16 jan 2009
|
Aftermath of attacks on Tar El Hawa district
The Tar El Hawa neighbourhood has been the scene of particularly heavy fighting. Red Crescent facilities, a hospital and residential apartment blocks were among the buildings hit by the Israeli bombardment. Al Jazeera's correspondent Sherine Tadros has been to see the aftermath and has found yet more evidence of Israel's apparent use of white phosphorous - a weapon that is illegal to use in civilian areas. |
Outrage as Israel bombs UN
United Nations workers and Palestinian firefighters try to put out fires and save bags of food aid at the UN headquarters after it was hit by Israeli bombardment in Gaza yesterday.
Israeli tanks thrust deep inside Gaza City last night as ferocious fighting raged in dense residential areas with terrified families fleeing along streets echoing with gunfire, although many others were trapped in their homes.
Israeli shelling set fire to the UN headquarters, a hospital, a school and a building used by the media, leading to widespread international protests and renewed calls for a ceasefire in the conflict which has so far cost 1,073 Palestinian and 13 Israeli lives. A senior Hamas leader, the Interior Minister Said Seyyam who was responsible for thousands of security agents, was killed in an Israeli raid which flattened his brother's home.
Three members of UN staff were injured when three Israeli shells hit the headquarters, setting it on fire. Thousands of tonnes of desperately needed food and humanitarian supplies were destroyed and about 700 refugees given shelter in the building had to be evacuated. UN officials said the shells were white phosphorus, believed to have been responsible for burns suffered by some Palestinian civilians.
The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, on a peace mission to the region, said: "I conveyed my strong protest and outrage to the Defence Minister and Foreign Minister and demanded a full explanation."
The Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, apologised for the shelling but claimed Hamas fighters had opened fire from the centre. "It is absolutely true that we were attacked from that place, but the consequences are very sad and we apologise for it," he said. "I don't think it should have happened and I'm very sorry."
John Ging, the director of operations for the UN relief agency, UNRWA, in Gaza described the Israeli claim about a Hamas presence as "nonsense". He added: "It's a total disaster for us." Mr Ging said the UN had warned the Israelis the compound was in danger from shelling that had begun overnight, and provided them with GPS co-ordinates to prevent an attack.
The Al-Quds hospital was also hit by shellfire when Israeli tanks moved further into the city. A tower housing the Reuters agency and other media outlets was also hit. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said the damage caused to the Al Quds hospital is "completely and utterly unacceptable based on every known standard of international humanitarian law".
The hospital is in the Tal Hawa district, a packed residential area. Streams of people fled from the fighting, carrying what belongings they could on foot, by car, and, in some cases wheelbarrows after homes were demolished and set ablaze. Mahmud Tejan Hussein drove away with seven members of his family. "Bullets started hitting our house and I decided that we must get away from here. There are Israeli tanks in the area now and we might get blocked off if we wait. But I do not know where we are going to go. We wanted to go to the UN office, but that has been attacked. Wherever we go, the fighting will follow us."
Musah Mohammed, 36, who stayed at his home in an apartment block, said: "We cannot go out. There is shooting in the street. My mother is ill and she is old; we cannot leave her here. People are shouting to each other from balconies crying that they need help. We have no electricity and very little food and water. We are very afraid; we do not know what will happen next." It was unclear whether the escalation was a final push before a ceasefire, as peace talks continued yesterday in Cairo where Israel's chief negotiator Amos Gilad arrived to hear the Hamas response to an Egyptian initiative.
Mark Regev, the spokesman for the Israeli Prime Minister, said a "momentum" was building up on the talks. "Ultimately, we want to see a long-term sustainable quiet in the south, a quiet that's going to be based on the total absence of all hostile fire from Gaza into Israel, and an internationally supported mechanism that will prevent Hamas from rearming," he said.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Mr Olmert by phone that Washington would sign an agreement on measures to stop Hamas from rearming after a ceasefire. The Egyptian proposals call for an immediate ceasefire, resumption of humanitarian aid, an Israeli pullout and the reopening of the border between Israel and Gaza under international supervision.
Israeli tanks thrust deep inside Gaza City last night as ferocious fighting raged in dense residential areas with terrified families fleeing along streets echoing with gunfire, although many others were trapped in their homes.
Israeli shelling set fire to the UN headquarters, a hospital, a school and a building used by the media, leading to widespread international protests and renewed calls for a ceasefire in the conflict which has so far cost 1,073 Palestinian and 13 Israeli lives. A senior Hamas leader, the Interior Minister Said Seyyam who was responsible for thousands of security agents, was killed in an Israeli raid which flattened his brother's home.
Three members of UN staff were injured when three Israeli shells hit the headquarters, setting it on fire. Thousands of tonnes of desperately needed food and humanitarian supplies were destroyed and about 700 refugees given shelter in the building had to be evacuated. UN officials said the shells were white phosphorus, believed to have been responsible for burns suffered by some Palestinian civilians.
The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, on a peace mission to the region, said: "I conveyed my strong protest and outrage to the Defence Minister and Foreign Minister and demanded a full explanation."
The Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, apologised for the shelling but claimed Hamas fighters had opened fire from the centre. "It is absolutely true that we were attacked from that place, but the consequences are very sad and we apologise for it," he said. "I don't think it should have happened and I'm very sorry."
John Ging, the director of operations for the UN relief agency, UNRWA, in Gaza described the Israeli claim about a Hamas presence as "nonsense". He added: "It's a total disaster for us." Mr Ging said the UN had warned the Israelis the compound was in danger from shelling that had begun overnight, and provided them with GPS co-ordinates to prevent an attack.
The Al-Quds hospital was also hit by shellfire when Israeli tanks moved further into the city. A tower housing the Reuters agency and other media outlets was also hit. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said the damage caused to the Al Quds hospital is "completely and utterly unacceptable based on every known standard of international humanitarian law".
The hospital is in the Tal Hawa district, a packed residential area. Streams of people fled from the fighting, carrying what belongings they could on foot, by car, and, in some cases wheelbarrows after homes were demolished and set ablaze. Mahmud Tejan Hussein drove away with seven members of his family. "Bullets started hitting our house and I decided that we must get away from here. There are Israeli tanks in the area now and we might get blocked off if we wait. But I do not know where we are going to go. We wanted to go to the UN office, but that has been attacked. Wherever we go, the fighting will follow us."
Musah Mohammed, 36, who stayed at his home in an apartment block, said: "We cannot go out. There is shooting in the street. My mother is ill and she is old; we cannot leave her here. People are shouting to each other from balconies crying that they need help. We have no electricity and very little food and water. We are very afraid; we do not know what will happen next." It was unclear whether the escalation was a final push before a ceasefire, as peace talks continued yesterday in Cairo where Israel's chief negotiator Amos Gilad arrived to hear the Hamas response to an Egyptian initiative.
Mark Regev, the spokesman for the Israeli Prime Minister, said a "momentum" was building up on the talks. "Ultimately, we want to see a long-term sustainable quiet in the south, a quiet that's going to be based on the total absence of all hostile fire from Gaza into Israel, and an internationally supported mechanism that will prevent Hamas from rearming," he said.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Mr Olmert by phone that Washington would sign an agreement on measures to stop Hamas from rearming after a ceasefire. The Egyptian proposals call for an immediate ceasefire, resumption of humanitarian aid, an Israeli pullout and the reopening of the border between Israel and Gaza under international supervision.
Harald Veen Fresed goes through hell as a doctor at Shifa Hospital in Gaza
Article published in "Le Monde" on 16 January 2009. Harald Veen Fresed has just spent a week at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. The Dutch physician, who specializes in abdominal surgery, is exhausted. He was sent to Gaza by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and finds it difficult to disguise his feelings after what he calls "a real tragedy". Although he is no stranger to war or distressing situations – especially African conflicts – he returned home profoundly disturbed by what he had seen.
The surgeon spent a relentless week dealing with all manner of horrific cases. "Mutilated limbs, brains spilling out, intestines exposed, wounded people dying from loss of blood ... the vast number of casualties was horrendous. It was hard to cope. We worked as quickly as we could, picking out those we could save and leaving those for whom it was too late."
Harald Veen Fresed explained that three teams of 15 doctors took turns to work 24-hour shifts to deal with the constant influx of wounded people. "It reached the point where we could hardly move and we had to work as fast as we could to treat the excessive numbers of patients."
The surgeon paid tribute to the skill and devotion of the Palestinian doctors, who had medicines but insufficient supplies of materials and not enough space in the wards or in the mortuary. The worst cases were sent to Egypt via Rafah. "I can assure you that more than 1,000 dead is well below the true figure. You think you have seen everything, you think you are well equipped to cope with anything. Well, let me tell you, it was a real ordeal."
Harald, who is tall, slim and fair-haired and chooses his words carefully, explained that the hardest thing of all was to witness the "personal dramas" . "The parents, the families devastated by death and suffering ... you look on, helpless and lost for words, as these tragedies unfold. Some people wanted to follow the wounded into the operating theatre for fear of never seeing them alive again. Many had huge shrapnel wounds and I wondered how they would ever survive. People always say that war is terrible but you cannot image what it is really like because you only see part of the picture."
"A large hole in her back"
Harald was aware of the many dead people but was particularly conscious of all those with amputated limbs, the paraplegic and the blind. "War does not stop when a ceasefire is declared. For many people, it goes on for years, if not for their whole life." He is sure of one thing: "I was glad to be there. I consider it a privilege to have been of the slightest assistance."
After working during the Tutsi genocide in Rwanda in 1994, Harald had decided to take two years off to get over the horrors. Then he accepted another assignment. And each time the ICRC calls him, he packs his case and sets off just to make what he calls "a small difference" . "The main thing is to be there." He says he is not an idealist; he has seen too much for that – although that does not stop him having nightmares or reliving scenes he has witnessed.
It was not easy for him to leave Gaza because he had the unpleasant sense of "abandoning" the colleagues with whom he had worked that week. Harald went back to his three-year-old daughter. She is the same age as the little girl that he had seen arriving at Shifa Hospital; she seemed to be unharmed and her eyes were wide open. When he turned her over, she had "a large hole in her back" . She will never walk again.
The surgeon spent a relentless week dealing with all manner of horrific cases. "Mutilated limbs, brains spilling out, intestines exposed, wounded people dying from loss of blood ... the vast number of casualties was horrendous. It was hard to cope. We worked as quickly as we could, picking out those we could save and leaving those for whom it was too late."
Harald Veen Fresed explained that three teams of 15 doctors took turns to work 24-hour shifts to deal with the constant influx of wounded people. "It reached the point where we could hardly move and we had to work as fast as we could to treat the excessive numbers of patients."
The surgeon paid tribute to the skill and devotion of the Palestinian doctors, who had medicines but insufficient supplies of materials and not enough space in the wards or in the mortuary. The worst cases were sent to Egypt via Rafah. "I can assure you that more than 1,000 dead is well below the true figure. You think you have seen everything, you think you are well equipped to cope with anything. Well, let me tell you, it was a real ordeal."
Harald, who is tall, slim and fair-haired and chooses his words carefully, explained that the hardest thing of all was to witness the "personal dramas" . "The parents, the families devastated by death and suffering ... you look on, helpless and lost for words, as these tragedies unfold. Some people wanted to follow the wounded into the operating theatre for fear of never seeing them alive again. Many had huge shrapnel wounds and I wondered how they would ever survive. People always say that war is terrible but you cannot image what it is really like because you only see part of the picture."
"A large hole in her back"
Harald was aware of the many dead people but was particularly conscious of all those with amputated limbs, the paraplegic and the blind. "War does not stop when a ceasefire is declared. For many people, it goes on for years, if not for their whole life." He is sure of one thing: "I was glad to be there. I consider it a privilege to have been of the slightest assistance."
After working during the Tutsi genocide in Rwanda in 1994, Harald had decided to take two years off to get over the horrors. Then he accepted another assignment. And each time the ICRC calls him, he packs his case and sets off just to make what he calls "a small difference" . "The main thing is to be there." He says he is not an idealist; he has seen too much for that – although that does not stop him having nightmares or reliving scenes he has witnessed.
It was not easy for him to leave Gaza because he had the unpleasant sense of "abandoning" the colleagues with whom he had worked that week. Harald went back to his three-year-old daughter. She is the same age as the little girl that he had seen arriving at Shifa Hospital; she seemed to be unharmed and her eyes were wide open. When he turned her over, she had "a large hole in her back" . She will never walk again.
Gaza Is a Concentration Camp
Matan Vilnai threatens "holocaust" as public demand ceasefire talks
One Israeli official promised a holocaust in Gaza; it is impossible to keep pace with the death toll.
Gaza is an immense concentration camp -- 1.5 million people squeezed into 140 square miles hemmed in on all sides by 25-foot-high walls separated by a vast expanse of bulldozed earth.
The 2005 "pull-out" left Gaza still controlled by Israel from air and sea, its entries and exits prisonlike mazes electronically controlled and under constant surveillance. Bombing it, assaulting it with tanks and Uzis, is like shooting animals in a pen.
The claptrap about "pinpoint" accuracy and "avoiding civilians" is a lie so flagrant, so transparent, that any child -- certainly any Gaza child -- could grasp it.
There have been eight military assaults on Gaza since 2004; blockades started in 2005, and then a siege of medieval proportions in 2006, punishment for Gazans' having elected the wrong party for Israel and its U.S. patron. By December 2008, Richard Falk, special rapporteur on the Occupied Territories for the United Nations, reported an overall Gaza malnutrition rate of 75 percent, a childhood anemia rate of 46 percent and a devastated infrastructure. (For more, see Richard Falk's "Understanding the Gaza Catastrophe.")
This latest war -- called Operation Cast Lead -- is the "holocaust" promised by Israel's Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai last spring when he said Israel would create a shoa if Qassem rockets kept dropping on Israeli towns like Sderot. Shoa, Hebrew for holocaust, is a serious word denoting the extermination of an entire people. Vilnai embarrassed the Israeli government, and no official has used the term since.
But since Dec. 27, Israel has bombed Gaza's government buildings, universities, mosques, schools, medical clinics. It is impossible to keep pace with the death and injury toll, which rises as I write: on Jan. 13, the Israeli human rights organization B'tselem reported 900 Palestinians killed, with more than 4,200 injured.
The Israeli toll: three civilians and seven soldiers killed, more than 82 civilians and 61 soldiers injured. As for Israeli civilians killed by rockets, the Israel Project lists 25 dead during the past seven years.
On the broadcast program Democracy Now, a Norwegian doctor, Mads Gilbert, who had just returned from Gaza to Denmark, told host Amy Goodman that "90 percent of those killed are civilians." Gilbert reported 971 dead, of whom 1 in 3 is a child under 18. He has worked in Gaza for years and was there for the first weeks of Israel's assault.
The Times of London, Human Rights Watch and B'tselem all report the illegal use of white phosphorous to strike civilians. When white phosphorous adheres to flesh, its flames continue to burn for five to 10 minutes, often penetrating to the bone.
Gilbert and other experts think Israel is also using a new weapon called dense inert metal explosive. It was developed by the United States to create lethal, powerful blasts within small areas. DIME inflicts wounds never before seen by surgeons in Gaza. According to Gilbert, conventional shrapnel damages limbs and other body parts as if they'd been cut by a huge knife. DIME, on the other hand, leaves "no signs of shrapnel," but rather "small pieces of some kind of substance" (DIME is made of nickel and cobalt). It crushes "the whole limb," not just part, with "multiple severe fractures, muscles split from bones." Some classify DIME weapons as nuclear because they are based on a fusion process. (Democracy Now, Jan. 14.)
*****
"Take some kittens ... in a box. Seal up the box, then jump on it with all your weight and might, until you feel their little bones crunching, and you hear the last muffled little mew," a surgeon named Jamal tells Italian writer Vittorio Arigoni. Bloodstained boxes are fetched; Jamal opens one. It contains "amputated limbs, legs and arms, some from the knee down, others with the entire femur attached . . . from the injured at the Al Fakhura United Nations school in Jabalia, which resulted in more than 50 casualties."
Jamal says, "Israel trapped hundreds of civilians inside a school as if in a box, including many children, and then crushed them with all the might of its bombs. What were the world's reactions? Almost nothing. We would have been better off as animals rather than Palestinians. We would have been more protected."
Arigoni also described the account, by ophthalmologist Dr. Abdel, of strange and terrible wounds he'd never seen before: "Dr. Abdel told me that at Al Shifa hospital, they don't have the medical and military competence to say for sure whether the wounds they examined on certain corpses were indeed provoked by white phosphorous bullets. But on his word, in 20 years on the job, he had never seen casualties like those now being carried into the ward."
These included "traumas to the skull, with fractures to ... the jaw ... cheekbones, tear duct, nasal and palatine bones [all showing] signs of the collision of an immense force against the victim's face. What he finds inexplicable is the total lack of eyeballs, which ought to leave a trace somewhere within the skull, even in the case of such violent impact. Instead, we see Palestinian corpses coming into the hospitals without eyes at all, as if someone had removed them surgically before handing them over to the coroner."
Since no international observers are allowed in, judgment about the weapons inflicting such trauma will depend on further reports from Gaza, and corroboration from experts like Gilbert. (Arigoni is an international who reached Gaza by boat during the siege. His report was sent to e-mail lists Jan. 9.)
***
The Israel of Operation Cast Lead is still the Israel of Plan Dalet, under which 750,000 Arabs were expelled from Palestine in 1948. It is the Israel of massacres under Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir on April, 9, 1948, at Deir Yassin; of the Phalangist massacre of 1,500 Palestinians in the Beirut refugee camps Sabra and Shatila, overseen by Defense Minister Ariel Sharon. Held "personally responsible" and cashiered from his post, he later rose to prime minister to resume his malignant policies in the West Bank and Gaza. The late Israeli writer Tanya Reinhardt predicted in 2002 that Israel was starting to finish what it began in 1948. This 60-year-long legacy rages on in Gaza under Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Minister of Defense Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to the applause of a vengeful Israeli public (see Jan. 13 story in the New York Times.)
Operation Cast Lead is one of the great war crimes of our era. It was planned six to 18 months in advance, according to journalist Jonathan Cook. The war design "required directing artillery fire and air strikes at civilian neighborhoods from which rockets were fired, despite being a violation of international law. Legal advisers, Barak noted, were seeking ways to avoid such prohibitions, presumably in the hope the international community would turn a blind eye."
Operation Cast Lead fulfills at least three of the points under Article 2 in the Convention on Genocide:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.
So to President-elect Barack Obama in his silence; to our senators and representatives who obediently parrot American Israel Public Affairs Committee's lines, forgiving the occupier and blaming the occupied, I'd address European Parliament member Luisa Morgantini's closing words in her open letter to European leaders:
"Israel has a right to exist as a normal state, a state for its citizens, along the 1967 borders, much wider than those of the partition plan passed by the United Nations in 1947. But I would have liked to hear your outrage and your humanity, and to hear you shouting for the pain of so many deaths and so much destruction, for such arrogance, for so much inhumanity, for so many violations of international and humanitarian law. ... "My God, what a terrible world we live in!"
One Israeli official promised a holocaust in Gaza; it is impossible to keep pace with the death toll.
Gaza is an immense concentration camp -- 1.5 million people squeezed into 140 square miles hemmed in on all sides by 25-foot-high walls separated by a vast expanse of bulldozed earth.
The 2005 "pull-out" left Gaza still controlled by Israel from air and sea, its entries and exits prisonlike mazes electronically controlled and under constant surveillance. Bombing it, assaulting it with tanks and Uzis, is like shooting animals in a pen.
The claptrap about "pinpoint" accuracy and "avoiding civilians" is a lie so flagrant, so transparent, that any child -- certainly any Gaza child -- could grasp it.
There have been eight military assaults on Gaza since 2004; blockades started in 2005, and then a siege of medieval proportions in 2006, punishment for Gazans' having elected the wrong party for Israel and its U.S. patron. By December 2008, Richard Falk, special rapporteur on the Occupied Territories for the United Nations, reported an overall Gaza malnutrition rate of 75 percent, a childhood anemia rate of 46 percent and a devastated infrastructure. (For more, see Richard Falk's "Understanding the Gaza Catastrophe.")
This latest war -- called Operation Cast Lead -- is the "holocaust" promised by Israel's Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai last spring when he said Israel would create a shoa if Qassem rockets kept dropping on Israeli towns like Sderot. Shoa, Hebrew for holocaust, is a serious word denoting the extermination of an entire people. Vilnai embarrassed the Israeli government, and no official has used the term since.
But since Dec. 27, Israel has bombed Gaza's government buildings, universities, mosques, schools, medical clinics. It is impossible to keep pace with the death and injury toll, which rises as I write: on Jan. 13, the Israeli human rights organization B'tselem reported 900 Palestinians killed, with more than 4,200 injured.
The Israeli toll: three civilians and seven soldiers killed, more than 82 civilians and 61 soldiers injured. As for Israeli civilians killed by rockets, the Israel Project lists 25 dead during the past seven years.
On the broadcast program Democracy Now, a Norwegian doctor, Mads Gilbert, who had just returned from Gaza to Denmark, told host Amy Goodman that "90 percent of those killed are civilians." Gilbert reported 971 dead, of whom 1 in 3 is a child under 18. He has worked in Gaza for years and was there for the first weeks of Israel's assault.
The Times of London, Human Rights Watch and B'tselem all report the illegal use of white phosphorous to strike civilians. When white phosphorous adheres to flesh, its flames continue to burn for five to 10 minutes, often penetrating to the bone.
Gilbert and other experts think Israel is also using a new weapon called dense inert metal explosive. It was developed by the United States to create lethal, powerful blasts within small areas. DIME inflicts wounds never before seen by surgeons in Gaza. According to Gilbert, conventional shrapnel damages limbs and other body parts as if they'd been cut by a huge knife. DIME, on the other hand, leaves "no signs of shrapnel," but rather "small pieces of some kind of substance" (DIME is made of nickel and cobalt). It crushes "the whole limb," not just part, with "multiple severe fractures, muscles split from bones." Some classify DIME weapons as nuclear because they are based on a fusion process. (Democracy Now, Jan. 14.)
*****
"Take some kittens ... in a box. Seal up the box, then jump on it with all your weight and might, until you feel their little bones crunching, and you hear the last muffled little mew," a surgeon named Jamal tells Italian writer Vittorio Arigoni. Bloodstained boxes are fetched; Jamal opens one. It contains "amputated limbs, legs and arms, some from the knee down, others with the entire femur attached . . . from the injured at the Al Fakhura United Nations school in Jabalia, which resulted in more than 50 casualties."
Jamal says, "Israel trapped hundreds of civilians inside a school as if in a box, including many children, and then crushed them with all the might of its bombs. What were the world's reactions? Almost nothing. We would have been better off as animals rather than Palestinians. We would have been more protected."
Arigoni also described the account, by ophthalmologist Dr. Abdel, of strange and terrible wounds he'd never seen before: "Dr. Abdel told me that at Al Shifa hospital, they don't have the medical and military competence to say for sure whether the wounds they examined on certain corpses were indeed provoked by white phosphorous bullets. But on his word, in 20 years on the job, he had never seen casualties like those now being carried into the ward."
These included "traumas to the skull, with fractures to ... the jaw ... cheekbones, tear duct, nasal and palatine bones [all showing] signs of the collision of an immense force against the victim's face. What he finds inexplicable is the total lack of eyeballs, which ought to leave a trace somewhere within the skull, even in the case of such violent impact. Instead, we see Palestinian corpses coming into the hospitals without eyes at all, as if someone had removed them surgically before handing them over to the coroner."
Since no international observers are allowed in, judgment about the weapons inflicting such trauma will depend on further reports from Gaza, and corroboration from experts like Gilbert. (Arigoni is an international who reached Gaza by boat during the siege. His report was sent to e-mail lists Jan. 9.)
***
The Israel of Operation Cast Lead is still the Israel of Plan Dalet, under which 750,000 Arabs were expelled from Palestine in 1948. It is the Israel of massacres under Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir on April, 9, 1948, at Deir Yassin; of the Phalangist massacre of 1,500 Palestinians in the Beirut refugee camps Sabra and Shatila, overseen by Defense Minister Ariel Sharon. Held "personally responsible" and cashiered from his post, he later rose to prime minister to resume his malignant policies in the West Bank and Gaza. The late Israeli writer Tanya Reinhardt predicted in 2002 that Israel was starting to finish what it began in 1948. This 60-year-long legacy rages on in Gaza under Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Minister of Defense Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to the applause of a vengeful Israeli public (see Jan. 13 story in the New York Times.)
Operation Cast Lead is one of the great war crimes of our era. It was planned six to 18 months in advance, according to journalist Jonathan Cook. The war design "required directing artillery fire and air strikes at civilian neighborhoods from which rockets were fired, despite being a violation of international law. Legal advisers, Barak noted, were seeking ways to avoid such prohibitions, presumably in the hope the international community would turn a blind eye."
Operation Cast Lead fulfills at least three of the points under Article 2 in the Convention on Genocide:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.
So to President-elect Barack Obama in his silence; to our senators and representatives who obediently parrot American Israel Public Affairs Committee's lines, forgiving the occupier and blaming the occupied, I'd address European Parliament member Luisa Morgantini's closing words in her open letter to European leaders:
"Israel has a right to exist as a normal state, a state for its citizens, along the 1967 borders, much wider than those of the partition plan passed by the United Nations in 1947. But I would have liked to hear your outrage and your humanity, and to hear you shouting for the pain of so many deaths and so much destruction, for such arrogance, for so much inhumanity, for so many violations of international and humanitarian law. ... "My God, what a terrible world we live in!"
Day 21 of Israeli War On Gaza
Batran family
Informative Report on Gaza War: Death toll 1180, wounded 5200
Breaking News: Massacre in east of Gaza as Israeli rockets killed 8 civilians in Shiajaya town.
Breaking News: Massacre in north of Gaza as Israeli rockets killed 4 women and children in Jabalia town.
Breaking News: Massacre in central Gaza as Israeli rockets killed a mother and her 4 children.
By: Sameh A. Habeeb: A Photojournalist, Humanitarian & Peace Activist in Gaza Strip.
Informative Report on Gaza War: Death toll 1180, wounded 5200
Breaking News: Massacre in east of Gaza as Israeli rockets killed 8 civilians in Shiajaya town.
Breaking News: Massacre in north of Gaza as Israeli rockets killed 4 women and children in Jabalia town.
Breaking News: Massacre in central Gaza as Israeli rockets killed a mother and her 4 children.
By: Sameh A. Habeeb: A Photojournalist, Humanitarian & Peace Activist in Gaza Strip.
1- Israeli air strike bombed a wedding hall in Rafah City.
2- Air strike hit the Khan Yonis Police station, no people wounded!
3- Israeli tanks invading Tal Al Hawa, western Gaza City, retreated to the mid areas.
4- Child Esa Ermilat, 14, killed and 6 children wounded in Rafah due to an Isaeli artillery shells.
5- Four Palestinian children wounded in Dair Al Balah City.
6- A child killed in artillery shelling near Jablaia town, northern Gaza Strip.
7- Bombs destroyed al Qouqa' mosque eastern Gaza City.
8- Three Palestinian fighters killed in Israeli air raid northern Gaza Strip.
9- Two Palestinian fighters killed western sourthern Gaza, Tal Al Hawa, in Israeli air raid.
10- Israeli army destroyed many houses in Farta area, Bait Hanon, northern Gaza.
11- Two Palestinians killed mid of Gaza city.
12- Spardoic artillery shells eastern Gaza City.
13- A press conference for Arab and International doctors in Gaza confirmed that Israeli is using prohibited weapons in Gaza.
14- Massive devastation in Tal Al hawa area western southern Gaza City. Hospitals, offices and charities beside houses destroyed yesterday.
15- Israeli tanks opened its heavy gunmachine fire into the houses of people eastern Gaza City.
16- Israeli shelling targeted the northern areas of Gaza and no wounded reported.
17- A mother from al Batran family and five from her children killed, several wounded in Israeli strike central Gaza Strip.
18- Fire still ongoing in the UN stores in Gaza.
19- Severe shortages in medical stuff at Al Shifa' hospital.
20- Around 300 wounded still in critical condtions.
21- Israeli air raids on Rafah, tunnels area.
22- Heavy bombings echoed in the first evening hours in Gaza.
23- Water still hardly accessible for Gaza residents.
24- Humantarian needs still unaviable and monitors said that Gaza needs thousands of food trucks and permanent opened crossings to bridge the recent Gap.
25- Artillary shells rained down in southern Gaza Strip.
26- Medical sources: Around 25 Palestinian bodies were found dead in Tal al Hawa by Israeli fire yesterday.
27- Residents of Tal Al Hawa flee their houses despite Israeli tanks dropped out for 2 kilo meters.
28- Many anbulances were found destroyed today in Tal Al Hawa area.
29- Clashes arise again in east and north of Gaza.
30- Bombings from the gunboats targeted mid and western areas of Gaza.
31- Drones still hover excessively over Gaza.
32- Palestinian fighters launched some projectiles in Israeli leaving 5 people wounded and in Trauma.
2- Air strike hit the Khan Yonis Police station, no people wounded!
3- Israeli tanks invading Tal Al Hawa, western Gaza City, retreated to the mid areas.
4- Child Esa Ermilat, 14, killed and 6 children wounded in Rafah due to an Isaeli artillery shells.
5- Four Palestinian children wounded in Dair Al Balah City.
6- A child killed in artillery shelling near Jablaia town, northern Gaza Strip.
7- Bombs destroyed al Qouqa' mosque eastern Gaza City.
8- Three Palestinian fighters killed in Israeli air raid northern Gaza Strip.
9- Two Palestinian fighters killed western sourthern Gaza, Tal Al Hawa, in Israeli air raid.
10- Israeli army destroyed many houses in Farta area, Bait Hanon, northern Gaza.
11- Two Palestinians killed mid of Gaza city.
12- Spardoic artillery shells eastern Gaza City.
13- A press conference for Arab and International doctors in Gaza confirmed that Israeli is using prohibited weapons in Gaza.
14- Massive devastation in Tal Al hawa area western southern Gaza City. Hospitals, offices and charities beside houses destroyed yesterday.
15- Israeli tanks opened its heavy gunmachine fire into the houses of people eastern Gaza City.
16- Israeli shelling targeted the northern areas of Gaza and no wounded reported.
17- A mother from al Batran family and five from her children killed, several wounded in Israeli strike central Gaza Strip.
18- Fire still ongoing in the UN stores in Gaza.
19- Severe shortages in medical stuff at Al Shifa' hospital.
20- Around 300 wounded still in critical condtions.
21- Israeli air raids on Rafah, tunnels area.
22- Heavy bombings echoed in the first evening hours in Gaza.
23- Water still hardly accessible for Gaza residents.
24- Humantarian needs still unaviable and monitors said that Gaza needs thousands of food trucks and permanent opened crossings to bridge the recent Gap.
25- Artillary shells rained down in southern Gaza Strip.
26- Medical sources: Around 25 Palestinian bodies were found dead in Tal al Hawa by Israeli fire yesterday.
27- Residents of Tal Al Hawa flee their houses despite Israeli tanks dropped out for 2 kilo meters.
28- Many anbulances were found destroyed today in Tal Al Hawa area.
29- Clashes arise again in east and north of Gaza.
30- Bombings from the gunboats targeted mid and western areas of Gaza.
31- Drones still hover excessively over Gaza.
32- Palestinian fighters launched some projectiles in Israeli leaving 5 people wounded and in Trauma.
|
The army at the door…
March note: When the Telal Howa area and Al Quds hospital were under attack by the Israeli army at this point, no internet access was possible. I grabbed moments to text and call to a friend in the UK (via a fairly disfunctional mobile service) and he posted what he could here. The information is thus understandably somewhat confused – but far less so than the reality was! – and I’ve left it as is. Subsequent blog posts are clearer. My friend posted the last message at the top, so start at the bottom. Short texts & updates from the blogger in Al-Quds hospital, Gaza City – 12:35 am GMT/02:35 Gaza time 16th January: |
She has gone back to the hospital, as some of it is still left. There’s still lots of resources (medicines and the like there), and it feels like it’s important not to abandon it altogether, so five medics will stay the night there. The wards seem to have got the most damage.
Two teams, the Red Crescent Medics and the Red Crescent Disaster Management Team have already evacuated from own original building, and had been at the hospital for a few weeks now – it’s not clear where they will go or how they will function at this stage. The evacuation was to Al-Shifa hospital, though there’s no room for more patients or staff.
10:10 pm GMT/00:10 Gaza time:
The army shelled our hospital again, and we’re now evacuating everyone. We’re shifting base to a Red Cross building it seems. We’re taking people in beds, who can’t walk, and into dark streets where people were shot at earlier by snipers. 40-50 people were still sheltering in the basement, because they thought it safer than their own houses. By the time we left, bits of the ceiling were falling in on fire. Everyone is OK at the moment. There are explosions in the area still.
8:40 pm GMT/22:40 Gaza time:
The middle building of the hospital complex is on fire, following a hit by a shell on the top floor. The hospital tried to bring in the fire brigade, but the Israeli army told them they couldn’t. That particular building has no patients in, but is very close to the wards, and has a shared basement. The whole hospital is being evacuated as the fire is spreading too fast – we don’t know to where or in what kind of ‘safety’, and there are conflicting reports of whether the Israeli army is present still on the ground in that area.
Update at 5:19 pm GMT/19:19 Gaza time:
There were two more rocket strikes on hospital around lunchtime, one went through the hospital wall into the pharmacy, the other hit the neighbouring cultural centre and medics went to put the fire out there.
One family were crying on the hospital stairs – they had fled their home in fear, but the Israeli snipers shot at them, and got the father in the leg, and one daughter with the bullet going through one cheek and out the other. Two medics went to get the other daughter, but more families were out in street trying to flee to the hospital, with grown men crying in fear. Many men had been taken from flats leaving only women & children. (Israeli) snipers and (Palestinian) fighters are active in the area too. No co-ordination was possible with Israeli forces. 500 people were got to safety with white flags, with people in Israel phoning through to government and it was press released that an international (the blogger) was present. It seems that this made the difference and though the army kept firing in the vicinity, not actually on people at that time.
There was not enough space in the hospital for all the terrified people, and a few Red Cross people arrived and were talking about a walking evacuation co-ordinated with Israeli army, with two ambulances for the people who couldn’t walk. People were being evacuated to an UNRWA school, but it’s next to continuing explosions and a massive cloud of black smoke near, from burning medical supplies & fuel tanks in the UN HQ compound. Many people went to other places in the end.
Blogger heading back to hospital now. Another update later, phone networks willing.
14.45 UK time – phones still down
Still no phone contact with the blogger – we will post something as soon as we hear.
1:05 pm GMT/15:05 Gaza time:
The phone network there is still not working, so no news I’m afraid of what’s happened. Will let you know when I hear anything.
9:45 am GMT/11:45 Gaza time:
Families from neighbouring buildings trying to run to safety to hospital from fire & gunfire. Most staff wearing masks due to fear of phosphorous gas attack.
9:04 am GMT/11:04 Gaza time:
fire out window 10 yards from babies in incubators, putting out fire with pots and pans as hose does not reach.
8:51 am GMT/10:51 Gaza time:
a rocket hit the back of the hospital, where there are only houses. A fire has started. Doctors are running to put it out. A second rocket hit the same point. Doctors are running back to care for their patients & away from the rockets.
7:26 am GMT/9:26 Gaza time:
Al-Quds hospital now has army outside, snipers next door, 50 hits near us during the night and 4 hits to us. Fire in apartments behind. Wounded kids near who we can’t collect though would like to ask if I can help with this.
Al-Quds hospital, Gaza City, located in the Tel al Huwa neighbourhood of Gaza, has been under attack by the Israeli army since 1:30 AM.
“Israeli snipers are shooting at families attempting to get to the hospital. They are frightened and have no where to go. At least two families have been shot at now, children have been wounded.”
“The hospital has received over 150 calls for help from people including many children in the surrounding area who have been wounded and are in desperate need of medical care. The Israeli army has surrounded the hospital and no one is able to get in or out.”
Two teams, the Red Crescent Medics and the Red Crescent Disaster Management Team have already evacuated from own original building, and had been at the hospital for a few weeks now – it’s not clear where they will go or how they will function at this stage. The evacuation was to Al-Shifa hospital, though there’s no room for more patients or staff.
10:10 pm GMT/00:10 Gaza time:
The army shelled our hospital again, and we’re now evacuating everyone. We’re shifting base to a Red Cross building it seems. We’re taking people in beds, who can’t walk, and into dark streets where people were shot at earlier by snipers. 40-50 people were still sheltering in the basement, because they thought it safer than their own houses. By the time we left, bits of the ceiling were falling in on fire. Everyone is OK at the moment. There are explosions in the area still.
8:40 pm GMT/22:40 Gaza time:
The middle building of the hospital complex is on fire, following a hit by a shell on the top floor. The hospital tried to bring in the fire brigade, but the Israeli army told them they couldn’t. That particular building has no patients in, but is very close to the wards, and has a shared basement. The whole hospital is being evacuated as the fire is spreading too fast – we don’t know to where or in what kind of ‘safety’, and there are conflicting reports of whether the Israeli army is present still on the ground in that area.
Update at 5:19 pm GMT/19:19 Gaza time:
There were two more rocket strikes on hospital around lunchtime, one went through the hospital wall into the pharmacy, the other hit the neighbouring cultural centre and medics went to put the fire out there.
One family were crying on the hospital stairs – they had fled their home in fear, but the Israeli snipers shot at them, and got the father in the leg, and one daughter with the bullet going through one cheek and out the other. Two medics went to get the other daughter, but more families were out in street trying to flee to the hospital, with grown men crying in fear. Many men had been taken from flats leaving only women & children. (Israeli) snipers and (Palestinian) fighters are active in the area too. No co-ordination was possible with Israeli forces. 500 people were got to safety with white flags, with people in Israel phoning through to government and it was press released that an international (the blogger) was present. It seems that this made the difference and though the army kept firing in the vicinity, not actually on people at that time.
There was not enough space in the hospital for all the terrified people, and a few Red Cross people arrived and were talking about a walking evacuation co-ordinated with Israeli army, with two ambulances for the people who couldn’t walk. People were being evacuated to an UNRWA school, but it’s next to continuing explosions and a massive cloud of black smoke near, from burning medical supplies & fuel tanks in the UN HQ compound. Many people went to other places in the end.
Blogger heading back to hospital now. Another update later, phone networks willing.
14.45 UK time – phones still down
Still no phone contact with the blogger – we will post something as soon as we hear.
1:05 pm GMT/15:05 Gaza time:
The phone network there is still not working, so no news I’m afraid of what’s happened. Will let you know when I hear anything.
9:45 am GMT/11:45 Gaza time:
Families from neighbouring buildings trying to run to safety to hospital from fire & gunfire. Most staff wearing masks due to fear of phosphorous gas attack.
9:04 am GMT/11:04 Gaza time:
fire out window 10 yards from babies in incubators, putting out fire with pots and pans as hose does not reach.
8:51 am GMT/10:51 Gaza time:
a rocket hit the back of the hospital, where there are only houses. A fire has started. Doctors are running to put it out. A second rocket hit the same point. Doctors are running back to care for their patients & away from the rockets.
7:26 am GMT/9:26 Gaza time:
Al-Quds hospital now has army outside, snipers next door, 50 hits near us during the night and 4 hits to us. Fire in apartments behind. Wounded kids near who we can’t collect though would like to ask if I can help with this.
Al-Quds hospital, Gaza City, located in the Tel al Huwa neighbourhood of Gaza, has been under attack by the Israeli army since 1:30 AM.
“Israeli snipers are shooting at families attempting to get to the hospital. They are frightened and have no where to go. At least two families have been shot at now, children have been wounded.”
“The hospital has received over 150 calls for help from people including many children in the surrounding area who have been wounded and are in desperate need of medical care. The Israeli army has surrounded the hospital and no one is able to get in or out.”
Page: 2 - 1
|
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