Israeli forces today detained a Palestinian journalist from the besieged Gaza Strip while travelling through the Beit Hanoun/ Erez crossing with Israel, according to WAFA correspondent.

He said that Israeli forces detained Muhammad Amin Abu Daqqa, a resident of Absan town, east of Khan Younes city, as he was on his way back from Jordan to the besieged Gaza Strip.

Abu Daqqa is a liver cancer patient who receives his treatment at a Jordanian hospital.

According to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the occupied Palestinian Territory (OCHA), Israel has closed Erez crossing for all permit holders, including over 5,000 daily workers and traders, only allowing the passage of medical emergency cases and cancer patients, since March 12. The exit of passengers via the Egyptian-controlled crossing at Rafah has been halted since March 15.

Fourteen years following the Israeli “disengagement” from Gaza, Israel has not actually disengaged from Gaza; it still maintains control of its land borders, access to the sea and airspace.

Two million Palestinians live the Gaza Strip, which has been subjected to a punishing and crippling Israeli blockade for 12 years and repeated onslaughts that have heavily damaged much of the enclave’s infrastructure.

Gaza’s 2-million population remains under “remote control” occupation and a strict siege, which has destroyed the local economy, strangled Palestinian livelihoods, plunged them into unprecedented rates of unemployment and poverty, and cut off from the rest of the occupied Palestinian territories and the wider world.

Gaza remains occupied territory, having no control over its borders, territorial waters or airspace. Meanwhile, Israel upholds very few of its responsibilities as the occupying power, failing to provide for the basic needs of Palestinian civilians living in the territory.

Every two in three Palestinians in Gaza is a refugee from lands inside what is now Israel. That government forbids them from exercising their right to return as enshrined in international law because they are not Jews.

 

Source: Wafa agency