by Mike Whitney, The Unz Review:
The majority of Palestinians in Rafah live in an area that is roughly the size of Heathrow Airport. The city is cramped and unsanitary. It is surrounded on three sides by Israeli ground forces and on the fourth side by the 20 ft high Egyptian border wall. For all practical purposes, Rafah is a prison, the only difference being that, in a prison, the inmates are fed. In Rafah, no one is fed even though there are nearly 2,000 humanitarian trucks lined up beyond the Rafah Crossing waiting to deliver food to the starving population. The humanitarian convoy is being blocked by Israeli forces that are acting on orders from top military leaders. Ostensibly, Israel is depriving the Palestinians of food to create a strong incentive for them to flee the country when the Egyptian border is breached. When that happens, the western media will characterize the exodus as a “voluntary migration”, a designation that downplays the reality of ethnic cleansing.
