Help us send a reporter to Gaza

ISRAEL'S ASSAULT in December and January on the 1.5 million residents of Gaza astonished the world with its disregard for civilian life and Palestinian civil society.

In just 23 days, Israel killed more than 1,400 Palestinians, 90 percent of whom were civilians trying to avoid the violence. More than 5,000 Palestinians were wounded, hundreds requiring amputations. Some 40,000 were left homeless, the physical markers of their lives reduced to mounds of rubble.

Israeli troops used white phosphorous in civilian areas, a clear violation of international laws governing the use of this ghastly chemical weapon that burns right through human flesh. Israeli forces shelled a UN school where hundreds of Palestinians had sought refuge from the bombs. When quiet finally returned, the school lay in rubble and 40 were dead.

From the first days of Israel's offensive, SocialistWorker.org carried a series of news reports about the atrocities that were getting underway, and we also ran three interviews with Gaza resident Haidar Eid as the bullets were still flying ("Israel's war of terror against Gaza", "They're wiping out entire families"and "Trauma etched on every face"), who several times had to stop and collect himself in the midst of answering my questions after a bomb fell close enough to rattle his bones.

I remember one time when he apologized for his lack of focus, explaining that he couldn't stop shivering in the chilly winter night. Not only did he have no heat, but he had no windows, because they had all been blown out by the shock waves from the bombs that fell near his apartment.

UNDER SUCH conditions, SocialistWorker.org did its best to get the word out about what was happening to the people of Gaza. Now we have an opportunity to take the next step--by sending a reporter as part of a U.S. delegation being organized by Viva Palestina, a project being spearheaded by British Member of Parliament George Galloway.

This effort follows the successful Viva Palestina convoy that, in the course of three weeks, drove more than 100 vehicles from London through North Africa, bringing desperately needed humanitarian relief supplies to Gaza in early March as the full tragedy of what Israel had unleashed was still being unearthed by human rights activists and legal observers.

Similar efforts--organized by CodePINK, Free Gaza and others--have sustained a challenge to Israel's siege by simply driving right through it. The success of this string of delegations is in part responsible for the indignation that has accompanied Israel's June 30 detention of human rights activists aboard a boat organized by Free Gaza to bring relief supplies by sea.

The 21 human rights workers from 11 countries included Noble laureate Mairead Maguire and former U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. "This is an outrageous violation of international law against us. Our boat was not in Israeli waters, and we were on a human rights mission to the Gaza Strip," said McKinney. "President Obama just told Israel to let in humanitarian and reconstruction supplies, and that's exactly what we tried to do. We're asking the international community to demand our release so we can resume our journey."

It is in this context that ongoing international scrutiny of conditions in Gaza has the potential to thwart Israel's drive to strangle Palestinian social and political institutions there.

This account of CodePINK's early June delegation by Laura Durkay is a compelling example of why the world needs more detailed descriptions of life under occupation in Gaza. Her observations capture both the injustice that has been perpetrated in Gaza and the humanity of those who try to struggle against it.

In this vein, we at SocialistWorker.org are asking you to help us send a reporter there to continue to get the word out about life under siege in Gaza. The devastation unleashed by Israel during those three weeks in January captured the world's attention, and your contribution can help SocialistWorker.org do its part to focus attention on the daily grind of life in Gaza under the suffocating terms of Israel's years-long siege.