AMMAN/GAZA, 15 December 2007 — More than 2,000 people took to the streets of the Jordanian capital yesterday to protest Israeli restrictions on the Hamas-run Gaza Strip. Waving Jordanian flags, demonstrators marched peacefully after midday prayers from the Al-Husseini Mosque to the Greater Amman Municipality building in the city center.
Chanting “Death to America, Death to Israel” and “We support you Hamas,” the protesters demanded the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador from Jordan, which has been bound by a peace treaty with the Jewish state since 1994.
They also chanted pro-Hamas slogans, waved Jordanian flags and banners of the country’s Muslim Brotherhood and its political arm the Islamic Action Front (IAF), which organized the demonstration. Israel closed the Gaza Strip to all but essential humanitarian supplies after Hamas seized control in mid-June.
Salem Falahat, the overall leader of the Brotherhood in Jordan told the protesters “resistance is the only solution to the Palestinian and Iraqi problems.” He demanded that Arab governments take “immediate action to lift the sanctions on Gaza.” IAF Secretary-General Zaki Bani Rsheid said Jordan and Egypt should scrap their peace treaties with Israel. The IAF, Jordan’s main opposition party, won six of the 110 seats in the lower house of Parliament in last month’s elections.
Meanwhile, another UN agency joined the chorus of alarm yesterday about the devastating consequences of Israeli restrictions on the Gaza Strip, in the run-up to a Palestinian donors’ conference. The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs warned that the restrictions Israel tightened after Hamas seized armed control of the territory in June could irrevocably damage the Gaza economy. It was the third international report released this week about the mounting difficulties endured by the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza, following findings from the World Bank and the World Health Organization.
“The isolation of the Gaza Strip has lasted six months, leaving the local economy to possibly face irrevocable damage, and the population in Gaza more reliant on aid than ever before,” the OCHA said. Severe shortages and restrictions on imports and exports have begun to distort markets in Gaza, putting anything other than the most basic goods and foods beyond the buying power of a large portion of the population.
Hundreds of businesses have gone bankrupt due to a ban on foreign trade, thousands have lost jobs due to the collapse of the building industry and construction projects worth $370 million are on hold indefinitely.
