UN: Israel exclusion zone eats up 30% of Gaza's arable land

Date: 03 / 06 / 2009  Time:  11:56
Bethlehem – Ma’an –

The Israeli occupation forces military “buffer zone” along the eastern and northern edge of the Gaza Strip eats up 30% of the territory’s arable land, the United Nations said this week.

Fieldworkers with the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) told the Christian Science Monitor that they have been unable to verify conditions in this 300-meter-wide band of land along the Green Line.

"We haven't been able to visit this area. No organization has," said Mohammed Al-Shattali, project manager for (FAO) in the Gaza, according to the newspaper.

"The war increased the amount of land destroyed, particularly in the border areas, and the farmers can't replant anything because it's too dangerous," he told the Christian Science Monitor. "The Israeli soldiers, they shoot at everything – dogs, sheep. They are very tense."

According to FAO, the exclusion zone, which at times protrudes 1.25 miles into the Strip, has made much of Gaza’s scarce farmland unusable. The entire Gaza Strip is 25 miles long and just six miles wide.

Barak rebuffs UN chief over Gaza probe

Date: 03 / 06 / 2009  Time:  11:10
Bethlehem – Ma’an/Agencies –

 Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak came under pressure from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon to to cooperate with an international investigation into alleged violations of international law during the recent attack on Gaza.

The UN Fact-Finding Mission, led by the renowned Justice Richard Goldstone, is in Gaza this week as part of the UN Human Rights Council’s investigation of abuses committed during the three-week war that left more than 1,400 Palestinians dead.

Ban raised the issue with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak at a meeting yesterday in New York, the UN News Centre reported. “On the Gaza fact-finding mission, the Secretary-General renewed his call for cooperation from Israel,” Ban’s spokesperson, Michele Montas, told reporters.

Barak told reporters that he rejected Ban’s request. "We don't approve of the mandate the committee was given to investigate war crimes," Barak said he told Ban, according to the Jerusalem Post. He added, however, that Goldstone "is valued by the world, and by us as well."

The Israeli blockade of Gaza, the long-stalled Arab-Israeli peace process, and Lebanon were also discussed in Ban’s meeting with Barak, Montas said, according to the News Centre.