30 dec 2008
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wreckage trail from Jabaliya to Gazabombed truck, with shelled house behind, Jabaliya
2:20 pm, Tuesday, Shifa hospital, waiting for 1st aid training (decided that having some basic first aid skills could be helpful). An explosion nearby, not far from the hospital. An Apache was flying over, and now a drone buzzes loudly as it surveys the streets (the damage?). Dr. Khaled tells us that last night the Shifa hospital director received a bomb threat. “Some one called, saying he was an Israeli army officer, and told us we had to evacuate Shifa hospital immediately as it would be targeted.” With over 600 patients in Shifa, this was more than impractical, let alone unethical. |
The director refused, Shifa wasn’t bombed. But threats like this are made by phone calls, some followed by later bombing [like that of the home next to Jaber Wishah, among others], some just pyschological terror.
Later: Dr. Khaled Hadoura has just taken us through the basics of CPR, tying a tourniquet and inserting a cannula (I.V. used for drips or blood transfusions).
Tuesday, 10:30 am
I’ve just returned from Jabaliya, in Gaza’s north, where I and another woman, Sharon from Australia, spent the night again with our friends. They, the wives, sisters and relatives of my two male friends, spend their days and nights without their husbands and brothers, afraid, hiding in their basement where they’ve been since Saturday. Their basement is by no means a bomb shelter, simply the ground level floor of the house and with the smallest windows, so when the windows shatter from the bombing, there is a bit less chance they will be injured by glass. But if a bomb hits their house, they’re dead. The house is like most, not made of re-enforced cement, crumbling easily under bulldozer blades or missile impacts.
The men stay away from the house, waiting for the expected ground invasion. They believe from past experiences (March 2008 -when their house was occupied by Israeli soldiers for three days, the family kept at gunpoint in one room -and earlier invasions), that if they stay, they will certainly be subjected to beating, possible arrest, possibly worse -because they are men in their 20s and 30s -they have experienced it before.
Just after 8 am
We leave the house, in a lull of relative silence -although the drones still circle above. But although the actual ride back takes just 20 minutes, we stop numerous times to document the shelling of the previous three days.
We photograph the ruins of a truck and home near Dwar Zimmo, on Sikka street, at a metal shop, where scrap metals are collected and re-used. The house next to the shop had been shelled at 4 pm yesterday (December 29). The missile came from an F-16 Israeli fighter plane which, according to Israel, was targeting a “weapons storage”. Yet the house next to the shop was leveled instead.
One hour later, Jihad Samour (approx. 55 years old), had arrived with 6 sons and one other youth, 15 year old Wassim Eid, to drop off scrap metal, the proceeds of which he was to use to buy food. A missile from a drone overhead hit the group, tearing them to pieces and exploding into an even larger blast than usual due to the oxygen tanks at the shop. One of the men ran panicking, crying for help as he burned alive, engulfed in flames from the explosion. Only one son, 23 year old Mohammed Samour, escaped the massacre, without an arm and a leg, and in critical condition. A next-door neighbour describes the dead: “the missile made the people into pieces. No arms. No legs. And burned.”
Later: Dr. Khaled Hadoura has just taken us through the basics of CPR, tying a tourniquet and inserting a cannula (I.V. used for drips or blood transfusions).
Tuesday, 10:30 am
I’ve just returned from Jabaliya, in Gaza’s north, where I and another woman, Sharon from Australia, spent the night again with our friends. They, the wives, sisters and relatives of my two male friends, spend their days and nights without their husbands and brothers, afraid, hiding in their basement where they’ve been since Saturday. Their basement is by no means a bomb shelter, simply the ground level floor of the house and with the smallest windows, so when the windows shatter from the bombing, there is a bit less chance they will be injured by glass. But if a bomb hits their house, they’re dead. The house is like most, not made of re-enforced cement, crumbling easily under bulldozer blades or missile impacts.
The men stay away from the house, waiting for the expected ground invasion. They believe from past experiences (March 2008 -when their house was occupied by Israeli soldiers for three days, the family kept at gunpoint in one room -and earlier invasions), that if they stay, they will certainly be subjected to beating, possible arrest, possibly worse -because they are men in their 20s and 30s -they have experienced it before.
Just after 8 am
We leave the house, in a lull of relative silence -although the drones still circle above. But although the actual ride back takes just 20 minutes, we stop numerous times to document the shelling of the previous three days.
We photograph the ruins of a truck and home near Dwar Zimmo, on Sikka street, at a metal shop, where scrap metals are collected and re-used. The house next to the shop had been shelled at 4 pm yesterday (December 29). The missile came from an F-16 Israeli fighter plane which, according to Israel, was targeting a “weapons storage”. Yet the house next to the shop was leveled instead.
One hour later, Jihad Samour (approx. 55 years old), had arrived with 6 sons and one other youth, 15 year old Wassim Eid, to drop off scrap metal, the proceeds of which he was to use to buy food. A missile from a drone overhead hit the group, tearing them to pieces and exploding into an even larger blast than usual due to the oxygen tanks at the shop. One of the men ran panicking, crying for help as he burned alive, engulfed in flames from the explosion. Only one son, 23 year old Mohammed Samour, escaped the massacre, without an arm and a leg, and in critical condition. A next-door neighbour describes the dead: “the missile made the people into pieces. No arms. No legs. And burned.”
Through some frantic phone calls, we learn the shelling didn’t hit the house, the family is skaken but alive. Fatema’s phone is busy, and when I finally reach her, her normally strong voice is a mess of sobbing and trembling. She’s terrified, again.
We can’t go back to her, the drones are still circling, and returning, even in daylight, would be inviting a missile.
En route back to Gaza City, we pass a bombed out building which had held a small carpentry shop on one side and an empty shop on the other, with a house in the back half of the building. Two rockets pierced the roof, destroying the front shops and the back house, and crumbling neighbouring walls on both sides of the targeted building. Seven of Akram el Ganoo’s ten children were injured in the explosions, with two children still in hospital. The paint thinner and carpentry chemicals in the shop fed a fire which took 13 hours to put out, using sand as there was no water. |
Sunlight through the missile’s holes illuminate the blackened remains of stairs, interior structures, shop goods lying scattered amidst the sand, and the stench of the fire’s remains is pungent.
Eid Said Eid and Abdu Hakim Eid, the two neighbouring families on just one side of the building, both had children injured as a result of the targeted strikes: a 4 month old baby, 4 year old and 6 year old children were wounded in the blasts which tore holes into their walls. Mahmoud el Najjar, el Ganoo’s neighbour on the other side of the building, pointed to the charred pieces of furniture and interior decorations that were his furniture shop.
Eid Said Eid and Abdu Hakim Eid, the two neighbouring families on just one side of the building, both had children injured as a result of the targeted strikes: a 4 month old baby, 4 year old and 6 year old children were wounded in the blasts which tore holes into their walls. Mahmoud el Najjar, el Ganoo’s neighbour on the other side of the building, pointed to the charred pieces of furniture and interior decorations that were his furniture shop.
|
A man urges us to visit his chicken farm, where 11,000 young chickens have expired, the pressure from the blasts around the area too much for them.
The stench of their two-day old corpses is horrid. They lie where they’ve fallen, a mass of feathers, and the remaining 1,000 or so birds peck around the shelter, looking for non-existant food: even before this campaign of attacks began animal feed was already scarce, non-existent except for those who had stored enough. The remaining birds stand to join the others soon. The farmer, shows us more dead birds, gathered into bags for disposal. He’s disgusted and dismayed, and has lost his source of revenue and a source of food. |
As H takes us around the bombed and affected areas, he fields calls from friends. They’ve all heard on the radio about the latest shelling in his area. “Next door, next door,” he answers to their questions about his house being hit. His stress and sadness are immense: in the last 4 days, his mother has been killed, many of his friends who were policemen were killed, he has not had time to even mourn any their deaths nor to hold a funeral for his mother, and he is living -as is everyone in Gaza -under constant bombardment.
“I could tell you many stories about my friends who were killed at the Jawazzat (police training academy). But I can’t tell you now, I can’t think about it right now. If I think about it, I don’t know how I’ll continue,” he tells me, smiling sadly.
We continue up a dirt road littered with chunks of rubble from the recently-exploded wall lining the road. A massive crater collects water from the broken water pipes.
“We haven’t had water since Sunday night,” Jamil Abudullah tells us. He cradles his 2 year old son, his 5 year old standing carefully by. They bombed here at 8:30 pm exactly, Sunday night, he tells us. His house sits 50 m behind, without drinking water, electricity or phone lines. “We can’t talk with anyone, we can’t cook,” he say adds. Invasions in the past have severed the water lines, neighbours say. This isn’t the first time.
Back on the road, still in Jabaliya we pass further bombed buildings, but there are really so many there’s not time now to get every story.
We continue going down Massoud street, we pass a wooded area where on Monday, 3 teenagers had been collecting wood to burn.
It was between 11 am and noon when a drone flying above dropped a missile on the youths, killing one, 14, from the Abu Khater family, and seriously injured the other two, Mohammed Abu Nabil, 19, and Majd Migbel, 13. The large white flour sack they’d been carrying to collect wood in lay among the trees.
Back in Gaza, at the bombed mosque across from Shifa, we leave my friend H knowing he, very worried about his wife, baby, sisters and the many children, might try to return to his home. We’ve by now learned that the bomb landed 30 metres away, in the same area which had been shelled early Sunday morning, rocking us from our stupor. That shelling left a crater amidst the olive trees.
“I could tell you many stories about my friends who were killed at the Jawazzat (police training academy). But I can’t tell you now, I can’t think about it right now. If I think about it, I don’t know how I’ll continue,” he tells me, smiling sadly.
We continue up a dirt road littered with chunks of rubble from the recently-exploded wall lining the road. A massive crater collects water from the broken water pipes.
“We haven’t had water since Sunday night,” Jamil Abudullah tells us. He cradles his 2 year old son, his 5 year old standing carefully by. They bombed here at 8:30 pm exactly, Sunday night, he tells us. His house sits 50 m behind, without drinking water, electricity or phone lines. “We can’t talk with anyone, we can’t cook,” he say adds. Invasions in the past have severed the water lines, neighbours say. This isn’t the first time.
Back on the road, still in Jabaliya we pass further bombed buildings, but there are really so many there’s not time now to get every story.
We continue going down Massoud street, we pass a wooded area where on Monday, 3 teenagers had been collecting wood to burn.
It was between 11 am and noon when a drone flying above dropped a missile on the youths, killing one, 14, from the Abu Khater family, and seriously injured the other two, Mohammed Abu Nabil, 19, and Majd Migbel, 13. The large white flour sack they’d been carrying to collect wood in lay among the trees.
Back in Gaza, at the bombed mosque across from Shifa, we leave my friend H knowing he, very worried about his wife, baby, sisters and the many children, might try to return to his home. We’ve by now learned that the bomb landed 30 metres away, in the same area which had been shelled early Sunday morning, rocking us from our stupor. That shelling left a crater amidst the olive trees.
dangerous nights in Jabaliya and throughout Gaza
Fatema’s baby, H
“Last night was very dangerous. Everybody on the street after dark dies. We were afraid for you,” Fatema explained to me, as Sharon and I arrive just after 6 pm on Monday night to her Jabaliya home, in northern Gaza. It’s already dark outside, and getting here any later would have been suicidal.
We’d wanted to come back to them on Sunday night, but it was after 8pm, and H. insisted we not dare to come. “No one goes out on the streets after dark in this area,” he insisted. “No cars, no people. The Israeli drones, Apaches or F-16s will target you.” We didn’t go, knowing he knows best. Instead, we stayed at a Jabaliya hospital, talking with the doctors who were on call for an emergency. That hospital, Al Awda, doesn’t normally receive emergency patients. But nothing is normal here.
That night, Sunday, there were numerous explosions in and around Jabaliya, throughout the north, in Gaza city and the environs just outside Gaza. Everywhere.
We learned of some of the Jabaliya explosions. The Emad Akal mosque in Jabaliya camp, which was leveled, taking with it 3 neighbouring houses, 5 children between 4-17 years old, and injuring tens, blowing out walls, bringing down roves, and destroying the interior of tens more houses around the mosque. There were three more mosques in Jabaliya in the early hours of Tuesday morning: Riad Salheyn mosque, el Zawia mosque, Sabat el Amiin mosque.
There was also shelling from Israeli naval ships patrolling Gaza’s waters which had come much closer to the harbour, shooting on the port and targeting areas along Gaza’s coastline.
Later Monday afternoon, after seeing and smelling the damage, hearing of the deaths of the young girls and near deaths of the survivors, newly-homeless, and of owners of destroyed shops and homes, we each attempt to put into words, written and spoken, the things we’ve seen, heard, been told. It is impossible to tell all, there is too much to tell and thoughts are interrupted by new explosions.
Monday night:
The night at Fatema’s passes slowly.
“We didn’t go outside today,” she tells us. “Only upstairs, briefly, to get things we’d need down here: clothes, some food…” Yesterday, too, they hadn’t left the house.
She talks about the shelling near them. “The dust and smoke from the missiles were like black clouds. Beesan,” she continues, pointing at the teenage daughter, “she won’t leave even this room on her own,” gesturing to the basement door.
“I worry about everyone. The children here aren’t children. They don’t have a normal childhood. Abdullah (4), when I ask him to draw anything will draw planes, guns.”
Outside the darkened basement, where the family has cowered for 3 days, the psychological warfare continues.
Drones circle continuously, buzzing loudly, their whine amplified with proximity and speed. Imagine a mosquito hovering at your ear, all day, all night. It is a grating and jarring sound you cannot ignore, and a sound that holds elements of threat and terror: drones not only survey, they unleash explosives. When the F-16 rushes overhead, you also expect explosions.
Fatema continues to describe dealing with the terrorizing situation: “There’s nothing I can do. I’m not afraid for myself, I’m afraid for the young people and the men. They would be killed, or lose their legs. They (Israel) kill the men on purpose.
This is punishment, to see someone from your family killed, to see him cut up so badly from an explosion that he cannot walk, or doesn’t survive.”
At 8pm there’s a sound that was normal in the border areas along Gaza’s length -the 300m to 1000m from the border to Israel -where farmers are targeted on their land: machine gun fire. But this time, instead of from soldiers in jeeps, the fire comes from Apaches.
“No, it’s not a normal sound. They’re shooting at the houses, haphazardly,” Fatema estimates, from experience. I have little reason to doubt her: I hear the fire, and she’s lived such episodes before. The entire back side of their home is littered with holes from machine gun and tank fire.
I get a call from Haidar, who tells me what’s going on in his Gaza City neighbourhood. He lives near the Ministry Compound [which will be attacked in 4 different strikes later that night, starting at 1 am]. He tells me of the recent attacks on the Islamic University, less than 1 km down the road from his apartment.
“The university is not far from our building. What a terrible night. Barak was on TV saying they are going to intensify the attacks, going to target more Hamas leaders. But they’re not just ‘targeting Hamas leaders’; they hit the Islamic University, Al Azhar University, Al Quds Open University…” [and later that night, mosques throughout Jabaliya and other areas of Gaza].
I hang up with Haidar having condemned the International Conspiracy of Silence which allows Israel to continue its terrorizing of Gaza’s population, unrestrained.
At 9:20 pm the rain starts and my friends rejoice (I’m amazed at their ability to find joy in such traumatizing, horrific conditions. They still haven’t properly mourned the death of their mother killed just two days earlier). “They can’t attack us easily when it’s raining,” Fatema explains, relieved. So when the international community won’t intervene to halt Israel’s attacks on civilians, nature, at least, can.
10 pm:
The radio is on and instead of the news relating the latest hits around the Strip, the latest dead and injured, an passionate plea from an Imam. The words are too fast, I don’t understand them, but the meaning is clear: a lamentation for the dead. The room is quiet, except for a periodic “ameen” punctuating the holy man’s grieving. With 355 confirmed dead, including 60 children and 12 women and over 1400 injured, and with people already living in extreme poverty under the siege, it’s not hard to imagine the words of the sermon.
Fatema sits quieter than ever, head bowed, lamenting these deaths, and the deaths of her country? Her child’s future?
The imam’s voice cracks with emotion, and Fatema sobs more loudly, crying “ummi” (mother) to her dead mother-in-law. “I loved her dearly,” she’d explained to me earlier.
The dead woman’s mother, the grandmother, sits meditatively, straight, eyes distant, as she has sat for most of the night.
12:35 am
Latest of on-going missiles, this one closer again, shaking the building. There is speculation over whose house has been hit as the women listen to the radio.
4:40 am
Ripped from the shallow sleep I’ve fallen into by the loudest blast yet, shattering the night, pounding in my ears, though other explosions have continued to disturb the night. The drones overhead seem to fly more erratically, at least their sound becomes more erratic, louder, lower, faster, circling over the area, over the house. When the Apaches are directly overhead, most brief sighs of relief “they can’t shoot straight down,” it’s explained to us. But drones can.
I’ve the sensation that, because it’s been too comparatively quiet for the last two hours, until the last explosion, we’re going to be punished soon… because we were getting too comfortable, falling, even, into sleep. And because it seems that, with all of the explosions we’ve heard, surely every other target has been hit, and all that remains is us.
Psychological warfare.
It leaves you to imagine the worst, and for many so far, that worst has been mortal.
It keeps us wondering, cowering, rips us from any newly-acquired sense of security that might’ve come with an hour of quiet.
The elderly father scrambles for a few minutes in the darkness to strike a match and light a candle. And the elderly aunt renews a chorus of panicked prayers, thumping rhythmically on her pillow in terror.
It’s been 11 minutes, and we are waiting for the next explosion, because it will come. The drones temporarily sound further away, but they quickly buzz near again, accompanied by the thud of helicopters blades.
It feels that every metre, every household must be continually terrorized.
4:55 am
The worried murmurs and frenzied prayers taper off as the women and elderly man try once again to sleep, their only escape…if they can get it. The drones sound like they’re in front now, their erratic motor reminding us below that peace and tranquility are hallucinations.
I realize that my dreams, my half-sleep, and my conscious really have all been filled with the same thoughts and feelings; images of the warplanes above and around; expectancy; wonder, at the newest bombardment -who has been hit? What building has been rocked…?
5 am:
I’m so tired. I know I’m tired like every person in the Strip -there is no one who can sleep through the night -knows that long bouts of sleep are a luxury, through never restful, as all thoughts are on the attacks.
“Last night was very dangerous. Everybody on the street after dark dies. We were afraid for you,” Fatema explained to me, as Sharon and I arrive just after 6 pm on Monday night to her Jabaliya home, in northern Gaza. It’s already dark outside, and getting here any later would have been suicidal.
We’d wanted to come back to them on Sunday night, but it was after 8pm, and H. insisted we not dare to come. “No one goes out on the streets after dark in this area,” he insisted. “No cars, no people. The Israeli drones, Apaches or F-16s will target you.” We didn’t go, knowing he knows best. Instead, we stayed at a Jabaliya hospital, talking with the doctors who were on call for an emergency. That hospital, Al Awda, doesn’t normally receive emergency patients. But nothing is normal here.
That night, Sunday, there were numerous explosions in and around Jabaliya, throughout the north, in Gaza city and the environs just outside Gaza. Everywhere.
We learned of some of the Jabaliya explosions. The Emad Akal mosque in Jabaliya camp, which was leveled, taking with it 3 neighbouring houses, 5 children between 4-17 years old, and injuring tens, blowing out walls, bringing down roves, and destroying the interior of tens more houses around the mosque. There were three more mosques in Jabaliya in the early hours of Tuesday morning: Riad Salheyn mosque, el Zawia mosque, Sabat el Amiin mosque.
There was also shelling from Israeli naval ships patrolling Gaza’s waters which had come much closer to the harbour, shooting on the port and targeting areas along Gaza’s coastline.
Later Monday afternoon, after seeing and smelling the damage, hearing of the deaths of the young girls and near deaths of the survivors, newly-homeless, and of owners of destroyed shops and homes, we each attempt to put into words, written and spoken, the things we’ve seen, heard, been told. It is impossible to tell all, there is too much to tell and thoughts are interrupted by new explosions.
Monday night:
The night at Fatema’s passes slowly.
“We didn’t go outside today,” she tells us. “Only upstairs, briefly, to get things we’d need down here: clothes, some food…” Yesterday, too, they hadn’t left the house.
She talks about the shelling near them. “The dust and smoke from the missiles were like black clouds. Beesan,” she continues, pointing at the teenage daughter, “she won’t leave even this room on her own,” gesturing to the basement door.
“I worry about everyone. The children here aren’t children. They don’t have a normal childhood. Abdullah (4), when I ask him to draw anything will draw planes, guns.”
Outside the darkened basement, where the family has cowered for 3 days, the psychological warfare continues.
Drones circle continuously, buzzing loudly, their whine amplified with proximity and speed. Imagine a mosquito hovering at your ear, all day, all night. It is a grating and jarring sound you cannot ignore, and a sound that holds elements of threat and terror: drones not only survey, they unleash explosives. When the F-16 rushes overhead, you also expect explosions.
Fatema continues to describe dealing with the terrorizing situation: “There’s nothing I can do. I’m not afraid for myself, I’m afraid for the young people and the men. They would be killed, or lose their legs. They (Israel) kill the men on purpose.
This is punishment, to see someone from your family killed, to see him cut up so badly from an explosion that he cannot walk, or doesn’t survive.”
At 8pm there’s a sound that was normal in the border areas along Gaza’s length -the 300m to 1000m from the border to Israel -where farmers are targeted on their land: machine gun fire. But this time, instead of from soldiers in jeeps, the fire comes from Apaches.
“No, it’s not a normal sound. They’re shooting at the houses, haphazardly,” Fatema estimates, from experience. I have little reason to doubt her: I hear the fire, and she’s lived such episodes before. The entire back side of their home is littered with holes from machine gun and tank fire.
I get a call from Haidar, who tells me what’s going on in his Gaza City neighbourhood. He lives near the Ministry Compound [which will be attacked in 4 different strikes later that night, starting at 1 am]. He tells me of the recent attacks on the Islamic University, less than 1 km down the road from his apartment.
“The university is not far from our building. What a terrible night. Barak was on TV saying they are going to intensify the attacks, going to target more Hamas leaders. But they’re not just ‘targeting Hamas leaders’; they hit the Islamic University, Al Azhar University, Al Quds Open University…” [and later that night, mosques throughout Jabaliya and other areas of Gaza].
I hang up with Haidar having condemned the International Conspiracy of Silence which allows Israel to continue its terrorizing of Gaza’s population, unrestrained.
At 9:20 pm the rain starts and my friends rejoice (I’m amazed at their ability to find joy in such traumatizing, horrific conditions. They still haven’t properly mourned the death of their mother killed just two days earlier). “They can’t attack us easily when it’s raining,” Fatema explains, relieved. So when the international community won’t intervene to halt Israel’s attacks on civilians, nature, at least, can.
10 pm:
The radio is on and instead of the news relating the latest hits around the Strip, the latest dead and injured, an passionate plea from an Imam. The words are too fast, I don’t understand them, but the meaning is clear: a lamentation for the dead. The room is quiet, except for a periodic “ameen” punctuating the holy man’s grieving. With 355 confirmed dead, including 60 children and 12 women and over 1400 injured, and with people already living in extreme poverty under the siege, it’s not hard to imagine the words of the sermon.
Fatema sits quieter than ever, head bowed, lamenting these deaths, and the deaths of her country? Her child’s future?
The imam’s voice cracks with emotion, and Fatema sobs more loudly, crying “ummi” (mother) to her dead mother-in-law. “I loved her dearly,” she’d explained to me earlier.
The dead woman’s mother, the grandmother, sits meditatively, straight, eyes distant, as she has sat for most of the night.
12:35 am
Latest of on-going missiles, this one closer again, shaking the building. There is speculation over whose house has been hit as the women listen to the radio.
4:40 am
Ripped from the shallow sleep I’ve fallen into by the loudest blast yet, shattering the night, pounding in my ears, though other explosions have continued to disturb the night. The drones overhead seem to fly more erratically, at least their sound becomes more erratic, louder, lower, faster, circling over the area, over the house. When the Apaches are directly overhead, most brief sighs of relief “they can’t shoot straight down,” it’s explained to us. But drones can.
I’ve the sensation that, because it’s been too comparatively quiet for the last two hours, until the last explosion, we’re going to be punished soon… because we were getting too comfortable, falling, even, into sleep. And because it seems that, with all of the explosions we’ve heard, surely every other target has been hit, and all that remains is us.
Psychological warfare.
It leaves you to imagine the worst, and for many so far, that worst has been mortal.
It keeps us wondering, cowering, rips us from any newly-acquired sense of security that might’ve come with an hour of quiet.
The elderly father scrambles for a few minutes in the darkness to strike a match and light a candle. And the elderly aunt renews a chorus of panicked prayers, thumping rhythmically on her pillow in terror.
It’s been 11 minutes, and we are waiting for the next explosion, because it will come. The drones temporarily sound further away, but they quickly buzz near again, accompanied by the thud of helicopters blades.
It feels that every metre, every household must be continually terrorized.
4:55 am
The worried murmurs and frenzied prayers taper off as the women and elderly man try once again to sleep, their only escape…if they can get it. The drones sound like they’re in front now, their erratic motor reminding us below that peace and tranquility are hallucinations.
I realize that my dreams, my half-sleep, and my conscious really have all been filled with the same thoughts and feelings; images of the warplanes above and around; expectancy; wonder, at the newest bombardment -who has been hit? What building has been rocked…?
5 am:
I’m so tired. I know I’m tired like every person in the Strip -there is no one who can sleep through the night -knows that long bouts of sleep are a luxury, through never restful, as all thoughts are on the attacks.
It is a completely different and frightening world that has very quickly become a reality for me, and a re-visited reality for Palestinians who lived through invasions again and again.
Except, all are telling me, this is worse than any time before. Prior, it was ground invasions and air bombardment. This time, it’s extensive, non-stop air, and sea, bombardment. And ground invasion looms. 5:32 am Expected blast. Babies and children squealing in fear, hacking tears… |
from what I see
Ahmed Jaber Hoij (Abu Hweij) 6
“It should be noted that the breakdown of a truce between Hamas and Israel had been observed for several months by both sides. The truce was maintained by Hamas despite the failure of Israel to fulfill its obligation under the agreement to improve the living conditions of the people of Gaza. The recent upsurge of violence occurred after an Israeli incursion that killed several alleged militants within Gaza.”
–Richard Falk,Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights on Palestinian territories occupied since 1967
From on the ground here, and from hearing the accounts from 1st-hand witnesses, I would disagree that Israel is merely “targeting Hamas targets”.
There is significant support for Hamas in the Gaza Strip, hence their democratic election in 2006, after which they were penalized and put under international sanctions. Thus, to say one is targeting Hamas targets, when any civilian employed by the Hamas government, be he traffic police, civil police or in the Ministries, is an immoral declaration of war against a civilian population.
The situation I am addressing here is the mass-bombing of the entire Gaza Strip. As a civilian reporter here, not a military expert nor claiming to be, I am attempting to report what I see and hear here in Gaza, so I may make the mistake of using terms which have specific military definitions. For the sake of clarity, then, I will say mass bombing, indiscriminate bombing, as well as targeted bombing, instead of “carpet bombing”, although the meaning in the end is the same to me: every area of Gaza is being subject to Israeli bombing, from sea to walls.
Let me give you some personal examples of mass-bombing, indiscriminate bombing, and the targeting of civilians:
8 men, including a father (age 55), 6 of his sons (ages 15- mid-20s), and one friend (age 15) who were targeted by a missile from an Israeli drone yesterday at 5 pm while they attempted to return scrap metal to a metal workshop. This attack came 1 hour after an Israeli F-16 targeted the shop but hit the house next door, alleging the shop had missiles in it (it held oxygen tanks, for the work involved in a metal shop).
The 8 dead were torn to pieces by the missile which targeted them.
Yesterday also, 3 children were collecting firewood for cooking, as they have no cooking gas (because of Israel’s siege on Gaza, cooking gas being among the many banned materials which also include medicines, replacement parts for hospital equipment, building cement, and a very extensive list which i don’t have time to write at present but which is very well documented by the UN and other “objective” sources.) The youths, ages 13 and 14, were in a small patch of olive trees collecting wood when a missile from a drone targeted them, killing one and seriously injuring the other two who are now in critical condition. It was between 11 am and noon.
The mother of a family in Jabaliya was on the street going to buy bread on Saturday afternoon when she was killed by shrapnel from a missile which landed metres from her. The same family lives in fear, in an unprotected room (no bomb shelters here) as bombs explode 30 m from their house and in the neighbouring area.
Each bomb near them shakes their house and blows out remaining windows. I know, I sleep there. The missile which struck land across the street was targeting an enclosed olive grove. This morning, the same land was attacked, 20 minutes after I had left the home. The family is terrified. This is a massive missile capable of leveling 2 and 3 story buildings, leaving craters 8-14 m deep.
Two sisters, ages 4 and 12, left their Beit Hanoun home around 9 am this morning to throw the garbage out. They are dead, killed from a missile strike.
At least 4 mosques in Jabaliya alone have been targeted, damaging buildings and houses around them. The first to be felled, Emad Akal mosque, took 5 neighbouring girls, ages 4-17, with it. In their sleep. The mosque across from Shifa hospital was leveled, leaving a crater approximately 15 m deep. A mosque in Khan Younis was leveled yesterday. Islamic university has twice been targeted, on two different days. Al Quds open university buildings were targeted. The coast of Gaza is being fired upon by Israeli naval vessels, from Rafah in the south to up in the north. There are now 370 known killed and over 1450 known injured, half of whom cricitally so. Sixty of the dead are children, 12 are women.
I am not sitting in a comfortable hotel room, I am visiting the sites, talking with the affected people, sleeping in the home of a family who is terrified and subject to bombing around all sides, including 30 metres from their front door. I am not cushioned from this, my ears also ring from the explosions, and I haven’t slept well in three nights. The explosions are extremely loud (that doesn’t suffice to describe it), and the drones and Apache helicopters and F-16s continue to circle over all areas of the Gaza Strip
I’d invite anyone who doubts the severity and seriousness of these ongoing attacks on Gaza to come here to witness this for yourself, to write your own balanced account, but of course that is impossible, because Gaza is under siege, all crossings are closed, and even the Free Gaza boat which brought me here was attacked this morning, rammed by Israeli naval vessels, and prevented from delivering needed medical supplies and bringing journalists to Gaza to report on the situation.
I strongly disagree, and will never agree, that Israel is taking precautions to limit the number of civilian casualties. I disagree with the statement Israel is carrying out airstrikes on Hamas targets, because by that definition, any supporter of Hamas can be a target, as we have seen. Would it be acceptable to bomb the police stations and ministries of Israel’s government, any government, because the political party is viewed as a target. George Bush is a war criminal and supports crimes against humanity. But that doesn’t mean we bomb the police stations and ministries of the United States. Clearly, these are acts of terrorism.
Hamas has publically said it will “recognize” Israel, an Israel with defined border and without the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.
I don’t have the luxury of a serene place from which to write. I am reporting what i see, hear, and feel from Gaza, and that is my intention.
Suggested reading:
Disinformation, secrecy and lies: How the Gaza offensive came about
The Nightmare in Beit Hanoun
Deserted streets and fear as Israel demolishes Gaza
“It should be noted that the breakdown of a truce between Hamas and Israel had been observed for several months by both sides. The truce was maintained by Hamas despite the failure of Israel to fulfill its obligation under the agreement to improve the living conditions of the people of Gaza. The recent upsurge of violence occurred after an Israeli incursion that killed several alleged militants within Gaza.”
–Richard Falk,Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights on Palestinian territories occupied since 1967
From on the ground here, and from hearing the accounts from 1st-hand witnesses, I would disagree that Israel is merely “targeting Hamas targets”.
There is significant support for Hamas in the Gaza Strip, hence their democratic election in 2006, after which they were penalized and put under international sanctions. Thus, to say one is targeting Hamas targets, when any civilian employed by the Hamas government, be he traffic police, civil police or in the Ministries, is an immoral declaration of war against a civilian population.
The situation I am addressing here is the mass-bombing of the entire Gaza Strip. As a civilian reporter here, not a military expert nor claiming to be, I am attempting to report what I see and hear here in Gaza, so I may make the mistake of using terms which have specific military definitions. For the sake of clarity, then, I will say mass bombing, indiscriminate bombing, as well as targeted bombing, instead of “carpet bombing”, although the meaning in the end is the same to me: every area of Gaza is being subject to Israeli bombing, from sea to walls.
Let me give you some personal examples of mass-bombing, indiscriminate bombing, and the targeting of civilians:
8 men, including a father (age 55), 6 of his sons (ages 15- mid-20s), and one friend (age 15) who were targeted by a missile from an Israeli drone yesterday at 5 pm while they attempted to return scrap metal to a metal workshop. This attack came 1 hour after an Israeli F-16 targeted the shop but hit the house next door, alleging the shop had missiles in it (it held oxygen tanks, for the work involved in a metal shop).
The 8 dead were torn to pieces by the missile which targeted them.
Yesterday also, 3 children were collecting firewood for cooking, as they have no cooking gas (because of Israel’s siege on Gaza, cooking gas being among the many banned materials which also include medicines, replacement parts for hospital equipment, building cement, and a very extensive list which i don’t have time to write at present but which is very well documented by the UN and other “objective” sources.) The youths, ages 13 and 14, were in a small patch of olive trees collecting wood when a missile from a drone targeted them, killing one and seriously injuring the other two who are now in critical condition. It was between 11 am and noon.
The mother of a family in Jabaliya was on the street going to buy bread on Saturday afternoon when she was killed by shrapnel from a missile which landed metres from her. The same family lives in fear, in an unprotected room (no bomb shelters here) as bombs explode 30 m from their house and in the neighbouring area.
Each bomb near them shakes their house and blows out remaining windows. I know, I sleep there. The missile which struck land across the street was targeting an enclosed olive grove. This morning, the same land was attacked, 20 minutes after I had left the home. The family is terrified. This is a massive missile capable of leveling 2 and 3 story buildings, leaving craters 8-14 m deep.
Two sisters, ages 4 and 12, left their Beit Hanoun home around 9 am this morning to throw the garbage out. They are dead, killed from a missile strike.
At least 4 mosques in Jabaliya alone have been targeted, damaging buildings and houses around them. The first to be felled, Emad Akal mosque, took 5 neighbouring girls, ages 4-17, with it. In their sleep. The mosque across from Shifa hospital was leveled, leaving a crater approximately 15 m deep. A mosque in Khan Younis was leveled yesterday. Islamic university has twice been targeted, on two different days. Al Quds open university buildings were targeted. The coast of Gaza is being fired upon by Israeli naval vessels, from Rafah in the south to up in the north. There are now 370 known killed and over 1450 known injured, half of whom cricitally so. Sixty of the dead are children, 12 are women.
I am not sitting in a comfortable hotel room, I am visiting the sites, talking with the affected people, sleeping in the home of a family who is terrified and subject to bombing around all sides, including 30 metres from their front door. I am not cushioned from this, my ears also ring from the explosions, and I haven’t slept well in three nights. The explosions are extremely loud (that doesn’t suffice to describe it), and the drones and Apache helicopters and F-16s continue to circle over all areas of the Gaza Strip
I’d invite anyone who doubts the severity and seriousness of these ongoing attacks on Gaza to come here to witness this for yourself, to write your own balanced account, but of course that is impossible, because Gaza is under siege, all crossings are closed, and even the Free Gaza boat which brought me here was attacked this morning, rammed by Israeli naval vessels, and prevented from delivering needed medical supplies and bringing journalists to Gaza to report on the situation.
I strongly disagree, and will never agree, that Israel is taking precautions to limit the number of civilian casualties. I disagree with the statement Israel is carrying out airstrikes on Hamas targets, because by that definition, any supporter of Hamas can be a target, as we have seen. Would it be acceptable to bomb the police stations and ministries of Israel’s government, any government, because the political party is viewed as a target. George Bush is a war criminal and supports crimes against humanity. But that doesn’t mean we bomb the police stations and ministries of the United States. Clearly, these are acts of terrorism.
Hamas has publically said it will “recognize” Israel, an Israel with defined border and without the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.
I don’t have the luxury of a serene place from which to write. I am reporting what i see, hear, and feel from Gaza, and that is my intention.
Suggested reading:
Disinformation, secrecy and lies: How the Gaza offensive came about
The Nightmare in Beit Hanoun
Deserted streets and fear as Israel demolishes Gaza
GAZA: 30 December On Saturday, Gazan schoolchildren were supposed to be sitting their exams - schools should have been full. This is exam time but instead of sitting at their desks children hide in their homes.
The intensity of the bombing is affecting me - but I'm a grown man so what about the children?
I can see how my nephews and nieces are being affected. Tala, my youngest niece, is only five years old. When she hears explosions she rushes to her mother - both are terrified.
A lot of the time, parents try telling their children that the bombing is the sound of thunder, but Gazan children are not ordinary children - they know a bombing when they hear it.
The panic caused by the strikes and the shelling from the sky and the sea has an immense impact on the psychology of Gazan children.
Islamic Relief has been running a project in Gaza for a number of years trying to help children to deal with psychological trauma.
The programme has taken many steps forward, however the current bombing means we will have to start all over again. Sadly, I feel the need for counselling will be greater.
The security situation is getting worse. My colleagues and I make sure we walk to our office - going by car is far too dangerous. We phone the office as soon as we step out of our houses.
Then along the way we phone the office about four times at specific points - we do this so they know we are safe. Once we get to the office we ring our families to tell them we have made it safely.
This is what life in Gaza is like these days. Even a simple walk to work could be life threatening.
This is why most of the shops and businesses are closed. The safest place to be - if there is one - is indoors. But as humanitarian workers we have to be out in the community, our job is to help people.
We are now communicating with suppliers outside the Gaza Strip. We are trying to prepare for what lies ahead in the coming days.
We do not know if the bombing will stop or if it will get worse - but we have to be prepared and, unfortunately, that means preparing for the worst.
The intensity of the bombing is affecting me - but I'm a grown man so what about the children?
I can see how my nephews and nieces are being affected. Tala, my youngest niece, is only five years old. When she hears explosions she rushes to her mother - both are terrified.
A lot of the time, parents try telling their children that the bombing is the sound of thunder, but Gazan children are not ordinary children - they know a bombing when they hear it.
The panic caused by the strikes and the shelling from the sky and the sea has an immense impact on the psychology of Gazan children.
Islamic Relief has been running a project in Gaza for a number of years trying to help children to deal with psychological trauma.
The programme has taken many steps forward, however the current bombing means we will have to start all over again. Sadly, I feel the need for counselling will be greater.
The security situation is getting worse. My colleagues and I make sure we walk to our office - going by car is far too dangerous. We phone the office as soon as we step out of our houses.
Then along the way we phone the office about four times at specific points - we do this so they know we are safe. Once we get to the office we ring our families to tell them we have made it safely.
This is what life in Gaza is like these days. Even a simple walk to work could be life threatening.
This is why most of the shops and businesses are closed. The safest place to be - if there is one - is indoors. But as humanitarian workers we have to be out in the community, our job is to help people.
We are now communicating with suppliers outside the Gaza Strip. We are trying to prepare for what lies ahead in the coming days.
We do not know if the bombing will stop or if it will get worse - but we have to be prepared and, unfortunately, that means preparing for the worst.
Days: Jan 18 - 17 - 16 - 15 - 14 - 13 - 12 - 11 - 10 - 9 - 8 - 7 - 6 - 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1 - Dec 31 - 30 - 29 - 28 - 27