A Public Appeal to Chess Organisations on the Bombing of the Gaza Strip

Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine began on 24 February 2022, and the war is still going on today.

Just a few days after the start of the war in Ukraine, the International Chess Federation (FIDE) initiated the process of a chess blockade of Russia and Belarus, which assisted Russia in the war.

A few months later, a decision was taken that Russian and Belarusian chess teams would not be allowed to participate in FIDE international tournaments, while individual chess players would not be allowed to play under the Russian or Belarusian flag.

Online chess platforms soon joined the campaign.

The blockade was eventually joined by the International Correspondence Chess Federation (ICCF).

FIDE also imposed a temporary ban on participating in international tournaments on international chess grandmaster Sergei Karyakin. As a result, Karyakin, one of the world’s strongest chess players, was excluded from the candidates’ tournament for world chess champion.

Karyakin was accused of publicly “justifying” Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine. It is indeed what Karyakin did, referring to the systematic crimes committed by Ukraine against people of Russian nationality.

Karyakin was of the opinion that, in the name of stopping the genocide in Ukraine, Russia was justified in going to war.

However, the civil war in Ukraine, which started in 2014, had killed around 20,000 civilians by 2022. But, by November 2023, the Russian invasion that began in 2022 had already killed hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers.

However, there have been several shortcomings in the sanctioning actions of international chess organisations concerning the war in Ukraine.

These organisations did not have rules for chess blocking of Russia and Belarus. The bans were imposed by introducing new rules on the fly, ad hoc. These rules were applied retrospectively. Also, these restrictions amount to collective punishment, which is prohibited by international law. The decisions in question also violated the accepted moral principles of sport and chess-sport. It was a politicisation of sport.

However, one of the main drawbacks was that the punishment of Russia and Belarus was discriminatory, selective.

For example, there have been no barriers to chess players from other countries that have started unjustified wars, occupied or annexed foreign territories, committed war crimes, etc.

For example, international chess organisations have not imposed any barriers on US chess players despite the US starting unjustified wars against Afghanistan and Iraq, occupying these countries for many years and committing war crimes there. At the time when the Russian and Belarus chess players were being punished, the US had just finally withdrawn its troops from Afghanistan, but some US military bases are still in Iraq today.

On 07 October this year, 2023, the Palestinian armed group Hamas, exiting the Gaza Strip, suddenly attacked Israel. Over a thousand Israeli soldiers and civilians were killed in the attack.

Israel then declared war on Hamas and started military operations in the Gaza Strip, an area separated by a wall and barbed wire, where more than two million people live on a few hundred square kilometres. It is one of the most densely populated areas on the planet and has essentially been turned into an open-air prison.

In the course of this military action, Israel imposed an absolute blockade on the Gaza Strip, with no water and no electricity. Food and medicine could not be sent there either. Finally, the blocking of internet access was added. People have not been allowed in and out, with a few exceptions.

In the walled area, Israel started destroying homes with powerful aircraft bombs and rockets, hitting and/or damaging hospitals and refugee shelters.

A month later today, 9,000 civilians have been killed in Gaza, more than half of them women and children. More than 10,000 people are still trapped under the rubble.

International organisations confirm that Israel has managed to kill more children in the Gaza Strip in one month in 2023 than were killed in all the war zones on the planet in the whole of 2022. In fact, significantly more children have been killed by Israeli bombs in one month than in two years of war in Ukraine. See also, e.g.:

“GAZA: 3,195 CHILDREN KILLED IN THREE WEEKS SURPASSES ANNUAL NUMBER OF CHILDREN KILLED IN CONFLICT ZONES SINCE 2019”
Save the Children, 29 October 2023
https://www.savethechildren.net/news/gaza-3195-children-killed-three-weeks-surpasses-annual-number-children-killed-conflict-zones#

The statistics on civilian casualties are similar.

The United Nations has raised suspicions that Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip are a war crime.

However, the Colombian President has explicitly called it genocide.

Returning now to the game of chess, international chess organisations such as FIDE and the ICCF, as well as the major chess platforms, have done nothing about Israel.

Therefore, I call on all chess organisations to either immediately lift the restrictions imposed on Russia and Belarus or to impose the same restrictions on Israel, whose disproportionate and indiscriminate military action is killing a catastrophic number of civilians in the Gaza Strip every day.

Suppose it is permissible to obstruct Russian sports persons to get Russia to stop its military aggression against Ukraine. In that case, it must also be permissible to obstruct Israeli sports persons to get Israel to stop its war crimes and to punish the perpetrators.

Since there is obviously no hope that the politically biased international chess organisations will impose such restrictions on Israel, I will make a proposal to all individual chess players - a proposal that I myself will follow:

- Refuse to play chess with anyone who plays under the Israeli flag.
- Refuse to play chess with anyone who is an Israeli citizen and who does not publicly, clearly and loudly condemn Israeli war crimes in the Gaza Strip.
- Refuse to play chess with anyone who publicly supports or justifies Israeli war crimes in the Gaza Strip.

These restrictions would remain in place until Israel has lifted the blockade of the Gaza Strip and stopped the bombing of its residents, and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and his henchmen have been convicted of war crimes in court.

Of course, local chess clubs, local chess tournament organisers, etc., can also impose similar restrictions.

As for Hamas, the European Union has already declared Hamas a terrorist organisation, so there is no need to impose such sporting sanctions on the group. After all, you are not going to meet a chess player playing under the Hamas flag anywhere, anyway.

As far as the Jews are concerned, collective punishment must not be applied to them. No one may be accused or discriminated against based on their nationality.



03 November 2023, Tallinn

Jüri Eintalu, chess player and philosopher

The following paragraph was added after the publication of the first version of the Public Appeal:

“However, at a non-individual, organisational, official level, the third point above, which calls for public condemnation of Israel’s actions, should be avoided. Notably, the Israeli police have threatened to severely punish anyone who criticises Israel’s current military action in the Gaza Strip. It is unreasonable to formally demand that a sports person should make such a statement, which would result in him being punished by the authorities in his own country.”

@eintaluj said
The following paragraph was added after the publication of the first version of the Public Appeal:

“However, at a non-individual, organisational, official level, the third point above, which calls for public condemnation of Israel’s actions, should be avoided. Notably, the Israeli police have threatened to severely punish anyone who criticises Israel’s current military ...[text shortened]... ch a statement, which would result in him being punished by the authorities in his own country.”

Your time would be better spent campaigning for Hamas to stop the horrendous acts of terrorism against the Jews. Here is a list of murders Hamas carried out in the last 3 years, alone.

2023
November 2 Elhanan Klein, (29) Klein was found shot in his car.
October 7 More than 1,400 Israeli civilians were killed in a massacre perpetrated by Hamas. There are too many names to list here. Some bodies were so badly burned or dismembered that they could not be identified.
August 21 Batsheva Nagari (40) Nagari was killed when a terrorist in a passing car shot at her car while she was driving on the highway.
August 19 Aviad Nir (28), Silas (Shai) Nigreker (60) Aviad and his father Silas were shot and killed at a car wash in the Palestinian town of Huwara.
August 5 Chen Amir (42)
A gunman from Jenin, West Bank, shot and killed an Israeli security guard.

June 20 Ofer Fayerman (64), Harel Masood (21), Elisha Anteman (17), and Shmuel Mordoff (17) Palestinian gunmen affiliated with Hamas opened fire at a gas station in the West Bank, killing four Israelis and wounding four others.
May 30 Meir Tamari (32) He was shot while driving on a road near his home in the West Bank community of Hermesh.
May 11 Inga Avramyan (80) Killed when a rocket fired from Gaza by PIJ scored a direct hit on an apartment in Rehovot.
April 7 Lucy Dee (48), Maia Dee (20), Rina Dee (15), Alessandro Parini, (35) Lucy Dee and her two daughters were killed in a shooting attack in the Gilboa region. Parini was killed when a terrorist rammed a car into people walking on the promenade at the beach in Tel Aviv.
March 9 Or Eshkar (32) Or Eshkar died on March 20 after he was seriously wounded by a Palestinian gunman in Tel Aviv.
February 27 Elan Ganeles (27) Elan Ganeles was shot dead by a Palestinian terrorist on a highway between Jericho and the Dead Sea.
February 26 Hallel Yaniv (21) Yagel Yaniv (19) Hallel Yaniv and Yagel Yaniv, two brothers from Har Bracha, were murdered when a Palestinian gunman opened fire from close range at their car while it was caught in a traffic jam on the Route 60 highway near Huwara.
February 11 Asher Menahem Paley (8) Paley succumbed to wounds sustained in a car-ramming attack in Ramot.
February 10 Shlomo Liderman (20), Yaakov Yisrael Paley (6), Asher Menahem Paley (8) A Palestinian rammed his car into civilians at a Jerusalem bus stop, immediately killing a 6-year-old boy and a 20-year-old man. The boy’s 8-year-old brother died later from his injuries.
January 27 Eli (48) and Natalie Mizrahi (45), Rafael Ben-Eliyahu (56), Asher Natan (14), Shaul Chai (68), Irina Korolova (59), Ilya Sosonsky (26), At the conclusion of Friday night prayers, a Palestinian terrorist opened fire on a crowd in Jerusalem’s Neve Yaakov neighborhood, killing seven and wounding three.
2022
November 23 Aryeh Shechopek (15), Tadese Tashume Ben Ma’ada (50) Two explosions at a bus station near the entrance to Jerusalem killed two and injured 22. Aryeh Shechopek died on the day of the attack, and Tadese Tashume Ben Ma’ada, several days later.
November 15 Tamir Avihai (50), Michael Ladygin (36), Motti Ashkenazi (59)
Muhammed Soof, a cleaner in the Ariel industrial zone. stabbed seven people, killing three, in Ariel.

October 25
Shalom Sofer (55)

Died two weeks after being seriously wounded in a stabbing attack near Kedumim.
May 5 Boaz Gol (49), Yonatan Havakuk (44), Oren Ben Yitfah (35) A terrorist attack in the city of Elad left three men dead and eight injured, one critically.
April 29 Vyacheslav Golev (23) Two Palestinian terrorists murdered Vyacheslav Golev, a security guard, at the entrance to Ariel.
April 7 Tomer Morad (28), Eytam Magini (27), Barak Lufan (35) A shooting at a downtown Tel Aviv bar left three people dead and seven others were wounded and hospitalized.
March 29 Amir Khoury (32), Ya’akov Shalom (36), Avishai Yehezkel (29), Victor Sorokopot (38), Dimitri Mitrik (23) Five people were killed during a series of drive-by shootings in Bnei Brak. The perpetrator was Diaa Hamarsheh who had been imprisoned in 2015 for charges of supporting terrorism as well as arms trafficking.
March 27 Yezen Falah and Shirel Abukarat, both 19 Two Border Police officers were killed by two terrorists believed to be supporters of the Islamic State.
March 22 Doris Yahbas (49), Laura Yitzhak (43), Rabbi Moshe Kravitzky and Menahem Yehezkel, (67) Four people were killed and two more were injured during a stabbing and vehicle-ramming attack by an Islamic State supporter in Be’er Sheva.
2021
December 16 Yehuda Dimen(tman (25) Palestinians ambushed a car driving near Homesh in the West Bank. Dimentman was killed and two other Israelis were wounded.
November 21 Eliyahu David Kay (26) Kay, a recent immigrant from South Africa, was gunned down in a terror attack in Jerusalem on his way to prayer at the Western Wall.
August 30 St.-Sgt. Barel Hadaria Shmueli (21) Shmueli was fatally wounded when a Palestinian gunman in Gaza fired at him from point-blank range.
May 18 Weerawat Krunboorirak (44) Weerawat Krunboorirak, an agricultural worker from Thailand, was killed by mortar fire from the Gaza Strip at his residence in Moshav Ohad. He was one of thirteen people killed by Palestinian rocket and mortar fire during Operation Guardian of the Walls.
May 18 Sikharin Sangamram (24) Sikharin Sangamram, an agricultural worker from Thailand, was killed by mortar fire from the Gaza Strip at his residence in Moshav Ohad. He was one of thirteen people killed by Palestinian rocket and mortar fire during Operation Guardian of the Walls.
May 17 Hava Vaknin (73) Hava Vaknin of Holon fell and was injured while rushing for shelter during a rocket attack. on Saturday, 15 May. She was transferred to the hospital, where she succumbed to her wounds on Monday, 17 May. She was one of thirteen people killed as a result of Palestinian rocket and mortar fire during Operation Guardian of the Walls.
May 15 Gershon Franko (55) Gershon Franko of Ramat Gan was killed by fragments of a rocket that exploded near his home. He was one of thirteen people killed by Palestinian rocket and mortar fire during Operation Guardian of the Walls.
May 13 Miriam Arie (84) Miriam Arie of Moshav Shtulim was seriously injured while running for shelter during a rocket attack. She later succumbed to her injuries. She was one of thirteen people killed by Palestinian rocket and mortar fire during Operation Guardian of the Walls.
May 13 Orly Liron (52) Orly Liron of Moshav Netaim was injured while running for shelter during a rocket attack. She was transferred to a hospital where doctors struggled to save her life. Unfortunately, after two days they were forced to pronounce her death. She was one of thirteen people killed by Palestinian rocket and mortar fire during Operation Guardian of the Walls.
May 12 Khalil Awad (52) One of thirteen people killed during Operation Guardian of the Walls, Khalil Awad, was a resident of a village adjacent to Lod. He was killed in the rocket barrage from Gaza early Wednesday morning that also claimed the life of his daughter Nadin
May 12 Nadin Awad (16) One of thirteen people killed during Operation Guardian of the Walls, Nadin Awad, was a resident of a village adjacent to Lod. She was killed in the rocket barrage from Gaza early Wednesday morning that also claimed the life of her father Khalil
May 12 Staff Sergeant Omer Tabib (21) Staff Sergeant Omer Tabib of Moshav Elyakim was killed by an anti-tank missile fired at his vehicle from the Gaza Strip. He was one of thirteen people killed by Palestinian rocket and mortar fire during Operation Guardian of the Walls.
May 12 Ido Abigail (5) Ido Abigail of Sderot was critically injured when a rocket penetrated the safe room of his family’s apartment. He was one of thirteen people killed by Palestinian rocket and mortar fire during Operation Guardian of the Walls.
May 11 Leah Yom Tov (63) Leah Yom Tov of Rishon LeZion was killed when her home was hit by a rocket launched from the Gaza Strip. She was one of thirteen people killed by Palestinian rocket and mortar fire during Operation Guardian of the Walls.
May 10

Nella Gurevitz (52) Nella Gurevitz was killed in the initial Hamas rocket attack on the city of Ashkelon. She was one of thirteen people killed by Palestinian rocket and mortar fire during Operation Guardian of the Walls.
May 10 Soumya Santosh (32) Soumya Santosh, a caregiver from India, was killed in the initial Hamas rocket attack on the city of Ashkelon. She was one of thirteen people killed by Palestinian rocket and mortar fire during Operation Guardian of the Walls.
May 5 Yehuda Guetta (19) Yehuda Guetta, a student at the Itamar Yeshiva and resident of Jerusalem, died of wounds sustained in the terror attack at Tapuah Junction on May 2. Two other yeshiva students were wounded in the attack.
2020
December 20 Esther Horgan (52) Esther Horgan’s body was found early Monday with clear signs of a violent attack which police and the Shin Bet security agency suspect was an act of terror.
August 26 Rabbi Shai Ohayon (39) Rabbi Shai Ohayon, a father of four, was killed in a stabbing attack in suburban Tel Aviv by a Palestinian assailant.
May 12 Staff Sergeant Amit Ben Yigal (21) Ben Yigal succumbed to wounds sustained after being struck in the head by a rock hurled at him by a Palestinian terrorist.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/comprehensive-listing-of-terrorism-victims-in-israel

@rajk999 said
Your time would be better spent campaigning for Hamas to stop the horrendous acts of terrorism against the Jews. Here is a list of murders Hamas carried out in the last 3 years, alone.

2023
November 2 Elhanan Klein, (29) Klein was found shot in his car.
October 7 More than 1,400 Israeli civilians were killed in a massacre perpetrated by Hamas. There are too many na ...[text shortened]... .

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/comprehensive-listing-of-terrorism-victims-in-israel

@rajk999:

"Your time would be better spent campaigning for Hamas to stop the horrendous acts of terrorism against the Jews. Here is a list of murders Hamas carried out in the last 3 years, alone."

@rajk999 has many times slandered me. Here, again, he or she tries to make a false impression of what was actually said in my Public Appeal.

In my Public Appeal, there is the following paragraph:

"As for Hamas, the European Union has already declared Hamas a terrorist organisation, so there is no need to impose such sporting sanctions on the group. After all, you are not going to meet a chess player playing under the Hamas flag anywhere, anyway."

@EintaluJ

What a load of anti-semitic nonesense

I don't recall Ukraine massacring 100s of Russian civilians at any point prior to the invasion of Ukraine, so comparisons just don't wash, I'm afraid

I for one, and there are millions of others in the UK like me, don't give a toss what Israel does in Gaza, or Palestine (or Lebanon for that matter).

Personally, you can stick your views somewhere the sun doesn't shine.

The last time I checked this was a chess website, paid for by subscribers, so frankly you and your opinions don't count

Now clear off and do some posting on Lichess

I hate to see games and sports politicized.

I'm not saying that issues like wars aren't important - of course they are. However, they're not so important that they must barge into every other arena of human thought and interaction and take center stage.

Boycotts like in OP are the worst, because they aim at the rank and file citizens. Those are not the ones who start the wars!

So forgive me if I'm fine playing chess with as many Jews, Palestinians, Ukrainians and Russians as are available. I'll use it to remind me we're all human beings with a common passion for the game.

There's already plenty of discord in the world. Stop polluting chess with it!

@anglian said
@EintaluJ

What a load of anti-semitic nonesense

I don't recall Ukraine massacring 100s of Russian civilians at any point prior to the invasion of Ukraine, so comparisons just don't wash, I'm afraid

I for one, and there are millions of others in the UK like me, don't give a toss what Israel does in Gaza, or Palestine (or Lebanon for that matter).

Personally, you ca ...[text shortened]... ibers, so frankly you and your opinions don't count

Now clear off and do some posting on Lichess

@anglian:

"What a load of anti-semitic nonsense."

- There is no need to read till the end of the reply of @anglian as he or she is slandering me at the very first sentence of one's reply.

The term "anti-semitic" is wrongly used in this reply.

It is the general strategy of Netanyahu's ideology and propaganda, that all the critics of Israel's crimes are labelled as "anti-semitics".

However, there is no anti-semitism present in my Public Appeal and criticizing the ultra-Zionism, which amounts to Nazism, is in no way antisemitism.

Ultra-Zionism was also criticized in 1948 by Albert Einstein, who was a Jew. Einstein called such fanatics "terrorists".

One of the ideas of my Public Appeal is the call to refuse to play chess with such chess players who defend Israel's present war crimes in the Gaza Strip, for example, by labelling the critics of these war crimes to be "anti-semitics".

No decent human being should play chess with such propagandists and defenders of war crimes. At least, as long as the sanctions on Russian and Belarus chess players have not been annulled.

@bigdogg said
I hate to see games and sports politicized.

I'm not saying that issues like wars aren't important - of course they are. However, they're not so important that they must barge into every other arena of human thought and interaction and take center stage.

Boycotts like in OP are the worst, because they aim at the rank and file citizens. Those are not the ones who start th ...[text shortened]... ssion for the game.

There's already plenty of discord in the world. Stop polluting chess with it!

Your reply seriously distorts the content of my Public Appeal.

"So forgive me if I'm fine playing chess with as many Jews, Palestinians, Ukrainians and Russians as are available."

Well, my Public Appeal demands the FIDE and ICC to annul their absurd boycott of Russian and Belarus chess players.

@eintaluj said
Your reply seriously distorts the content of my Public Appeal.

"So forgive me if I'm fine playing chess with as many Jews, Palestinians, Ukrainians and Russians as are available."

Well, my Public Appeal demands the FIDE and ICC to annul their absurd boycott of Russian and Belarus chess players.

These debates have no place on a chess website,especially on a chess only forum.
I hated what George W Bush with the support of Tony Blair sanctioned in Iraq.
Should I stop playing chess against Americans and British citizens?
Of course not.
And would it make any difference?
Of course not

@venda said
These debates have no place on a chess website,especially on a chess only forum.
I hated what George W Bush with the support of Tony Blair sanctioned in Iraq.
Should I stop playing chess against Americans and British citizens?
Of course not.
And would it make any difference?
Of course not

Thanks for your answer.

"These debates have no place on a chess website,especially on a chess only forum."

Perhaps you are right about the Only Chess Forum. I do not know how to interpret the rules. Are you an admin of that forum?

However, why do you think that the debates and discussions of the sanctions posed on the chess players of Russia and Belarus have no place on the chess website? I think you are wrong.

"I hated what George W Bush with the support of Tony Blair sanctioned in Iraq.
Should I stop playing chess against Americans and British citizens? Of course not."

There are sanctions imposed on Russian and Belarus chess players. For example, individual chess players from Russia are not allowed to use the Russian flag. Nepo played the WC match without the Russian flag.

Perhaps you have heard about it?!

@eintaluj said
Your reply seriously distorts the content of my Public Appeal.

"So forgive me if I'm fine playing chess with as many Jews, Palestinians, Ukrainians and Russians as are available."

Well, my Public Appeal demands the FIDE and ICC to annul their absurd boycott of Russian and Belarus chess players.

It wasn't a direct reply to you.

@eintaluj said
Thanks for your answer.

"These debates have no place on a chess website,especially on a chess only forum."

Perhaps you are right about the Only Chess Forum. I do not know how to interpret the rules. Are you an admin of that forum?

However, why do you think that the debates and discussions of the sanctions posed on the chess players of Russia and Belaru ...[text shortened]... ussian flag. Nepo played the WC match without the Russian flag.

Perhaps you have heard about it?!

No I am not an administrator.
I think only chess should mean just that.
I suppose politics etc when chess players are involved does have some relevance on the site.
I remember discussions regarding Magnus Carlsen not playing in the world championship was debated on here.
However,I for one don't want to read about campaigns relating to boycotting casual chess players,which is what we all are on here, simply because they come from a certain place in the world.
Perhaps on the debates forum (which I never look at) would be a more appropriate forum for such things.
I don't know anything about Nepo

@venda said
No I am not an administrator.
I think only chess should mean just that.
I suppose politics etc when chess players are involved does have some relevance on the site.
I remember discussions regarding Magnus Carlsen not playing in the world championship was debated on here.
However,I for one don't want to read about campaigns relating to boycotting casual chess players,which ...[text shortened]... never look at) would be a more appropriate forum for such things.
I don't know anything about Nepo

Perhaps you are right.

The problem is that chess is politicized already due to the sanctions (on Russia and Belarus, both by FIDE and ICCF and also by big chess platforms).

I do not know whether arguing against the politicization of chess amounts to political talk.

"Nepo" is a shorthand for Jan Nepomnjaštši.

@eintaluj said
Perhaps you are right.

The problem is that chess is politicized already due to the sanctions (on Russia and Belarus, both by FIDE and ICCF and also by big chess platforms).

I do not know whether arguing against the politicization of chess amounts to political talk.

"Nepo" is a shorthand for Jan Nepomnjaštši.

Have you any evidence that any individuals who play chess on here support the events you are talking about?

@venda said
Have you any evidence that any individuals who play chess on here support the events you are talking about?

Yes.

Here, in the present thread, Rajk999 published a list of the Israelis killed by Hamas since 07 October 2023. That list does not belong to the forum Only Chess. Moreover, it was completely irrelevant to the content of my post that was talking about the chess sanctions. Tacitly, it is an attempt to justify killing 10,000 unarmed civilians in the Gaza Strip, referring to the a. 1500 civilians killed on 07 October in Israel.

In the forum Debates, the same person has systematically defended such war crimes of Israel. That person's favourite method of defending such actions in the Gaza Strip is the following: absurd accusations that I am supposedly somehow a supporter of the terrorist organisation Hamas. And other absolutely nonbased accusations. That person, at the same time, has said there, that Israeli's actions in the Gaza Strip are a "retaliaton", which is rather a confirmation that these actions are not self-defence. That person has also presented absolutely false accusation that I am supposedly an antisemitist. That person even went so far as to claim, that I am an antisemite because I am living in Estonia and during WWII, some Estonians participated in the Holocaust. All the comments of that person had almost nothing to do with the content of my Public Appeal - it was altogether ignored.

Needless to say, I am not only going to refuse to play chess with such extremists but I also refuse to talk or discuss with such "chess players".

Anyway, I will not publish on the chess forum the list of 10,000 civilians killed in the Gaza strip.