Rafah's Perpetual Purgatory: Lives Frozen by Design, Not Chance
📰 THE STORY: Al Jazeera provides heartbreaking accounts of individuals stranded at the Rafah crossing, including sick children, families separated, and students unable to pursue education, all hoping for an exit from Gaza two years into an intensified blockade. 🔍 WHAT THEY'RE NOT TELLING YOU: Historical Context: The current siege is merely an escalation of a deliberate system of control. Gaza
has been under a crushing 17-year blockade, instituted by Israel and largely enforced by Egypt's government, which receives approximately $1.3 billion annually in U.S. military aid to maintain its complicity, including keeping the Rafah crossing largely closed. This follows the 1948 Nakba, which saw 750,000 Palestinians expelled from their homes, many ending up as refugees in Gaza, and the 1967
occupation transforming Gaza into a besieged territory. Double Standard: When governments like Russia restrict movement or impose sieges on territories they occupy, Western media immediately condemns it as a humanitarian crime. Yet, Israel's decades-long blockade of Gaza, with explicit support from the U.S. and financial incentives for Egypt to maintain it, is frequently described in narratives
focusing on 'security concerns' or individual 'hope' and 'fear,' sanitizing the engineered nature of the crisis. There's no equivalent in corporate media of detailing individual stories of Ukrainians trapped by Russian blockades while simultaneously giving Russia a pass for the blockade itself. Follow the Money: The $1.3 billion annual U.S. military aid to Egypt, a condition of the Camp David