An 'explosive' Red Cross report leaked today documents the "devastating" effect Israel's siege is having on the population of Gaza. Heavy economic restrictions and a limited supply of basic goods are causing a "progressive deterioration in food security for up to 70 per cent of Gaza's population".

"What happened in the Dahiya quarter of Beirut in 2006 will happen in every village from which Israel is fired on ...

"We will apply disproportionate force on it [the village] and cause great damage and destruction there. From our standpoint, these are not civilian villages, they are military bases...

"This is not a recommendation. This is a plan. And it has been approved".

A coalition of 21 prominent aid agencies, including the likes of Oxfam International, Save the Children UK, CAFOD, CARE International UK and Christian Aid, published a report (.pdf) this week condemning the failure of the 'Quartet' ( the EU, Russia and the UN, led by the U.S.) to achieve significant humanitarian or political progress in the occupied territories. They conclude that in five of the ten areas targeted for improvement by the Quartet, including the "three areas where progress is now most urgent" (settlements, restrictions on movement and access and ending the blockade of Gaza), "there has been either no progress or an actual deterioration in the situation."

The Daily Telegraph's Con Coughlin has a long and distinguished record of service as an uncritical conduit for the more dubious MI6 propaganda tales (you may recall, for example, his daring exposé of the links between Saddam and 9/11 back in 2003). Earlier this month he was at it again, citing unidentified "nuclear experts" and "intelligence officials" to the effect that, according to the IAEA, a quantity of enriched uranium sufficient to produce "up to six atom bombs" has "disappeared from... [Iran's] main production facility at Isfahan."

Steve Clemons of The Washington Note recently interviewed Mustafa Barghouti, general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative, about the reality of the much-vaunted "Annapolis process":

Whoever scheduled Gordon Brown's recent visit to Israel is surely out of a job. Brown's dreary, etiolated performance - appropriate for a political corpse - was rendered even flatter by its proximity to Barack Obama's headline-hogging whirlwind tour of Europe and the Middle East. Despite the differences in style, however, both politicians took to the podium in Israel with a similar message: one of support for the latter's rejectionist expansionism.

I've just returned home from the World Against War demo today in London. It was a fantastic event, with an excellent turnout (between 10-40,000, according to the BBC) and a great atmosphere. The march was called to mark five years since the invasion of Iraq, although Israel's recent crimes in Gaza were definitely on everyone's mind - which is excellent, of course. The march was convened by the Stop the War Coalition around three basic demands: troops out from Afghanistan and Iraq, no attack on Iran and an end to the siege of Gaza. On all three, as Tony Benn was sure to remind us, the marchers spoke for the majority of British and world public opinion.

Three Palestinian children aged 10, 12 and 14 were killed this evening in an Israeli air-strike in northern Gaza, bringing today's Palestinian death toll to 12. Five members of Hamas' Al-Qassam Brigades were killed this morning in two targeted assassinations in Gaza, while this afternoon two Palestinian farmers were killed by Israeli tank fire.

In retaliation for the killing of its activists, Hamas fired at least 30 Qassam rockets into Israel, killing a student in Sderot and wounding several others. Olmert indicated that the campaign of assassinations will continue, declaring that "no one in Hamas, not the low-level officials nor the highest echelon, will be immune against this war." To prove his sincerity, Israeli jets bombed the Hamas Interior Ministry (again), killing a six-month old baby and wounding at least 14 bystanders.

I refer, of course, to the recent encounter between President Bush's derrière and Matt Frei, butt-kisser extraordinaire. Not for Frei are half-measures and almost-there's, like standard BBC reporting which, while undoubtedly deferrential to power, typically affects at least a pretense of concern about 'balance' and 'impartiality'. No: Frei is content with nothing less than total and utter servility to power, and by God no amount of ethical standards or (perish the thought!) residual journalistic integrity will stand in his way.

There is a debate currently raging in official Israeli circles on how to deal with the Qassam rockets from Gaza. At the dovish end of the spectrum, we have Vice Premier Haim Ramon, former Minister of Justice, arguing against a full-scale military assault on the grounds that it "would cost many IDF casualties" and advocating instead that Israel collectively punish the entire population of Gaza by reducing their supply of electricity, necessary for the operation of such luxuries as hospitals and sewage treatment facilities. "If they fire a rocket, then there should be no electricity, or water or fuel'' that day, he said.

I think this BBC piece on Chavez, published today, is a useful illustration of how an apparently objective article, which seems perfectly impartial at first glance, is in fact skewed both by its acceptance of the terminology of power and by what it leaves out - that is, what it chooses not to tell you.

Over half the population of the Gaza Strip has left for Egypt in the past three days, a stark illustration of the extent of the deprivation imposed on them by the Israeli government and the "international community". When Palestinians smashed through the wall separating Gaza from Egypt earlier this week, liberating themselves from Israel's brutal siege, the reactions around the world were quite interesting. Far from expressing joy and exhilaration at the sight of hundreds of thousands of starved Palestinians flooding out of the Gaza prison camp, enjoying what for many of them was the first taste of freedom in their lives, one could instead sense a tangible whiff of fear and even panic underlying much commentary on the breakout.

Suppose I were to argue that, given Israel's numerous and gross war crimes against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, the international community should impose sanctions on Israel of such severity that 80% of the Israeli population would be reduced to reliance upon UN food aid for mere survival, and over 65% of Israeli households would be forced to live in 'deep poverty' (i.e. on less than $474 per month). The blockade would be so tight that only 41% of Israel's food import needs would be met, and supplies of 91 out of 416 essential drugs and about a third of essential medical supplies (including most children's antibiotics) would run out.

Diary rescue by Migeru

Hugo Chavez' defeat in the recent Venezuelan referendum on a package of 69 proposed reforms to the constitution was probably a healthy development for the revolution, although that will largely depend upon how the government deals with it.

Originally posted on December 5 - Diary rescue by Migeru

The problem with the Annapolis 'peace conference' was that a) it had nothing to do with peace, and b) it was barely even a conference.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Thursday published its latest report  (.pdf) into Iran's nuclear activities. Interestingly, the U.S. has claimed that the report confirms what it has been saying all along - that it "makes clear that Iran seems uninterested in working with the rest of the world" - and is using it to justify a renewed push for further sanctions. Meanwhile, Israel has denounced the same report for "fail[ing] to expose Ahmadinejad's intentions". It seems the warmongers can't get their story straight.

- Promoted by Colman.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN-OCHA) last week published a report (.pdf) examining the humanitarian impact of Israel's "security fence" on 67 Palestinian communities in the northern West Bank, representing a combined population of nearly 220,000 Palestinians. 15 of the communities surveyed, with a total population of 10,000, are located west of the wall, confined in a "closed area" between the barrier and the Green Line.

Life for Palestinians in the Occupied Territories is now so miserable that it has become quite difficult not to be seduced by the theatre of the latest 'peace push', such is the desire to see an end to the conflict. When Condoleeza Rice expresses her sincere ambition to create an independent Palestinian state, and when Ehud Olmert hints about a willingness to divide Jerusalem, it is extremely tempting to simply forget about the facts on the ground and dare to hope that perhaps, this time, they're for real.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose — Diary rescue by Migeru

As Ehud Olmert busied himself shaking hands with Abbas and correcting uninformed journalists from calling the Annapolis summit a "peace conference", the IDF yesterday ordered the expropriation of over 1,100 dunams of land from four Palestinian villages (Abu Dis, Arab al-Sawahra, Nebi Musa and Talhin Alhamar) in the West Bank, between East Jerusalem and Ma'aleh Adumim. The land will be used for a new Palestinian road connecting East Jerusalem with Jericho, thereby freeing up the so-called E-1 area for Israeli development.

This follows a recent report that Israel's police force in the West Bank is moving its HQ to the E-1 area.

How sad — diary rescue by Migeru