of... (Wolfensohn p. 432)

When Wolfensohn says Karni "was closed more often than not", he apparently describes a longer period of time than the 2nd half of January (compare UN sources, they show a total closure in that period); and he mentions an exception for "basic humanitarian goods", but the UN reports for January and February 2006 say that humanitarian supplies were also blocked, at least in the 2nd half of January; and concerning food, that reserves of flour were running out.

My point is, Wolfensohn does make the connection between the closing of border crossings and the election results. I hope with his quotes (plural) added, stating this connection in the article is no longer WP:SYNTH.

Thoughts? Periwinklewrinkles (talk) 19:51, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

So, I restored that sentence, with updated sources. Periwinklewrinkles (talk) 02:14, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

______

References

Role of Egypt

That Egypt is blockading Gaza needs to be backed up by serious sources. Both Egypt and Israel are deciding when to open and close their borders with Gaza but only one of them (Israel) have implemented so-called buffer zones, limits the fishing zone, controls the airspace and so on, in addition to being seen as occupying the Palestinian territories, including Gaza. Academic sources are needed, not newspapers who many times simple just cite this Wikipedia article. This is not something hard to understand, just check with the UN - OCHA oPt and their work here and here, for example. --IRISZOOM (talk) 00:30, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Spelling error at beginning of page

Hi

"set conditions before they would continued to provide aid to the" continued is incorrect. it should be continue, even in this past tense case. 81.230.47.242 (talk) 14:08, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

also "ongoing" and "in 2007" don't match. either it is ongoing, since 2007; or it is not ongoing, and only happened in 2007 81.230.47.242 (talk) 14:27, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

No citation to a central claim

"Egypt was worried that Hamas control of Gaza would increase Iranian influence". 79.177.71.219 (talk) 08:45, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

A few more dates for context

Although most of the article makes clear that it is almost entirely based on the situation before 2015, there are still some points where dates should be added to provide context. Overall, I recommend changing the "Legal analysis" section to "Legal analysis of pre-2011 situation"; "legal analysis" implies analysis of the current situation, even though almost nothing in the section is from after 2011. Perhaps it's worth reconsidering whether so much of the page should be devoted to a legal analysis of the pre-2010 situation at all.

At the least, there are paragraphs of the text which are in present tense or imply it. I recommend adding dates, as is done in most of the article. Here is the list I found in the time I have, but editors may find more:

• "The blockade has been criticized by former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC)[213] and other human rights organizations." Citation 213 is from 2009, before the 2010 reform (and may have been one of the causes thereof). I recommend beginning this sentence with "In 2010, the blockade was criticised by..."

• The next paragraph is primarily about the International Red Cross, with 168 words on the IRC's ongoing mission, followed by an 18 word sentence about a 2010 position statement. I recommend cutting the IRC background to only the first sentence, as the 90% of the paragraph about the IRC's background buries the "In 2010" of the last sentence.

• "A US Congressional Research Service report claimed..." should also begin with "In 2010, A US CRS report claimed..."

• "According to US diplomatic cables obtained by the WikiLeaks organization" refers to another 2011 document. The Wikileak was much more recent, so readers may be misled into thinking the diplomatic cables are also recent. Please make explicit that the document is from 2011.

• "Egypt's argument is that it cannot open Rafah crossing unless the Palestinian Authority headed by Mahmoud Abbas controls the crossing" uses the present tense, but the citation is from 2011. The WP page on the PA lists Abbas as "semi-presidential", so the segment is especially stale and may be worth cutting entirely.

• The next paragraph begins with "According to Sharif Elmusa, Associate Professor of Political Science at the American University in Cairo, Israel wants Gaza to fade into Egypt." This is also in present tense but refers to a 2010 document; Please open this sentence with "In 2010,".

I think these changes would help readers to understand that these segments are historical review, and that the header "legal analysis" is far more about the 2010 situation than the present-day situation. Some of the people involved may still believe what they said in 2010, but to claim that they do needs recent citations.

I gave minor proposals that could all be done in a few minutes, but a more extensive fix might be to split this section into two parts: "pre-2011 legal analysis" and "post-2011 legal analysis". This would require the work of finding the few sentences from a later date (still mostly from before 2016) and separating them out to a new section.

B k (talk) 15:22, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit extended-protected}} template. It does not appear there is consensus for these changes. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 14:30, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Goods blocked

In the Goods Blocked section of the page, the page declares "Failing Gaza" as an unsupported attribution, when it is attributed to Amnesty International. The unsupported attribution tab should be removed. Gtag10 (talk) 13:58, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Minor Typo

I don't have permission to fix this typo in the 2005-2006 blockade section. ctrl+f: "Bank.Without" There should be a space after the period. Ofek Gila (talk) 01:40, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

There is another typo in the Funding and aid section: "However, as at 5 July". This is simply broken English. Perhaps it is supposed to be: "as of July 5th" Ofek Gila (talk) 01:42, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

Both now fixed. The Funding and aid section definitely needs more work, if anyone is feeling up to it. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 01:50, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

"Just Future For Palestine Flotilla" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Just Future For Palestine Flotilla has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 April 28 § Just Future For Palestine Flotilla until a consensus is reached. FuzzyMagma (talk) 17:22, 28 April 2023 (UTC)