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Amnesty International calls on Israeli forces to immediately halt

by con10t | January 4, 2009 at 09:20 am

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Amnesty International USA also condemns the rocket fire by armed Palestinian groups including Hamas.

This is the highest level of Palestinian fatalities and casualties in four decades of Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

More than 80% of Palestinians in Gaza rely on humanitarian assistance, with UN food aid going to about 1.1 million people – three quarters of the population.

Amnesty International ONLINE ACTION Letter to the out-going lame-duck Secretary of State Condaleeza Rice. "As the number of casualties continues to mount, civilians in Gaza are in increasingly dire need of food, medical and other emergency assistance. Ask Secretary Rice to urgently express deep concern about Israel's disproportional response and its policies which have brought the Gaza Strip to the brink of humanitarian disaster. Also urge Secretary Rice to call on Israeli authorities and Hamas to immediately cease all unlawful attacks and help reverse the dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza by exerting pressure on Israel to open the crossings to allow adequate quantities of humanitarian aid -- including food, water, medicine and fuel into Gaza."

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at 15:46 on January 4th, 2009

If both sides would cease all attacks on the other that would be a big first step.

con10t

at 16:25 on January 4th, 2009

Good humanitarian common sense. Is the Israeli long-standing siege of Gazans considered an attack? Or is a concerted continual denial of liberty, rights and autonomy for a people, no grounds for what must, by those imprisioned in their own lands, seem to be the only chance for self-defence and raising awareness of the abhorrence against them? Yes, rhetorical questions. The point is that the control of the rights of Gazans, import, export, education, travel, even fishing their own waters , by external imposed forces ought to also cease and desist in balance with all rockets, mortars, shells, bullets and bombs.