10 jan 2009
Israeli military threatens to expand attacks on Gaza
The Israeli military dropped leaflets over Gaza warning of an imminent expansion of the attacks which have already killed over 800 Palestinians and wounded over 3000.
This is a translation of the leaflet provided by ISM Volunteers in Gaza.
To the citizens of the Gaza Strip
The Israeli Defence Force distributed leaflets in Rafah a few days ago, warning citizens of an imminent operation and telling them to evacuate their houses immediately for their own safety.
Following the Israeli Defence Force directions and instructions has prevented hurting citizens who are not part of the fighting.
During the upcoming period, the Israeli Defence Forces will escalate their direct operations against the tunnels, the weapons and ammunition stores and the terrorists in all parts of the Gaza Strip.
For your safety and your family’s safety, you are asked not to be near the terrorists and the stores of weapons and the places of fighting and other places used by them.
The Israeli Defence Force asks to continue in this way by following the instructions which are communicated to you by all means.
The leadership of the Israeli Defence Force.
This is a translation of the leaflet provided by ISM Volunteers in Gaza.
To the citizens of the Gaza Strip
The Israeli Defence Force distributed leaflets in Rafah a few days ago, warning citizens of an imminent operation and telling them to evacuate their houses immediately for their own safety.
Following the Israeli Defence Force directions and instructions has prevented hurting citizens who are not part of the fighting.
During the upcoming period, the Israeli Defence Forces will escalate their direct operations against the tunnels, the weapons and ammunition stores and the terrorists in all parts of the Gaza Strip.
For your safety and your family’s safety, you are asked not to be near the terrorists and the stores of weapons and the places of fighting and other places used by them.
The Israeli Defence Force asks to continue in this way by following the instructions which are communicated to you by all means.
The leadership of the Israeli Defence Force.
Six members of the same family killed by Israeli shell in Jabaliya
An international Human Rights Activist, working with medical teams in northern Gaza, today assisted in the collection of six members of the same family killed by an Israeli shell.
British citizen Ewa Jasiewicz, a co-ordinator for the Free Gaza Movement, said, “This morning at 11:40 at Mahmat Street in West Jabaliya. I accompanied an ambulance to pick up members of the Abu Rabu family after six of them had been killed by an Israeli tank shell.
Many others had been injured. While we were picking up the family and injured I saw a donkey cart full of dead bodies.
Everyone we meet has lost someone., whether it be a family member, friend or neighbour. It’s getting closer.” Ewa Jasiewicz (Britain/Poland) – Free Gaza Movement
Those of the Abu Rabu family killed were;
Yusri Abu Rabu (30)
Sufian Abu Rabu (22)
Randa Abu Rabu (38)
Sameed Abu Rabu (20)
Sami Abu Rabu (25)
Ramz Abu Rabu (30)
British citizen Ewa Jasiewicz, a co-ordinator for the Free Gaza Movement, said, “This morning at 11:40 at Mahmat Street in West Jabaliya. I accompanied an ambulance to pick up members of the Abu Rabu family after six of them had been killed by an Israeli tank shell.
Many others had been injured. While we were picking up the family and injured I saw a donkey cart full of dead bodies.
Everyone we meet has lost someone., whether it be a family member, friend or neighbour. It’s getting closer.” Ewa Jasiewicz (Britain/Poland) – Free Gaza Movement
Those of the Abu Rabu family killed were;
Yusri Abu Rabu (30)
Sufian Abu Rabu (22)
Randa Abu Rabu (38)
Sameed Abu Rabu (20)
Sami Abu Rabu (25)
Ramz Abu Rabu (30)
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“In the past few days the horrors I have seen include a hospital being shelled, a medic being shot and visiting schools housing refugees after these were shelled. What I see here is nothing short of a massacre. By agreeing to upgrade relations with Israel despite it’s genocidal policies European governments have given Israel a green light for this mass murder.” Alberto Arce (Spain) – International Solidarity Movement
International Solidarity Movement (ISM) activists have also been active with Red Cross evacuation teams.
“I was working from Al-Quds hospital during the ‘ceasefire’. We traveled a few hundred metres into a known ‘no-go’ zone because of the ceasefire. We called for people to come out and over forty did while we collected three dead bodies. Immediately as the ceasefire ended the Israelis fired a shell directly over our heads. People started to panic.
We only managed to evacuate four houses as the Israelis have not allowed us to access more people.” Sharon Lock (Australia) – International Solidarity Movement
“They massacred two year old Amal, four year old Suad and and six year old Samer with their tanks during what they call a ceasefire. We do not believe them and their ceasefire” Natalie Abu Shakra (Lebanon) – International Solidarity Movement
South African citizen, Dr. Haidar Eid, Professor of Social and Cultural Studies at Al Aqsa University Gaza, commented on the failed UN Security Council resolution;
“What was needed from the UN Security Council was a demand that Israel abide by international law and international humanitarian law, with a demand for the withdrawal of Israeli troops at least to the 1967 borders. Instead the resolution ignored the occupation and siege, which are the true root of the problem, and treated the resistance to the occupation as the root of the problem. The resolution equates the victim and the victimiser, the oppressor and the oppressed.”
“In March 2008 Matan Vilnai, the Israeli minister of war, threatened the people of Gaza with a holocaust. Because there was no outcry from the international community at the time this is now what is taking place.
However I believe from the reaction of the people around the world, this atrocity will in fact lead to the end of the despotic regimes in the Arab world, the end of Israeli apartheid and the creation of one secular, democratic, multi-national state.” Dr Haidar Eid (South Africa/Palestine).
ISM and Free Gaza Movement activists are currently working night shifts with Palestinian medics.
International Solidarity Movement (ISM) activists have also been active with Red Cross evacuation teams.
“I was working from Al-Quds hospital during the ‘ceasefire’. We traveled a few hundred metres into a known ‘no-go’ zone because of the ceasefire. We called for people to come out and over forty did while we collected three dead bodies. Immediately as the ceasefire ended the Israelis fired a shell directly over our heads. People started to panic.
We only managed to evacuate four houses as the Israelis have not allowed us to access more people.” Sharon Lock (Australia) – International Solidarity Movement
“They massacred two year old Amal, four year old Suad and and six year old Samer with their tanks during what they call a ceasefire. We do not believe them and their ceasefire” Natalie Abu Shakra (Lebanon) – International Solidarity Movement
South African citizen, Dr. Haidar Eid, Professor of Social and Cultural Studies at Al Aqsa University Gaza, commented on the failed UN Security Council resolution;
“What was needed from the UN Security Council was a demand that Israel abide by international law and international humanitarian law, with a demand for the withdrawal of Israeli troops at least to the 1967 borders. Instead the resolution ignored the occupation and siege, which are the true root of the problem, and treated the resistance to the occupation as the root of the problem. The resolution equates the victim and the victimiser, the oppressor and the oppressed.”
“In March 2008 Matan Vilnai, the Israeli minister of war, threatened the people of Gaza with a holocaust. Because there was no outcry from the international community at the time this is now what is taking place.
However I believe from the reaction of the people around the world, this atrocity will in fact lead to the end of the despotic regimes in the Arab world, the end of Israeli apartheid and the creation of one secular, democratic, multi-national state.” Dr Haidar Eid (South Africa/Palestine).
ISM and Free Gaza Movement activists are currently working night shifts with Palestinian medics.
hard nights’ sleep
fresh hit, a street away, seen from balcony of friend’s Jabaliya home, after 8 am January 10
2:50 am I can’t sleep.
Some mornings I wake up from a new explosion and realize I’ve somehow managed to fall into a sleep despite the blasts.
Other mornings, I wake up disoriented, first wondering where I am, as I’m sleeping in some hospital waiting room or ambulance office, or the house of a driver since the Red Crescent office in eastern Jabaliya was first shelled and then made off-limits by the invading Israeli forces in the eastern Jabaliya region…and the north, the northwest, the east, the south…
Yesterday morning I awoke to an eerie near-quiet: for the time there were no bomb blasts, just those drones continuing to lord the sky. Then the blasts came. At 8:38 am I noted “resumption of loud, reverberating explosions. In the Saraya area again (the former British prison has been hit a number of times already)? 8:59 am: four very loud explosions with deep reverberations.
At 12:15 I’d noted and photographed the white stream of chemical clouds billowing over large expanses of eastern Gaza. At 1:05 pm: “Since last night until now, 23 people have been killed, all civilians,” reporter Yousef al Helo told me, adding “This afternoon, two people –including women and children –were killed in a shelling on Beit Lahia.”
2:50 am I can’t sleep.
Some mornings I wake up from a new explosion and realize I’ve somehow managed to fall into a sleep despite the blasts.
Other mornings, I wake up disoriented, first wondering where I am, as I’m sleeping in some hospital waiting room or ambulance office, or the house of a driver since the Red Crescent office in eastern Jabaliya was first shelled and then made off-limits by the invading Israeli forces in the eastern Jabaliya region…and the north, the northwest, the east, the south…
Yesterday morning I awoke to an eerie near-quiet: for the time there were no bomb blasts, just those drones continuing to lord the sky. Then the blasts came. At 8:38 am I noted “resumption of loud, reverberating explosions. In the Saraya area again (the former British prison has been hit a number of times already)? 8:59 am: four very loud explosions with deep reverberations.
At 12:15 I’d noted and photographed the white stream of chemical clouds billowing over large expanses of eastern Gaza. At 1:05 pm: “Since last night until now, 23 people have been killed, all civilians,” reporter Yousef al Helo told me, adding “This afternoon, two people –including women and children –were killed in a shelling on Beit Lahia.”
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Yousef read me Tzipi Livni’s response to the Security Council call for an immediate ceasefire: “Israel has acted and will continue to act according to its calculation in the interest of the security of its citizens and its right to self-defense.”
Yousef and I had discussed the violations of Israel’s unilaterally-imposed 3-hour-ceasefire [which a Lebanese journalist summed up: "How would you like it if I was shooting at you and then told you I'd give you a minute to dance around before I kill you?" ]. John Ging, director of UNRWA in the Gaza Strip, sums it up more diplomatically: “ For 3 hours, the people of Gaza have some safety. That’s all it is.” During the first day of the innapropriately-named time period between 1 and 4pm, Israeli forces killed 3 sisters (ages 2, 3, 10), one woman (31), 2 elderly men (60 and 87), and targeted paramedics, shooting one in the leg, as the explosions continued all over the Gaza Strip. |
At 6 pm, 2 hours after the ‘cease-fire’, the official killing did indeed continue: 5 dead in northern Gaza, returning from the bread lines with a prize bag of bread, bombed in their car, including ages 10, 12, 15, cousin 20, and father 45. And later, after 9pm, another medic shot in the leg while trying to perform his duties.
With the medics last night, we’d arrived at a Sheik Radwan neighbourhood, to the smoking skeleton of a multi-story, multi-family house, evaporated. Firetrucks were there ahead of us, though we all collectively ran at one point, expecting the 2nd strike that often follows the original destruction.
Later in the night, we kept passing the ruins of buildings bombed in the last days. I’ve lost track of what was bombed when. We come to a newly-bombed building, a newly-homeless family, the adjacent building facing a like fate soon enough as it appears the structure has been so badly damaged it will soon collapse.
3:20 am: I’ve left the bed and given up on feigning sleep. Am watching the darkness explode with the political hatred that not only kills but silences truth. Hatred in every blast pounding Gaza.
“They will not finish. Until the martyrs reach 1,000,” the nurse predicts, taking a break on his night shift. “They want to make Gaza into Guantanamo,” he goes on. “All of this will not break the Palestinian people.”
In the hospital room where I tried to sleep between an ambulance shift and morning obligations, the tank shelling and firing is in the room, landing on my pillow.
It’s the shells, which crack and blast. The staccato gunfire. The drones’ whine, in menacing pitches. The fighter plane’s sudden, thundering presence.
The drone ramps up the decibels, a train wreck of disharmony.
And the inevitable whoosh before the explosion, an F-16 launch which erupts a crater where someone’s house, or a market, or a mosque once stood. The blast an hour ago was a market, another nurse tells me. “It was a beautiful market, sold everything, everything we need,” she says.
Hours later, after the sun finally rises. Women are walking onto the hospital premises, large towel-covered platters on their heads. A small electric stove is plugged in, and they take turns baking bread for their families: no gas, no electricity at home. They are lucky to have the flour to bake with, and I guess that a trickle of that aid that only trickles in has reached them. But it’s never enough.
The shelling continuing, I get to see Osama, who I’ve not seen for weeks, although he lives near the hospital where I spend much time. His family, like most, have taken all the windows out of their house (those not already blown out), and the house is frigid with cold. We talk, ask the same questions that everyone is asking every day, about when it will end, why it must be so, what value a Palestinian life has… A new series of explosions, we go out to see, the latest just a couple of streets away, but that’s nothing. Osama’s family live in front of a house slated for attack at any time. “What can we do?” they ask, everyone asks.
With the medics last night, we’d arrived at a Sheik Radwan neighbourhood, to the smoking skeleton of a multi-story, multi-family house, evaporated. Firetrucks were there ahead of us, though we all collectively ran at one point, expecting the 2nd strike that often follows the original destruction.
Later in the night, we kept passing the ruins of buildings bombed in the last days. I’ve lost track of what was bombed when. We come to a newly-bombed building, a newly-homeless family, the adjacent building facing a like fate soon enough as it appears the structure has been so badly damaged it will soon collapse.
3:20 am: I’ve left the bed and given up on feigning sleep. Am watching the darkness explode with the political hatred that not only kills but silences truth. Hatred in every blast pounding Gaza.
“They will not finish. Until the martyrs reach 1,000,” the nurse predicts, taking a break on his night shift. “They want to make Gaza into Guantanamo,” he goes on. “All of this will not break the Palestinian people.”
In the hospital room where I tried to sleep between an ambulance shift and morning obligations, the tank shelling and firing is in the room, landing on my pillow.
It’s the shells, which crack and blast. The staccato gunfire. The drones’ whine, in menacing pitches. The fighter plane’s sudden, thundering presence.
The drone ramps up the decibels, a train wreck of disharmony.
And the inevitable whoosh before the explosion, an F-16 launch which erupts a crater where someone’s house, or a market, or a mosque once stood. The blast an hour ago was a market, another nurse tells me. “It was a beautiful market, sold everything, everything we need,” she says.
Hours later, after the sun finally rises. Women are walking onto the hospital premises, large towel-covered platters on their heads. A small electric stove is plugged in, and they take turns baking bread for their families: no gas, no electricity at home. They are lucky to have the flour to bake with, and I guess that a trickle of that aid that only trickles in has reached them. But it’s never enough.
The shelling continuing, I get to see Osama, who I’ve not seen for weeks, although he lives near the hospital where I spend much time. His family, like most, have taken all the windows out of their house (those not already blown out), and the house is frigid with cold. We talk, ask the same questions that everyone is asking every day, about when it will end, why it must be so, what value a Palestinian life has… A new series of explosions, we go out to see, the latest just a couple of streets away, but that’s nothing. Osama’s family live in front of a house slated for attack at any time. “What can we do?” they ask, everyone asks.
Working with Red Cross evacuation team in Gaza
By Sharon in Gaza
To view Sharon’s blog please click here
So, Thursday.. the Red Cross co-ordinated evacuation into Zaytoun. Doctor Said would look good on a Red Cross poster – black sweater, shaved head, muscles enough to keep that Red Cross flag held above his head for the two hours we were behind army lines. You’d definitely invite him in for coffee to ask for his opinion on the state of the world.
His colleague has more of an accountant look about him, but his job is to keep us alive – he is armed with a walkie-talkie and is negotiating our path constantly with the army as we move. With May, a small, quick woman who is the Engineer for the Red Crescent, supervising all the vehicles etc, I carry a stretcher and water. About 8 intrepid Red Crescent paramedics join us, wearing weighty bullet proof vests or not, dependent on their preference for possible death or certain backache.
What startles me first of all is how close the IOF have come. I have heard that they are 2km from the hospital but I guess I didn’t quite absorb that; when we all jump in the ambulances to drive there, we jump out again almost immediately. The Israeli Occupation Force is pretty much just round the corner. I haven’t seen them in person since 2005. They ain’t changed much.
Just as I occasionally forget that the planes in the sky are killing machines and assume for a moment they’re just jetting folks off on climate damaging holidays, my brain firstly registers the sound of tanks as some sort of roadworks nearby. Which they are in a way, they are unmaking the road. As-Saladiin is the main north-south road and they’re doing their best to turn it impassible, with earth mounds and barriers and blockades made of bombed cars. Soldiers point guns at us from behind the earth mounds. Snipers cover us from occupied houses. We all hope Mr Walkie Talkie is saying the right things.
He’s very polite, and isn’t in fact saying any of the things I would be saying if I was on the phone to the IOF right now. I guess that’s why he has his job and I don’t.
Walking past all these weapons is the point where anyone would reasonably get scared; for some reason (I discovered this on my first West Bank trip years ago) this doesn’t happen to me. There’s clearly a bit of wiring in my head connected wrong, and I think people who are scared and do stuff anyway are much braver than I am. And as you already know from my blog I do get scared sometimes, now (stupidly one might say) just isn’t one of those times.
Maybe it’s when I’ve got work to do that it’s ok. What I feel in walking this road with these good people is calm, and focused, and glad to be here. As my friends know to their sorrow, what I don’t cope with is supermarkets and four-by-fours and plastic. Even more, I don’t cope with the dissonance of trying to live in a Western society that pretends this reality, the reality of this road I am walking at this moment, does not exist. In the UK, in front of me is McDonalds, in my head are the tanks. It almost sends me crazy sometimes.
So here, the dissonance is finally gone, and the relief is great. So yes, I acknowledge I have a personal agenda. We all do.
When I was a kid, I was very aware of war zones, but I always understood they happened in places different from my home. I would like to tell you about what I am seeing right now as I walk. I am seeing flowering vines. Bright curtains in windows. Chickens running about. This is your home, you know. This is the garden where your children play. This is your house with obscene holes blown in it, with Israeli snipers lurking in the shadows of its roof, with a dead resistance fighter sitting with his back to your wall.
“Red Cross! It’s safe to come out! We can evacuate you!” everyone shouts up at the silent windows of the next house, the one after, the one after that. And eventually a lone elderly man appears from a house holding a white flag. And the a whole collection of faces behind a gate, hands reaching for our bottles of water. A dead teenage boy has been placed outside the gate. “My son,” says a man simply to us, in English. We ask them to wait there and continue. After an hour and a half, we have collected about 80 people, at least half children and many elderly. For each turn off the path we make to shout at damaged houses, permission must be asked and granted. And yes, I did the RC poster thing myself and carried a small child. Well, he only had little legs and we were in a hurry.
And strangely, the evacuation has its lighter moments; one of the paramedics has a tendency to attempt to catch any animal that passes him, failing however to get a hold on a chicken, a duck, a cow, or a goat. Actually the goats want to accompany us of their own accord anyway, viewing the whole thing as some sort of pleasure jaunt. Red Cross and Red Crescent alike are smoking heavily as they go, lighting each other’s cigarettes.
In a straggly convoy we leave the silent houses and walk back towards army lines. 4pm is drawing near. In the Gaza city, Israeli planes continue shelling during the supposed 3 hour ceasefire, but here soldiers have watched us in eerie silence, apart from tank engines.
When the children see the tanks, their faces twist, and they reach for their mothers hands, some having to be forced to continue moving past them. Guns are trained on us. Now we can see the earth mounds we have to climb over that have our vehicles on the other side. But! It’s 4pm. Woe betide holding off the day’s ceasefire end for another 5 minutes. Whoosh of a rocket, everyone tenses, it explodes just behind the building the ambulances are parked beside. Children stumble on rubble and begin to wail. Nearby gunfire begins.
And strangely, the point after we climb over the line and open our vehicles doors is when some of the adults begin to cry anxiously. Perhaps they think there won’t be enough space for all – and we do have to shove people in, including into the ambulance carrying the three dead we stretchered out. “Where is Jusef?” “Where is Samir?” Parents lose sight of children and panic. But in the end we get them all in, and drive that oh-so-short distance back to Al Quds hospital, where people tumble out of the vans. And then there is a bright moment, which I watch from a window above; families arriving and claiming their missing people.
I sit down to eat cold rice with the medics on duty, but before I can take a mouthful, get physically hauled up 6 flights of stairs by one of the medics who was on the evacuation, to find that being on today’s team apparently merits very tasty scrambled eggs instead. We hear that on another Red Cross evacuation, the army shot at and injured one of the Red Cross workers.
Some moments of Friday 9th Jan:
…standing ten floors up in the Ramattan press building (which got struck the other day) watching phosphorous shells falling on the eastern area of Gaza city, again and again, bright white smoke rising. This stuff can burn through to the bone; the doctors say they haven’t seen anything like it. Now the thought of being underneath that does frighten me.
…discovering our final remaining internet/food cafe has been threatened with bombing and so has closed. We are *hoping* it’s temporary. It is incredibly difficult to find ways to get information out now, since movement and electricity are so limited.
…while on ambulance shift, visiting Dr Halid of the lovely smile, who is tired and missing his family. Everyone in the hospital seems to have their family on the other side of the army blockade. The 14 year old boy in the ICU bed is gone. In his place is a little one, almost a baby, his chest rising and falling with the ventilator’s jerk – Abed, enlarged pupils indicating the usual explosion-caused brain injury. Dr H realises his oxygen levels are low and swiftly begins to try to clear a blockage, asking me to hand him things.
“He will die,” says Dr H, “but he will not die of suffocation.” In the middle of this EB appears to hurry me to the ambulance, I tell him I can’t come. Later I hear from him that the call turns out to be to 3 injured people from the same family after an attack on their house, their injuries involve missing limbs and holes in chests he has to try to seal. His face is sad and subdued- no access to his wife and 3 kids, his house demolished, and a damn hard job. I feel extremely bad I wasn’t there to help, even just to share the weight of witnessing these terrible things.
…one of the medics telling me about a call the Red Crescent received yesterday, from a woman sobbing that she had no flour to make bread and could not feed her children. “What could I do? All I had to offer anyone was an ambulance.” he said.
…coming home this morning to discover the fire station on the other side of the road is no more. Glad I wasn’t home for that.
Saturday 3pm:
Just posting this now from Ramattan, their Wifi is working today thank goodness and they don’t mind us hitching a ride on it. Mo stands at the window watching Israeli tanks shell buildings in the distance. As usual smoke is rising in several locations. There is a press conference going on behind me about the fact that the government body that manages the water here is now unable to guarantee waste water treatment or drinking water. I am hearing of more and more houses with no water at all. I suppose maybe next time I go to fill my water container there maybe nothing to fill it with. What happens then?
The FreeGaza boat is trying to reach us again tomorrow!!!! Bless their brave hearts.
To view Sharon’s blog please click here
So, Thursday.. the Red Cross co-ordinated evacuation into Zaytoun. Doctor Said would look good on a Red Cross poster – black sweater, shaved head, muscles enough to keep that Red Cross flag held above his head for the two hours we were behind army lines. You’d definitely invite him in for coffee to ask for his opinion on the state of the world.
His colleague has more of an accountant look about him, but his job is to keep us alive – he is armed with a walkie-talkie and is negotiating our path constantly with the army as we move. With May, a small, quick woman who is the Engineer for the Red Crescent, supervising all the vehicles etc, I carry a stretcher and water. About 8 intrepid Red Crescent paramedics join us, wearing weighty bullet proof vests or not, dependent on their preference for possible death or certain backache.
What startles me first of all is how close the IOF have come. I have heard that they are 2km from the hospital but I guess I didn’t quite absorb that; when we all jump in the ambulances to drive there, we jump out again almost immediately. The Israeli Occupation Force is pretty much just round the corner. I haven’t seen them in person since 2005. They ain’t changed much.
Just as I occasionally forget that the planes in the sky are killing machines and assume for a moment they’re just jetting folks off on climate damaging holidays, my brain firstly registers the sound of tanks as some sort of roadworks nearby. Which they are in a way, they are unmaking the road. As-Saladiin is the main north-south road and they’re doing their best to turn it impassible, with earth mounds and barriers and blockades made of bombed cars. Soldiers point guns at us from behind the earth mounds. Snipers cover us from occupied houses. We all hope Mr Walkie Talkie is saying the right things.
He’s very polite, and isn’t in fact saying any of the things I would be saying if I was on the phone to the IOF right now. I guess that’s why he has his job and I don’t.
Walking past all these weapons is the point where anyone would reasonably get scared; for some reason (I discovered this on my first West Bank trip years ago) this doesn’t happen to me. There’s clearly a bit of wiring in my head connected wrong, and I think people who are scared and do stuff anyway are much braver than I am. And as you already know from my blog I do get scared sometimes, now (stupidly one might say) just isn’t one of those times.
Maybe it’s when I’ve got work to do that it’s ok. What I feel in walking this road with these good people is calm, and focused, and glad to be here. As my friends know to their sorrow, what I don’t cope with is supermarkets and four-by-fours and plastic. Even more, I don’t cope with the dissonance of trying to live in a Western society that pretends this reality, the reality of this road I am walking at this moment, does not exist. In the UK, in front of me is McDonalds, in my head are the tanks. It almost sends me crazy sometimes.
So here, the dissonance is finally gone, and the relief is great. So yes, I acknowledge I have a personal agenda. We all do.
When I was a kid, I was very aware of war zones, but I always understood they happened in places different from my home. I would like to tell you about what I am seeing right now as I walk. I am seeing flowering vines. Bright curtains in windows. Chickens running about. This is your home, you know. This is the garden where your children play. This is your house with obscene holes blown in it, with Israeli snipers lurking in the shadows of its roof, with a dead resistance fighter sitting with his back to your wall.
“Red Cross! It’s safe to come out! We can evacuate you!” everyone shouts up at the silent windows of the next house, the one after, the one after that. And eventually a lone elderly man appears from a house holding a white flag. And the a whole collection of faces behind a gate, hands reaching for our bottles of water. A dead teenage boy has been placed outside the gate. “My son,” says a man simply to us, in English. We ask them to wait there and continue. After an hour and a half, we have collected about 80 people, at least half children and many elderly. For each turn off the path we make to shout at damaged houses, permission must be asked and granted. And yes, I did the RC poster thing myself and carried a small child. Well, he only had little legs and we were in a hurry.
And strangely, the evacuation has its lighter moments; one of the paramedics has a tendency to attempt to catch any animal that passes him, failing however to get a hold on a chicken, a duck, a cow, or a goat. Actually the goats want to accompany us of their own accord anyway, viewing the whole thing as some sort of pleasure jaunt. Red Cross and Red Crescent alike are smoking heavily as they go, lighting each other’s cigarettes.
In a straggly convoy we leave the silent houses and walk back towards army lines. 4pm is drawing near. In the Gaza city, Israeli planes continue shelling during the supposed 3 hour ceasefire, but here soldiers have watched us in eerie silence, apart from tank engines.
When the children see the tanks, their faces twist, and they reach for their mothers hands, some having to be forced to continue moving past them. Guns are trained on us. Now we can see the earth mounds we have to climb over that have our vehicles on the other side. But! It’s 4pm. Woe betide holding off the day’s ceasefire end for another 5 minutes. Whoosh of a rocket, everyone tenses, it explodes just behind the building the ambulances are parked beside. Children stumble on rubble and begin to wail. Nearby gunfire begins.
And strangely, the point after we climb over the line and open our vehicles doors is when some of the adults begin to cry anxiously. Perhaps they think there won’t be enough space for all – and we do have to shove people in, including into the ambulance carrying the three dead we stretchered out. “Where is Jusef?” “Where is Samir?” Parents lose sight of children and panic. But in the end we get them all in, and drive that oh-so-short distance back to Al Quds hospital, where people tumble out of the vans. And then there is a bright moment, which I watch from a window above; families arriving and claiming their missing people.
I sit down to eat cold rice with the medics on duty, but before I can take a mouthful, get physically hauled up 6 flights of stairs by one of the medics who was on the evacuation, to find that being on today’s team apparently merits very tasty scrambled eggs instead. We hear that on another Red Cross evacuation, the army shot at and injured one of the Red Cross workers.
Some moments of Friday 9th Jan:
…standing ten floors up in the Ramattan press building (which got struck the other day) watching phosphorous shells falling on the eastern area of Gaza city, again and again, bright white smoke rising. This stuff can burn through to the bone; the doctors say they haven’t seen anything like it. Now the thought of being underneath that does frighten me.
…discovering our final remaining internet/food cafe has been threatened with bombing and so has closed. We are *hoping* it’s temporary. It is incredibly difficult to find ways to get information out now, since movement and electricity are so limited.
…while on ambulance shift, visiting Dr Halid of the lovely smile, who is tired and missing his family. Everyone in the hospital seems to have their family on the other side of the army blockade. The 14 year old boy in the ICU bed is gone. In his place is a little one, almost a baby, his chest rising and falling with the ventilator’s jerk – Abed, enlarged pupils indicating the usual explosion-caused brain injury. Dr H realises his oxygen levels are low and swiftly begins to try to clear a blockage, asking me to hand him things.
“He will die,” says Dr H, “but he will not die of suffocation.” In the middle of this EB appears to hurry me to the ambulance, I tell him I can’t come. Later I hear from him that the call turns out to be to 3 injured people from the same family after an attack on their house, their injuries involve missing limbs and holes in chests he has to try to seal. His face is sad and subdued- no access to his wife and 3 kids, his house demolished, and a damn hard job. I feel extremely bad I wasn’t there to help, even just to share the weight of witnessing these terrible things.
…one of the medics telling me about a call the Red Crescent received yesterday, from a woman sobbing that she had no flour to make bread and could not feed her children. “What could I do? All I had to offer anyone was an ambulance.” he said.
…coming home this morning to discover the fire station on the other side of the road is no more. Glad I wasn’t home for that.
Saturday 3pm:
Just posting this now from Ramattan, their Wifi is working today thank goodness and they don’t mind us hitching a ride on it. Mo stands at the window watching Israeli tanks shell buildings in the distance. As usual smoke is rising in several locations. There is a press conference going on behind me about the fact that the government body that manages the water here is now unable to guarantee waste water treatment or drinking water. I am hearing of more and more houses with no water at all. I suppose maybe next time I go to fill my water container there maybe nothing to fill it with. What happens then?
The FreeGaza boat is trying to reach us again tomorrow!!!! Bless their brave hearts.
Israel: Stop Unlawful Use of White Phosphorus in Gaza
M825A1 155mm projectiles, painted light green to designate a munition containing white phosphorus, stand fuzed and ready with an IDF artillery unit firing into Gaza.
Israel should stop using white phosphorus in military operations in densely populated areas of Gaza, Human Rights Watch said today. On January 9 and 10, 2009, Human Rights Watch researchers in Israel observed multiple air-bursts of artillery-fired white phosphorus over what appeared to be the Gaza City/Jabaliya area.
Israel appeared to be using white phosphorus as an "obscurant" (a chemical used to hide military operations), a permissible use in principle under international humanitarian law (the laws of war). However, white phosphorus has a significant, incidental, incendiary effect that can severely burn people and set structures, fields, and other civilian objects in the vicinity on fire. The potential for harm to civilians is magnified by Gaza's high population density, among the highest in the world.
"White phosphorous can burn down houses and cause horrific burns when it touches the skin," said Marc Garlasco, senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch. "Israel should not use it in Gaza's densely populated areas."
Human Rights Watch believes that the use of white phosphorus in densely populated areas of Gaza violates the requirement under international humanitarian law to take all feasible precautions to avoid civilian injury and loss of life. This concern is amplified given the technique evidenced in media photographs of air-bursting white phosphorus projectiles. Air bursting of white phosphorus artillery spreads 116 burning wafers over an area between 125 and 250 meters in diameter, depending on the altitude of the burst, thereby exposing more civilians and civilian infrastructure to potential harm than a localized ground burst.
Since the beginning of Israel's ground offensive in Gaza on January 3, 2009, there have been numerous media reports about the possible use of white phosphorous by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). The IDF told both Human Rights Watch and news reporters that it is not using white phosphorus in Gaza. On January 7, an IDF spokesman told CNN, "I can tell you with certainty that white phosphorus is absolutely not being used."
____________
White phosphorous can burn down houses and cause horrific burns when it touches the skin. Israel should not use it in Gaza's densely populated areas. Marc Garlasco, senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch
Israel should stop using white phosphorus in military operations in densely populated areas of Gaza, Human Rights Watch said today. On January 9 and 10, 2009, Human Rights Watch researchers in Israel observed multiple air-bursts of artillery-fired white phosphorus over what appeared to be the Gaza City/Jabaliya area.
Israel appeared to be using white phosphorus as an "obscurant" (a chemical used to hide military operations), a permissible use in principle under international humanitarian law (the laws of war). However, white phosphorus has a significant, incidental, incendiary effect that can severely burn people and set structures, fields, and other civilian objects in the vicinity on fire. The potential for harm to civilians is magnified by Gaza's high population density, among the highest in the world.
"White phosphorous can burn down houses and cause horrific burns when it touches the skin," said Marc Garlasco, senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch. "Israel should not use it in Gaza's densely populated areas."
Human Rights Watch believes that the use of white phosphorus in densely populated areas of Gaza violates the requirement under international humanitarian law to take all feasible precautions to avoid civilian injury and loss of life. This concern is amplified given the technique evidenced in media photographs of air-bursting white phosphorus projectiles. Air bursting of white phosphorus artillery spreads 116 burning wafers over an area between 125 and 250 meters in diameter, depending on the altitude of the burst, thereby exposing more civilians and civilian infrastructure to potential harm than a localized ground burst.
Since the beginning of Israel's ground offensive in Gaza on January 3, 2009, there have been numerous media reports about the possible use of white phosphorous by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). The IDF told both Human Rights Watch and news reporters that it is not using white phosphorus in Gaza. On January 7, an IDF spokesman told CNN, "I can tell you with certainty that white phosphorus is absolutely not being used."
____________
White phosphorous can burn down houses and cause horrific burns when it touches the skin. Israel should not use it in Gaza's densely populated areas. Marc Garlasco, senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch
Respected Human Rights Group: 85% of Palestinians Killed in Gaza are Civilians
By Jennifer Loewenstein
Here are some newsworthy items out of Gaza that are unlikely to be making it to the Western presses. I received this information directly from one of the staff of the Mezan Center for Human Rights about twenty minutes ago.
1. Israel has begun a new policy in Gaza in the past two days called the "roof knock".
This is when a "small" rocket is fired from Israeli military aircraft that is strong enough to blast open the roof of a targeted building. It is sent as a "warning message" to the building's inhabitants giving them between 2 and 3 minutes to evacuate before the building is completely destroyed. A number of cases of this new technique have been reported recently.
2. While the UN continues to claim that "only" 25% of the casualties from the attacks on Gaza are civilian, the Mezan Center for Human Rights (known for the care it takes not to overstate the numbers and for its strict verification policies) estimates that the number of civilian casualties is approximately 85%. In particular, the number of children has increased to over 200, and the number of women has surpassed 75. One reason for the lower civilian casualty figures used by the UN has to do with the reluctance to consider men -other than the elderly and sick- as non-combatants. In fact the overwhelming majority of men killed in "Operation Cast Lead" up to now have been non-combatants, including fathers, teachers, shopkeepers, construction workers, laborers, students, as well as the civil policemen. The vast majority are not "Hamas militants." Note that the civil police are considered 'non-combatants' under international law and are therefore not 'legitimate' targets in any military confrontation any more than traffic cops or firemen.
3. The UN announced this evening that "almost everyone in the Gaza Strip" is now in need of humanitarian aid.
Indeed, even those with adequate food supplies are a) handing out what they have to people in "shelters" (which have been targeted consistently by Israeli war machines in the past); Even those with adequate food supplies are b) unable to obtain bread anywhere. Many are using rice or spaghetti to substitute for carbohydrates -- when these are availabe and when there is water and electricity to allow for cooking these items.
4. There are widespread reports now of forced evacuations of entire neighborhoods of people who go mainly to nearby schools or other public buildings not yet destroyed. These are considered no more secure than their homes but remain the only other places to go (other than to move into crowded dwellings with relatives; or places no more secure than their own homes). The congregation of so many people in these enclosed spaces increases the likelihood of major civilian casualties when airstrikes target the area.
PLEASE PROTEST THESE AND OTHER ACTIONS OF THE UNITED STATES AND ISRAEL, TWO COUNTRIES THAT CLAIM THE WHOLESALE DESTRUCTION OF A PEOPLE IS A MATTER OF 'SELF DEFENSE'.
Here are some newsworthy items out of Gaza that are unlikely to be making it to the Western presses. I received this information directly from one of the staff of the Mezan Center for Human Rights about twenty minutes ago.
1. Israel has begun a new policy in Gaza in the past two days called the "roof knock".
This is when a "small" rocket is fired from Israeli military aircraft that is strong enough to blast open the roof of a targeted building. It is sent as a "warning message" to the building's inhabitants giving them between 2 and 3 minutes to evacuate before the building is completely destroyed. A number of cases of this new technique have been reported recently.
2. While the UN continues to claim that "only" 25% of the casualties from the attacks on Gaza are civilian, the Mezan Center for Human Rights (known for the care it takes not to overstate the numbers and for its strict verification policies) estimates that the number of civilian casualties is approximately 85%. In particular, the number of children has increased to over 200, and the number of women has surpassed 75. One reason for the lower civilian casualty figures used by the UN has to do with the reluctance to consider men -other than the elderly and sick- as non-combatants. In fact the overwhelming majority of men killed in "Operation Cast Lead" up to now have been non-combatants, including fathers, teachers, shopkeepers, construction workers, laborers, students, as well as the civil policemen. The vast majority are not "Hamas militants." Note that the civil police are considered 'non-combatants' under international law and are therefore not 'legitimate' targets in any military confrontation any more than traffic cops or firemen.
3. The UN announced this evening that "almost everyone in the Gaza Strip" is now in need of humanitarian aid.
Indeed, even those with adequate food supplies are a) handing out what they have to people in "shelters" (which have been targeted consistently by Israeli war machines in the past); Even those with adequate food supplies are b) unable to obtain bread anywhere. Many are using rice or spaghetti to substitute for carbohydrates -- when these are availabe and when there is water and electricity to allow for cooking these items.
4. There are widespread reports now of forced evacuations of entire neighborhoods of people who go mainly to nearby schools or other public buildings not yet destroyed. These are considered no more secure than their homes but remain the only other places to go (other than to move into crowded dwellings with relatives; or places no more secure than their own homes). The congregation of so many people in these enclosed spaces increases the likelihood of major civilian casualties when airstrikes target the area.
PLEASE PROTEST THESE AND OTHER ACTIONS OF THE UNITED STATES AND ISRAEL, TWO COUNTRIES THAT CLAIM THE WHOLESALE DESTRUCTION OF A PEOPLE IS A MATTER OF 'SELF DEFENSE'.
Sharon in Gaza: January 7th, 8th and 9th 2009
By Sharon in Gaza
To view Sharon’s blog please click here
I covered another ambulance shift Wednesday night, working with two guys who might turn out to be my favourites. S is a sweet EMT driver with good English, very helpful for me, with the ambition to have a baby born in his ambulance since so far he only knows the theory of the process. EB is a dad of three, with a wife who he insists doesn’t mind the idea of him having a second wife at some point. S is scathing about the concept of multiple wives.
EB is happy for me to work as his assistant so that’s pretty cool. I can actually be useful especially when a medic is outnumbered; last night at one point we took on four injured people after a rocket blast near Palestine square, all from the same family home. A little boy with a head wound, two adult men, one with a head wound and the other with a leg wound. A young woman who hadn’t any visible bleeding waited uncomplainingly til last, at which point we found that under her shirt, glass or shrapnel had entered deep beside her spine, so she got sent off for an x-ray on arrival to Al Shifa.
I’d heard word that Hassan was here in Al Quds, but by the time I got here he’d been sent home, which was encouraging in terms of his wound, and certainly good for his family who hadn’t seen him since the strikes began I think. I’ve since glimpsed the footage A took of his shooting, presented on AlJazeerah, so at least it’s got that far, and I had reports of it being on New York TV.
Dr Halid’s house in Khan Younis was destroyed yesterday. So was EB’s. So was Dr Basher’s, and his next door neighbour’s. He showed me the usual photos of rubble, his personal rubble. Three more homeless families taken in by relatives, whose houses also may be under threat. Is anyone’s home going to be left standing?
Wednesday was the first day when there was a truce from 1pm til 4pm. In that time, the Red Cross successfully negotiated for themselves and Red Crescent medics to enter Zaytoun, one of the places where calls for help have not been allowed to be responded to. My medic friends described walking for about 4 km, using donkey carts to bring out the few dead and injured they could; they only had time to reach four houses. At times they were shot at by the army despite the advance arrangements.
The house of the Samoudi family was one of the houses they reached. A medic told me that two days before, there had been a call from this house to the Red Crescent, saying that 25 women and children were there, with about 5 shaheed after shelling attacks. But on Wednesday when the house was reached, almost all were dead, survivors included one 11 year old boy with a leg injury. What shocked the medic I spoke to was that the majority appeared to have been killed by close range shooting – it seemed an execution had taken place.
I have not been able to find out further clear details on this, and in fact there are various confusing versions of this story, speaking of seven families and 100 people in fact being in multiple houses together that were shelled. Ramattan journalists are going to interview a survivor in the hospital this afternoon so it may become clearer.
At other locations children without food or water were found besides dead parents. Some of the injured people brought out are above us here in the Al Quds hospital. I met baby Nour, tucked in a bed with her mother, and another woman with them whose child had been killed.
Following this I obtained permission to go on Thursday’s Red Cross/Red Crescent evacuation back to Zaytoun again during the hours of ceasefire. My impression was they were glad of a second woman and another international. The team was made up of three Red Cross folks and about ten Red Crescent medics. A similar RC evacuation team in another location during ceasefire was fired upon, with one Red Cross worker injured. I am going again today, Friday with the team from Al Quds. I will try to write a description of this process shortly.
We understand also that UN food deliveries were fired upon and one or two UN people were killed. My access to the net is so little that you will be able to find out more accurate reports on these sort of events (ie involving international agencies) with your own searching.
Last night for the first time I went back to my flat with the aim of getting a night’s sleep, having not had more than 2 hours in a row in any 24 since this whole thing started. I wish I hadn’t! Being away from Palestinian or international friends was hard, but being woken 2 hours into my longed for sleep by the sound of shooting outside the house had me in complete confusion, since it wasn’t coming from a hovering Apache.
Since on the evacuation today I finally saw Israeli tanks and soldiers and realised how close their lines are, my sleepy mind immediately decided they’d somehow reached the port area. The drone planes were also going crazy, normally they mainly sound sinister but monotonous, now they sounded like a bunch of very mad hornets, swooping about manically.
I started to think about what to grab for an escape back to my friends, but a little while later I got onto V and he explained that the drone planes have started shooting, something at least us foreigners had no idea they could do. Rockets, yes, shooting, no. Last night apparently for the first time they began shooting at anyone on the street. I shelved my escape plans, but then the hornets started swooping nearing to me and the rockets were rocking the building. So I jumped up, packed a bag for if the building fell apart, got dressed, moved my mattress the furthest I could from outside walls, and then miraculously managed to go back to sleep.
When I visited the Kabariti family yesterday, M told me that the girls are asking him how much it hurts to get injured, and what happens if they die. They are seeing so many pictures of children like themselves wrapped in body bags. He has explained that God sends you into unconciousness if you are hurt, so you don’t feel the pain
11am: I have just heard that the evacuation for today has been called off, I am unclear whether Israel won’t agree to co-ordination or if the RC, like UNWRA, have frozen their operations after being under attack yesterday. So this means more time to wait, for the people trapped in no-man’s-land.
To view Sharon’s blog please click here
I covered another ambulance shift Wednesday night, working with two guys who might turn out to be my favourites. S is a sweet EMT driver with good English, very helpful for me, with the ambition to have a baby born in his ambulance since so far he only knows the theory of the process. EB is a dad of three, with a wife who he insists doesn’t mind the idea of him having a second wife at some point. S is scathing about the concept of multiple wives.
EB is happy for me to work as his assistant so that’s pretty cool. I can actually be useful especially when a medic is outnumbered; last night at one point we took on four injured people after a rocket blast near Palestine square, all from the same family home. A little boy with a head wound, two adult men, one with a head wound and the other with a leg wound. A young woman who hadn’t any visible bleeding waited uncomplainingly til last, at which point we found that under her shirt, glass or shrapnel had entered deep beside her spine, so she got sent off for an x-ray on arrival to Al Shifa.
I’d heard word that Hassan was here in Al Quds, but by the time I got here he’d been sent home, which was encouraging in terms of his wound, and certainly good for his family who hadn’t seen him since the strikes began I think. I’ve since glimpsed the footage A took of his shooting, presented on AlJazeerah, so at least it’s got that far, and I had reports of it being on New York TV.
Dr Halid’s house in Khan Younis was destroyed yesterday. So was EB’s. So was Dr Basher’s, and his next door neighbour’s. He showed me the usual photos of rubble, his personal rubble. Three more homeless families taken in by relatives, whose houses also may be under threat. Is anyone’s home going to be left standing?
Wednesday was the first day when there was a truce from 1pm til 4pm. In that time, the Red Cross successfully negotiated for themselves and Red Crescent medics to enter Zaytoun, one of the places where calls for help have not been allowed to be responded to. My medic friends described walking for about 4 km, using donkey carts to bring out the few dead and injured they could; they only had time to reach four houses. At times they were shot at by the army despite the advance arrangements.
The house of the Samoudi family was one of the houses they reached. A medic told me that two days before, there had been a call from this house to the Red Crescent, saying that 25 women and children were there, with about 5 shaheed after shelling attacks. But on Wednesday when the house was reached, almost all were dead, survivors included one 11 year old boy with a leg injury. What shocked the medic I spoke to was that the majority appeared to have been killed by close range shooting – it seemed an execution had taken place.
I have not been able to find out further clear details on this, and in fact there are various confusing versions of this story, speaking of seven families and 100 people in fact being in multiple houses together that were shelled. Ramattan journalists are going to interview a survivor in the hospital this afternoon so it may become clearer.
At other locations children without food or water were found besides dead parents. Some of the injured people brought out are above us here in the Al Quds hospital. I met baby Nour, tucked in a bed with her mother, and another woman with them whose child had been killed.
Following this I obtained permission to go on Thursday’s Red Cross/Red Crescent evacuation back to Zaytoun again during the hours of ceasefire. My impression was they were glad of a second woman and another international. The team was made up of three Red Cross folks and about ten Red Crescent medics. A similar RC evacuation team in another location during ceasefire was fired upon, with one Red Cross worker injured. I am going again today, Friday with the team from Al Quds. I will try to write a description of this process shortly.
We understand also that UN food deliveries were fired upon and one or two UN people were killed. My access to the net is so little that you will be able to find out more accurate reports on these sort of events (ie involving international agencies) with your own searching.
Last night for the first time I went back to my flat with the aim of getting a night’s sleep, having not had more than 2 hours in a row in any 24 since this whole thing started. I wish I hadn’t! Being away from Palestinian or international friends was hard, but being woken 2 hours into my longed for sleep by the sound of shooting outside the house had me in complete confusion, since it wasn’t coming from a hovering Apache.
Since on the evacuation today I finally saw Israeli tanks and soldiers and realised how close their lines are, my sleepy mind immediately decided they’d somehow reached the port area. The drone planes were also going crazy, normally they mainly sound sinister but monotonous, now they sounded like a bunch of very mad hornets, swooping about manically.
I started to think about what to grab for an escape back to my friends, but a little while later I got onto V and he explained that the drone planes have started shooting, something at least us foreigners had no idea they could do. Rockets, yes, shooting, no. Last night apparently for the first time they began shooting at anyone on the street. I shelved my escape plans, but then the hornets started swooping nearing to me and the rockets were rocking the building. So I jumped up, packed a bag for if the building fell apart, got dressed, moved my mattress the furthest I could from outside walls, and then miraculously managed to go back to sleep.
When I visited the Kabariti family yesterday, M told me that the girls are asking him how much it hurts to get injured, and what happens if they die. They are seeing so many pictures of children like themselves wrapped in body bags. He has explained that God sends you into unconciousness if you are hurt, so you don’t feel the pain
11am: I have just heard that the evacuation for today has been called off, I am unclear whether Israel won’t agree to co-ordination or if the RC, like UNWRA, have frozen their operations after being under attack yesterday. So this means more time to wait, for the people trapped in no-man’s-land.
Vittorio Arrigoni: In Gaza Hippocrates is dead
Published by Il Manifesto, 10th January 2009.
Translated from Italian by Daniela Filippin
In Gaza, a firing squad put Hippocrates up against a wall, aimed and fired. The absurd declarations of an Israeli secret services’ spokesman, according to which the army was given the green light in firing at ambulances because they allegedly carried terrorists, is an illustration of the value that Israel assigns to human life these days – the lives of their enemies, that is. It’s worth revisiting what’s stated in the Hippocratic Oath, which every doctor swears upon before starting to practice the profession. The following passages are especially worthy of note:
I solemnly pledge myself to consecrate my life to the service of humanity. I will practice my profession with conscience and dignity. The health and life of my patient will be my first consideration. I will cure all patients with the same diligence and commitment. I will not permit considerations of religion, nationality, race, party politics, or social standing to intervene between my duty and my patient.
Seven doctors and voluntary nurses have been killed from the start of the bombing campaign, and about ten ambulances were shot at by the Israeli artillery. The survivors are shaking with fear, but refuse to take a step back. The crimson flashes of the ambulances are the only bursts of light in the dark streets of Gaza, bar the flashes that precede an explosion. Regarding these crimes, the last report comes from Pierre Wettach, chief of the Red Cross in Gaza. His ambulances had access to the spot of a massacre, in Zaiton , East of Gaza City, only 24 hours after the Israeli attack. The rescue-workers state they found themselves faced by a blood-curdling scenario. “In one of the houses four small children were found near the body of their dead mother.
They were too weak to stand on their feet. We also found an adult survivor, and he too was also too weak to stand up. About 12 corpses were found lying on the mattresses.” The witnesses to this umpteenth massacre describe how the Israeli soldiers, after getting into the neighbourhood, gathered the numerous members of the Al Samouni family in one building and then proceeded to repeatedly bomb it. My ISM partners and I have been driving around in the Half Red Moon ambulances for days, suffering many attacks and losing a dear friend, Arafa, struck by a howitzer shot from a cannon.
A further three paramedics, all friends, are presently inpatients at the hospitals they worked in until a few days ago. Our duty on the ambulances is to pick up the injured, not carry guerrilla fighters. When we find a man lying in the street in a pool of his own blood, we don’t have the time to check his papers or ask him whether he roots for Hamas or Fatah. Most seriously injured can’t talk, much like the dead.
A few days ago, while picking up a badly wounded patient, another man with light injuries tried to hop onto the ambulance. We pushed him out, just to make it clear to whoever’s watching from up above that we don’t serve as a taxi to usher members of the resistance around. We only take on the most fatally wounded – of which there’s always a plentiful supply, thanks to Israel.
Last night at Al Qudas hospital in Gaza City, 17-year-old Miriam was carried in, with full-blown labour pains. Her father and sister-in-law, both dead, had passed through the hospital in the morning, both victims of indiscriminate bombing. Miriam gave birth to a gorgeous baby during the night, not aware of the fact that while she lay in the delivery room, her young husband had arrived in the morgue one floor below her.
In the end, even the United Nations realised that here in Gaza, we’re all in the same boat, all moving targets for the snipers. The death toll is now at 789 dead, 3,300 wounded (410 in critical conditions), 230 children killed and countless missing. The death toll on the Israeli side has thankfully stopped at 4. John Ging, chief of UNRWA (UN agency for the rights of Palestinian Refugees) has stated that the UN announced they shall suspend their humanitarian activities in the Gaza Strip. I bumped intoGing in the Ramattan press office and saw him shake his finger with disdain at Israel before the cameras.
The UN stopped its work in Gaza after two of its operators were killed yesterday, ironically during the three-hour truce that Israel had announced and as usual, had failed to comply with. “The civilians in Gaza have three hours a day at their disposal in which to survive, the Israeli soldiers have the remaining 21 in which to try and exterminate them”, I heard Ging state two steps away from me.
Yasmine, the wife of one of the many journalists waiting in line at the Erez pass, wrote to me from Jerusalem. Israel won’t grant these journalists a pass to let them in and film or describe the immense unnatural catastrophe that has befallen us in the last thirteen days. These were her words: “ The day before yesterday I went to have a look at Gaza from the outside. The world’s journalists are all huddled on a small sandy hill a few km from the border. Innumerable cameras are pointed towards us. Planes circle us overhead – you can hear them but you can’t see them. They seem like illusions, like something in your head until you see the black smoke rising from the horizon, in Gaza. The hill has also become a tourist site for the Israelis in the area. With their large binoculars and cameras, they come and watch the bombings live.”
While I write this piece of correspondence in a mad rush, a bomb is dropped onto the building next to the one I’m in now. The windowpanes shake, my ears ache, I look out the window and see that the building gathering the major Arabic media agencies has been struck. It’s one of Gaza City’s tallest buildings, the AlJaawhara building. A camera crew is permanently stationed on the roof, I can now see them all bending around on the ground, waving their arms and asking for help as they’re covered by a black cloud of smoke.
Paramedics and journalists, the most heroic occupations in this corner of the world. At the Al Shifa hospital yesterday I paid Tamim a visit – he’s a journalist who survived an air raid. He explained how he thinks that Israel is adopting the same identical terrorist techniques as Al-Qaeda, bombing a building, waiting for the journalists and ambulances to arrive and then dropping another bomb to finish the latter two off as well. In his view that’s why there’ve been so many casualties among the journalists and paramedics. As he said this, the nurses around his bed all nodded in agreement.Tamim smilingly showed me his two stubs for legs. He was happy he was still around to tell the story, while his colleague, Mohammed, had died with a camera in his hand when the second explosion had proved fatal. In the meantime I asked about the bomb that was just dropped on the building next door, where two journalists, both Palestinian, one from Libyan TV and the other from Dubai TV, were injured. This is a harsh new reminder that this massacre must in no way be described or recorded. All that’s left for me to hope is that among the Israeli military summit no one readsIl Manifesto, or habitually visits my blog.
Stay human,
Vittorio Arrigoni
Translated from Italian by Daniela Filippin
In Gaza, a firing squad put Hippocrates up against a wall, aimed and fired. The absurd declarations of an Israeli secret services’ spokesman, according to which the army was given the green light in firing at ambulances because they allegedly carried terrorists, is an illustration of the value that Israel assigns to human life these days – the lives of their enemies, that is. It’s worth revisiting what’s stated in the Hippocratic Oath, which every doctor swears upon before starting to practice the profession. The following passages are especially worthy of note:
I solemnly pledge myself to consecrate my life to the service of humanity. I will practice my profession with conscience and dignity. The health and life of my patient will be my first consideration. I will cure all patients with the same diligence and commitment. I will not permit considerations of religion, nationality, race, party politics, or social standing to intervene between my duty and my patient.
Seven doctors and voluntary nurses have been killed from the start of the bombing campaign, and about ten ambulances were shot at by the Israeli artillery. The survivors are shaking with fear, but refuse to take a step back. The crimson flashes of the ambulances are the only bursts of light in the dark streets of Gaza, bar the flashes that precede an explosion. Regarding these crimes, the last report comes from Pierre Wettach, chief of the Red Cross in Gaza. His ambulances had access to the spot of a massacre, in Zaiton , East of Gaza City, only 24 hours after the Israeli attack. The rescue-workers state they found themselves faced by a blood-curdling scenario. “In one of the houses four small children were found near the body of their dead mother.
They were too weak to stand on their feet. We also found an adult survivor, and he too was also too weak to stand up. About 12 corpses were found lying on the mattresses.” The witnesses to this umpteenth massacre describe how the Israeli soldiers, after getting into the neighbourhood, gathered the numerous members of the Al Samouni family in one building and then proceeded to repeatedly bomb it. My ISM partners and I have been driving around in the Half Red Moon ambulances for days, suffering many attacks and losing a dear friend, Arafa, struck by a howitzer shot from a cannon.
A further three paramedics, all friends, are presently inpatients at the hospitals they worked in until a few days ago. Our duty on the ambulances is to pick up the injured, not carry guerrilla fighters. When we find a man lying in the street in a pool of his own blood, we don’t have the time to check his papers or ask him whether he roots for Hamas or Fatah. Most seriously injured can’t talk, much like the dead.
A few days ago, while picking up a badly wounded patient, another man with light injuries tried to hop onto the ambulance. We pushed him out, just to make it clear to whoever’s watching from up above that we don’t serve as a taxi to usher members of the resistance around. We only take on the most fatally wounded – of which there’s always a plentiful supply, thanks to Israel.
Last night at Al Qudas hospital in Gaza City, 17-year-old Miriam was carried in, with full-blown labour pains. Her father and sister-in-law, both dead, had passed through the hospital in the morning, both victims of indiscriminate bombing. Miriam gave birth to a gorgeous baby during the night, not aware of the fact that while she lay in the delivery room, her young husband had arrived in the morgue one floor below her.
In the end, even the United Nations realised that here in Gaza, we’re all in the same boat, all moving targets for the snipers. The death toll is now at 789 dead, 3,300 wounded (410 in critical conditions), 230 children killed and countless missing. The death toll on the Israeli side has thankfully stopped at 4. John Ging, chief of UNRWA (UN agency for the rights of Palestinian Refugees) has stated that the UN announced they shall suspend their humanitarian activities in the Gaza Strip. I bumped intoGing in the Ramattan press office and saw him shake his finger with disdain at Israel before the cameras.
The UN stopped its work in Gaza after two of its operators were killed yesterday, ironically during the three-hour truce that Israel had announced and as usual, had failed to comply with. “The civilians in Gaza have three hours a day at their disposal in which to survive, the Israeli soldiers have the remaining 21 in which to try and exterminate them”, I heard Ging state two steps away from me.
Yasmine, the wife of one of the many journalists waiting in line at the Erez pass, wrote to me from Jerusalem. Israel won’t grant these journalists a pass to let them in and film or describe the immense unnatural catastrophe that has befallen us in the last thirteen days. These were her words: “ The day before yesterday I went to have a look at Gaza from the outside. The world’s journalists are all huddled on a small sandy hill a few km from the border. Innumerable cameras are pointed towards us. Planes circle us overhead – you can hear them but you can’t see them. They seem like illusions, like something in your head until you see the black smoke rising from the horizon, in Gaza. The hill has also become a tourist site for the Israelis in the area. With their large binoculars and cameras, they come and watch the bombings live.”
While I write this piece of correspondence in a mad rush, a bomb is dropped onto the building next to the one I’m in now. The windowpanes shake, my ears ache, I look out the window and see that the building gathering the major Arabic media agencies has been struck. It’s one of Gaza City’s tallest buildings, the AlJaawhara building. A camera crew is permanently stationed on the roof, I can now see them all bending around on the ground, waving their arms and asking for help as they’re covered by a black cloud of smoke.
Paramedics and journalists, the most heroic occupations in this corner of the world. At the Al Shifa hospital yesterday I paid Tamim a visit – he’s a journalist who survived an air raid. He explained how he thinks that Israel is adopting the same identical terrorist techniques as Al-Qaeda, bombing a building, waiting for the journalists and ambulances to arrive and then dropping another bomb to finish the latter two off as well. In his view that’s why there’ve been so many casualties among the journalists and paramedics. As he said this, the nurses around his bed all nodded in agreement.Tamim smilingly showed me his two stubs for legs. He was happy he was still around to tell the story, while his colleague, Mohammed, had died with a camera in his hand when the second explosion had proved fatal. In the meantime I asked about the bomb that was just dropped on the building next door, where two journalists, both Palestinian, one from Libyan TV and the other from Dubai TV, were injured. This is a harsh new reminder that this massacre must in no way be described or recorded. All that’s left for me to hope is that among the Israeli military summit no one readsIl Manifesto, or habitually visits my blog.
Stay human,
Vittorio Arrigoni
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