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U.N. Protests at Israeli Killing of 8 of its People
The United Nations special envoy to the Middle East on Monday protested strongly to Israel after air strikes on the Gaza Strip hit two U.N. buildings and killed eight of its people.
U.N. envoy Robert Serry and the head of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) Karen Abu Zayd wrote an urgent letter to Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak "to protest these incidents in the strongest possible terms," a statement said.
The first incident came on Saturday shortly after Israel launched its massive air offensive on the Hamas-ruled territory, when a missile targeting a Palestinian policeman standing next to the UNRWA training centre hit a group of UNRWA training students, killing eight and wounding 19.
The second incident was on Monday, when the U.N. headquarters in Gaza was damaged by two missiles, the U.N. statement said.
"U.N. premises must be protected and inviolate. The Government of Israel has all coordinates of U.N. premises in Gaza," the statement said.
"These strikes occurred without prior warning. Military attacks in these circumstances, so close to U.N. premises as to recklessly endanger U.N. personnel and property, must not be repeated."
Nearly 350 Palestinians -- among them at least 57 civilians -- have been killed since Israel launched its aerial blitz on the Islamist-controlled enclave at mid-morning on Saturday.(AFP)
Beirut, 30 Dec 08, 07:12 LINK
The United Nations special envoy to the Middle East on Monday protested strongly to Israel after air strikes on the Gaza Strip hit two U.N. buildings and killed eight of its people.
U.N. envoy Robert Serry and the head of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) Karen Abu Zayd wrote an urgent letter to Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak "to protest these incidents in the strongest possible terms," a statement said.
The first incident came on Saturday shortly after Israel launched its massive air offensive on the Hamas-ruled territory, when a missile targeting a Palestinian policeman standing next to the UNRWA training centre hit a group of UNRWA training students, killing eight and wounding 19.
The second incident was on Monday, when the U.N. headquarters in Gaza was damaged by two missiles, the U.N. statement said.
"U.N. premises must be protected and inviolate. The Government of Israel has all coordinates of U.N. premises in Gaza," the statement said.
"These strikes occurred without prior warning. Military attacks in these circumstances, so close to U.N. premises as to recklessly endanger U.N. personnel and property, must not be repeated."
Nearly 350 Palestinians -- among them at least 57 civilians -- have been killed since Israel launched its aerial blitz on the Islamist-controlled enclave at mid-morning on Saturday.(AFP)
Beirut, 30 Dec 08, 07:12 LINK
My friend is alive! I just spoke with him on messenger, thanks God! His neighbours lost 2 children, little girls last night.
The freeGaza ship was also attacked by Israel, luckily no one got hurt!
The death toll has rise to 365 dead and 1700 injured, hospitals can't even treat all the wounded ones, not even those who are in critical condition.
URGENT! Israeli Navy Attacking Civilian Mercy Ship! TAKE ACTION IMMEDIATELY!
The Dignity, a Free Gaza boat on a mission of mercy to besieged Gaza, is being attacked by the Israeli Navy in international waters. The Dignity has been surrounded by at least half-a-dozen Israeli warships. They are firing live ammunition around the Dignity, and one of the warships has rammed the civilian craft causing an unknown amount of damage. Contrary to international maritime law, the Israelis are actively preventing the Dignity from approaching Gaza or finding safe haven in either Egypt or Lebanon. Instead, the Israeli navy is demanding that the Dignity return to Cyprus - despite the fact that the ship does not carry enough fuel to do so. Fortunately, no one aboard the ship has yet been seriously injured.
There are 15 civilian passengers representing 11 different countries (see below for a complete list). At approximately 5am (UST), well out in international waters, Israeli warships began surrounding the Dignity, threatening the ship. At 6:45am (UST) we were able to establish brief contact with the crew and were told that the ship had been rammed by the Israeli Navy in international waters, and that the Israelis were preventing the ship from finding safe harbor. We heard heavy gunfire in the background before all contact was lost with the Dignity.
It is urgent that you TAKE IMMEDIATE ACTION!
CALL the Israeli Government and demand that it immediately STOP attacking the Dignity and endangering the lives of its passengers!
CALL Mark Regev in the Prime Minister's office at:
+972 2670 5354 or +972 5062 3264
mark.regev@it.pmo.gov.il
CALL Shlomo Dror in the Ministry of Defence at:
+972 33697 5339 or +972 50629 8148
mediasar@mod.gov.il
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
The Dignity departed from Larnaca Port in Cyprus at 7pm (UST) on Monday 29 December, bound for war-devastated Gaza with a cargo of over 3 tons of desperately needed medical supplies donated by the people of Cyprus. At our request, the ship was searched by Cypriot Port authorities prior to departure, to certify that there was nothing "threatening" aboard - only emergency medical supplies.
TAKE ACTION IMMEDIATELY TO STOP THE ISRAELI NAVY FROM ENDANGERING THE DIGNITY AND ITS PASSENGERS!
The Dignity, a Free Gaza boat on a mission of mercy to besieged Gaza, is being attacked by the Israeli Navy in international waters. The Dignity has been surrounded by at least half-a-dozen Israeli warships. They are firing live ammunition around the Dignity, and one of the warships has rammed the civilian craft causing an unknown amount of damage. Contrary to international maritime law, the Israelis are actively preventing the Dignity from approaching Gaza or finding safe haven in either Egypt or Lebanon. Instead, the Israeli navy is demanding that the Dignity return to Cyprus - despite the fact that the ship does not carry enough fuel to do so. Fortunately, no one aboard the ship has yet been seriously injured.
There are 15 civilian passengers representing 11 different countries (see below for a complete list). At approximately 5am (UST), well out in international waters, Israeli warships began surrounding the Dignity, threatening the ship. At 6:45am (UST) we were able to establish brief contact with the crew and were told that the ship had been rammed by the Israeli Navy in international waters, and that the Israelis were preventing the ship from finding safe harbor. We heard heavy gunfire in the background before all contact was lost with the Dignity.
It is urgent that you TAKE IMMEDIATE ACTION!
CALL the Israeli Government and demand that it immediately STOP attacking the Dignity and endangering the lives of its passengers!
CALL Mark Regev in the Prime Minister's office at:
+972 2670 5354 or +972 5062 3264
mark.regev@it.pmo.gov.il
CALL Shlomo Dror in the Ministry of Defence at:
+972 33697 5339 or +972 50629 8148
mediasar@mod.gov.il
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
The Dignity departed from Larnaca Port in Cyprus at 7pm (UST) on Monday 29 December, bound for war-devastated Gaza with a cargo of over 3 tons of desperately needed medical supplies donated by the people of Cyprus. At our request, the ship was searched by Cypriot Port authorities prior to departure, to certify that there was nothing "threatening" aboard - only emergency medical supplies.
TAKE ACTION IMMEDIATELY TO STOP THE ISRAELI NAVY FROM ENDANGERING THE DIGNITY AND ITS PASSENGERS!
Last night I was talking to my other friend in Gaza and suddenly he said he hears planes everywhere and a big shell and then his msn went offline. I haven't got a word from him since! His friend wrote to the forum that he has no longer windows in his home, one bomb was so close.
Also the Islamic Uni or what was left of it got hit again last night and the fire department headquarters and ministry building too.
I just hope my friends are ok there, I wish to hear from them?!
The previous posts I promised to forward here, it is written by a teacher from Gaza
What will YOU Do?????
These students were to defend their graduation project on 15/1/2009. Now, all their one-year-long work is under the pile. What may they do??!!!
This “building” was of 5 floors, the left part contained labs for physics, chemistry, biology and geology... this place where all students of Science Faculty used to do their pedagogical experiments. The right part of the building contained labs for Electrical, Computer, Industrial and Civil Engineering labs. Personally, I spent 6 years of my life inside this “building”...
uni1.jpg)
The Israeli attack on the Islamic University of Gaza...
By: Zohair M. Abu-Shaban - London, UK
I earned my degree from this university... I used to study in its lecture classes and labs... I also taught some labs there... Now, from UK, I am deadly sad to see the picture of the places where I have memories destroyed by Israeli shells...
the two buildings BEFORE
A Palestinian father of five young girls, who were killed in an Israeli air strike, mourns as he holds his wounded son, during their funeral in Jabalya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip December 29, 2008. Palestinian medics said five young sisters died in an air strike in Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza and three other young children were killed
Gaza is a death trap now, Israel is targeting on houses in heavily populated areas. There is no escape from Gaza because all the crossing are closed. 1,5million human lives are a bullseye to Israeli bombers.
The death toll is rising, now there has been 313 people killed in Israelis massacre and more than 1000 injured!
And there nis nothing we can do to help. Just sit and wait.
Last night my friend left her home suddenly, near by was 5 bombings and she had to flee.
My night went in thinking, I slept so badly!
This morning I were so happy to see her online in msn again! She was ok and the bombing had been the Islamic Univercity which had been destroyed last night.
This time has been very stressfull for me to try to find the news and information about the situation and constantly read diffrent forums and sites to know the casualtys as early as possible. And ofcourse thinking about the people I know; are they ok, alive, how is their homes and familys? Are they scared? How they manage to survive this in a small place like Gaza? How is the children doing in Gaza? And how will the people who lost their loved ones survive after this?
From a forum where I am as a member is updates and there is written that almost a missile per minute, that was last night. Must have been a scary night to try to sleep.
I can't even imagine!
I am talking to my friend again, she just hearded a bomb, but didn't know where it hit. She also hears F1 warplane going above her somewhere.
Still the young people of Gaza has the strenght to study and write poems! the people there is amazing!
Brave words from young womans mouth; "we are used to this, I am not scared."
I am talking to Gaza as we speak and my friend there told me that the electricity has been cut off from her house for three days and is now on maybe til 12 pm. The schools and universitys has not been open. Air raids, missiles, bombing and shelling goes on all the time.
My 2 other friends have both lost their cousin.
Many mosques has been destroyed, hundreds of houses and many other buildings.
Electricity situation is very very bad and ofcourse everything else too.
I think I will stay up this night and try to see what is happening there.
My prayers with Gaza and Palestine
My 2 other friends have both lost their cousin.
Many mosques has been destroyed, hundreds of houses and many other buildings.
Electricity situation is very very bad and ofcourse everything else too.
I think I will stay up this night and try to see what is happening there.
My prayers with Gaza and Palestine
370 slain so far- kuollutta tähän mennessä
700 injured 100 of them serious- 700 haavoittunutta 100 niistä vakavasti
300 civil organisation- 300 siviili organisaatiota
hundreds of houses - satoja taloja
major assault took place while school boys were leaving schools to their homes
and it came at the rush our to maximise casualties
mainly police cadets were the targets! -
- merkittävin hyökkäys tapahtui kun koululaiset olivat matkalla koulusta kotiin ja isku tapahtui ruuhka aikaan maksimoidakseen uhrimäärän. pääasiassa poliisikokelaat olivat kohteena.
700 injured 100 of them serious- 700 haavoittunutta 100 niistä vakavasti
300 civil organisation- 300 siviili organisaatiota
hundreds of houses - satoja taloja
major assault took place while school boys were leaving schools to their homes
and it came at the rush our to maximise casualties
mainly police cadets were the targets! -
- merkittävin hyökkäys tapahtui kun koululaiset olivat matkalla koulusta kotiin ja isku tapahtui ruuhka aikaan maksimoidakseen uhrimäärän. pääasiassa poliisikokelaat olivat kohteena.
Israel begun a huge attack operation in Gaza and many has died because of it!
One of my friends told that a bomb came only 5 metres from her home, thank God it didn't hit her house!
Israel has told that this is only the beginning. Maybe they will erase all Gaza out of the map?
My mind is not in focus, I have no words..
Latest news can be read from here http://www.maannews.net/en/
One of my friends told that a bomb came only 5 metres from her home, thank God it didn't hit her house!
Israel has told that this is only the beginning. Maybe they will erase all Gaza out of the map?
My mind is not in focus, I have no words..
Latest news can be read from here http://www.maannews.net/en/
Gaza today: 'This is only the beginning'
By Ewa Jasiewicz
As I write this, Israeli jets are bombing the areas of Zeitoun and Rimal
in central Gaza City. The family I am staying with has moved into the
internal corridor of their home to shelter from the bombing. The windows
nearly blew out just five minutes ago as a massive explosion rocked the
house. Apache’s are hovering above us, whilst F16s sear overhead.
UN radio reports say one blast was a target close to the main gate of Al
Shifa hospital – Gaza and Palestine’s largest medical facility. Another
was a plastics factory. More bombs continue to pound the Strip.
Sirens are wailing on the streets outside. Regular power cuts that plunge
the city into blackness every night and tonight is no exception. Only
perhaps tonight it is the darkest night people have seen here in their
lifetimes.
Over 220 people have been killed and over 400 injured through attacks that
shocked the strip in the space 15 minutes. Hospitals are overloaded and
unable to cope. These attacks come on top of existing conditions of
humanitarian crisis: a lack of medicines, bread, flour, gas, electricity,
fuel and freedom of movement.
Doctors at Shifaa had to scramble together 10 make shift operating
theatres to deal with the wounded. The hospital’s maternity ward had to
transform their operating room into an emergency theatre. Shifaa only had
12 beds in their intensive care unit, they had to make space for 27 today.
There is a shortage of medicine – over 105 key items are not in stock, and
blood and spare generator parts are desperately needed.
Shifaa’s main generator is the life support machine of the entire
hospital. It’s the apparatus keeping the ventilators and monitors and
lights turned on that keep people inside alive. And it doesn’t have the
spare parts it needs, despite the International Committee for the Red
Cross urging Israel to allow it to transport them through Erez checkpoint.
Shifaa’s Head of Casualty, Dr Maowiye Abu Hassanyeh explained, ‘We had
over 300 injured in over 30 minutes. There were people on the floor of the
operating theatre, in the reception area, in the corridors; we were
sending patients to other hospitals. Not even the most advanced hospital
in the world could cope with this number of casualties in such a short
space of time.’
And as IOF Chief of Staff Lieutenant-General Gabi Ashkenaz said this
morning, ‘This is only the beginning.’
But this isn’t the beginning, this is an ongoing policy of collective
punishment and killing with impunity practised by Israel for decades. It
has seen its most intensified level today. But the weight of dread,
revenge and isolation hangs thick over Gaza today. People are all asking:
If this is only the beginning, what will the end look like?
11.30am
Myself and Alberto Acre, a Spanish journalist, had been on the border
village of Sirej near Khan Younis in the south of the strip. We had driven
there at 8am with the mobile clinic of the Union of Palestinian Relief
Committees. The clinic regularly visits exposed, frequently raided
villages far from medical facilities. We had been interviewing residents
about conditions on the border. Stories of olive groves and orange groves,
family farmland, bulldozed to make way for a clear line of sight for
Israeli occupation force watch towers and border guards. Israeli attacks
were frequent. Indiscriminate fire and shelling spraying homes and land on
the front line of the south eastern border. One elderly farmer showed us
the grave-size ditch he had dug to climb into when Israeli soldiers would
shoot into his fields.
Alberto was interviewing a family that had survived an Israeli missile
attack on their home last month. It had been a response to rocket fire
from resistance fighters nearby. Four fighters were killed in a field by
the border. Israel had rained rockets and M16 fire back. The family,
caught in the crossfire, have never returned to their home.
I was waiting for Alberto to return when ground shaking thuds tilted us
off our feet. This was the sound of surface to air fired missiles and F16
bombs slamming into the police stations, and army bases of the Hamas
authority here. In Gaza City , in Diere Balah, Rafah, Khan Younis, Beit
Hanoon.
We zoomed out of the village in our ambulance, and onto the main road to
Gaza City , before jumping out to film the smouldering remains of a police
station in Diere Balah, near Khan Younis. Its’ name - meaning 'place of
dates' - sounds like the easy semi-slang way of saying ‘take care’, Diere
Bala, Diere Balak – take care.
Eyewitnesses said two Israeli missiles had destroyed the station. One had
soared through a children’s playground and a busy fruit and vegetable
market before impacting on its target.
Civilians Dead
There was blood on a broken plastic yellow slide, and a crippled, dead
donkey with an upturned vegetable cart beside it. Aubergines and
splattered blood covered the ground. A man began to explain in broken
English what had happened. ‘It was full here, full, three people dead,
many many injured’. An elderly man with a white kuffiyeh around his head
threw his hands down to his blood drenched trousers. ‘Look! Look at this!
Shame on all governments, shame on Israel, look how they kills us, they
are killing us and what does the world do? Where is the world, where are
they, we are being killed here, hell upon them!’ He was a market trader,
present during the attack.
He began to pick up splattered tomatoes he had lost from his cart, picking
them up jerkily, and putting them into plastic bags, quickly. Behind a
small tile and brick building, a man was sitting against the wall, his
legs were bloodied. He couldn’t get up and was sitting, visibly in pain
and shock, trying to adjust himself, to orientate himself.
The police station itself was a wreck, a mess of criss-crossed piles of
concrete – broken floors upon floors. Smashed cars and a split palm tree
split the road.
We walked on, hurriedly, with everyone else, eyes skyward at four apache
helicopters – their trigger mechanisms supplied by the UK ’s
Brighton-Based EDM Technologies. They were dropping smoky bright flares –
a defence against any attempt at Palestinian missile retaliation.
Turning down the road leading to the Diere Balah Civil Defence Force
headquarters we suddenly saw a rush of people streaming across the road.
‘They’ve been bombing twice, they’ve been bombing twice’ shouted people.
We ran too, but towards the crowds and away from what could possibly be
target number two, ‘a ministry building’ our friend shouted to us. The
apaches rumbled above.
Arriving at the police station we saw the remains of a life at work
smashed short. A prayer matt clotted with dust, a policeman’s hat, the
ubiquitous bright flower patterned mattresses, burst open. A crater around
20 feet in diameter was filled with pulverised walls and floors and a
motorbike, tossed on its’ side, toy-like in its’ depths.
Policemen were frantically trying to get a fellow worker out from under
the rubble. Everyone was trying to call him on his Jawwal. ‘Stop it
everyone, just one, one of you ring’ shouted a man who looked like a
captain. A fire licked the underside of an ex-room now crushed to just 3
feet high. Hands alongside hands rapidly grasped and threw back rocks,
blocks and debris to reach the man.
We made our way to the Al Aqsa Hospital. Trucks and cars loaded with the
men of entire families – uncles, nephews, brothers – piled high and
speeding to the hospital to check on loved ones, horns blaring without
interruption.
Hospitals on the brink
Entering Al Aqsa was overwhelming, pure pandemonium, charged with grief,
horror, distress, and shock. Limp blood covered and burnt bodies streamed
by us on rickety stretchers. Before the morgue was a scrum, tens of
shouting relatives crammed up to its open double doors. ‘They could not
even identify who was who, whether it is their brother or cousin or who,
because they are so burned’ explained our friend. Many were transferred,
in ambulances and the back of trucks and cars to Al Shifa Hospital.
The injured couldn’t speak. Causality after casualty sat propped against
the outside walls outside, being comforted by relatives, wounds
temporarily dressed. Inside was perpetual motion and the more drastically
injured. Relatives jostled with doctors to bring in their injured in
scuffed blankets. Drips, blood streaming faces, scorched hair and shrapnel
cuts to hands, chests, legs, arms and heads dominated the reception area,
wards and operating theatres.
We saw a bearded man, on a stretcher on the floor of an intensive care
unit, shaking and shaking, involuntarily, legs rigid and thrusting
downwards. A spasm coherent with a spinal chord injury. Would he ever walk
again or talk again? In another unit, a baby girl, no older than six
months, had shrapnel wounds to her face. A relative lifted a blanket to
show us her fragile bandaged leg. Her eyes were saucer-wide and she was
making stilted, repetitive, squeaking sounds.
A first estimate at Al Aqsa hospital was 40 dead and 120 injured. The
hospital was dealing with casualties from the bombed market, playground,
Civil Defence Force station, civil police station and also the traffic
police station. All leveled. A working day blasted flat with terrifying
force.
At least two shaheed (martyrs) were carried out on stretchers out of the
hospital. Lifted up by crowds of grief-stricken men to the graveyard to
cries of ‘La Illaha Illa Allah,’ there is not god but Allah.
Who cares?
And according to many people here, there is nothing and nobody looking out
for them apart from God. Back in Shifa Hospital tonight, we meet the
brother of a security guard who had had the doorway he had been sitting in
and the building – Abu Mazen’s old HQ - fall down upon his head. He said
to us, ‘We don’t have anyone but God. We feel alone. Where is the world?
Where is the action to stop these attacks?’
Majid Salim, stood beside his comatosed mother, Fatima. Earlier today she
had been sitting at her desk at work – at the Hadije Arafat Charity, near
Meshtal, the Headquarters of the Security forces in Gaza City. Israel’s
attack had left her with multiple internal and head injuries, tube down
her throat and a ventilator keeping her alive. Majid gestured to her, ‘We
didn’t attack Israel, my mother didn’t fire rockets at Israel. This is the
biggest terrorism, to have our mother bombarded at work’.
The groups of men lining the corridors of the over-stretched Shifaa
hospital are by turns stunned, agitated, patient and lost. We speak to one
group. Their brother had both arms broken and has serious facial and head
injuries. ‘We couldn’t recognise his face, it was so black from the
weapons used’ one explains. Another man turns to me and says. ‘I am a
teacher. I teach human rights – this is a course we have, ‘human rights’.
He pauses. ‘How can I teach, my son, my children, about the meaning of
human rights under these conditions, under this siege?’
It’s true, UNRWA and local government schools have developed a Human
Rights syllabus, teaching children about international law, the Geneva
Conventions, the International Declaration on Human Rights, The Hague
Regulations. To try to develop a culture of human rights here, to help
generate more self confidence and security and more of a sense of dignity
for the children. But the contradiction between what should be adhered to
as a common code of conducted signed up to by most states, and the
realities on the ground is stark. International law is not being applied
or enforced with respect to Israeli policies towards the Gaza Strip, or on
’48 Palestine, the West Bank, or the millions of refugees living in camps
in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.
How can a new consciousness and practice of human rights ever graduate
from rhetoric to reality when everything points to the contrary – both
here and in Israel ? The United Nations have been spurned and shut out by
Israel , with Richard Falk the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Human Rights
held prisoner at Ben Gurion Airport before being unceremoniously deported
this month – deliberately blinded to the abuses being carried out against
Gaza by Israel . An international community which speaks empty phrases on
Israeli attacks ‘we urge restraint…minimise civilian casualties’.
The Gaza Strip is one of the most densely populated regions on the planet.
In Jabbaliya camp alone, Gaza ’s largest, 125,000 people are crowded into
a space 2km square. Bombardment by F16s and Apaches at 11.30 in the
morning, as children leave their schools for home reveals a contempt for
civilian safety as does the 18 months of a siege that bans all imports and
exports, and has resulted in the deaths of over 270 people as a result of
a lack of access to essential medicines.
A light
There is a saying here in Gaza – we spoke about it, jokily last night. ‘At
the end of the tunnel…there is another tunnel’. Not so funny when you
consider that Gaza is being kept alive through the smuggling of food, fuel
and medicine through an exploitative industry of over 1000 tunnels running
from Egypt to Rafah in the South. On average 1-2 people die every week in
the tunnels. Some embark on a humiliating crawl to get their education,
see their families, to find work, on their hands and knees. Others are
reportedly big enough to drive through.
Last night I added a new ending to the saying. ‘At the end of the tunnel,
there is another tunnel and then a power cut’. Today, there’s nothing to
make a joke about. As bombs continue to blast buildings around us, jarring
the children in this house from their fitful sleep, the saying could take
on another twist. After today’s killing of over 200, is it that at the end
of the tunnel, there is another tunnel, and then a grave?’, or a wall of
international governmental complicity and silence?
There is a light through, beyond the sparks of resistance and solidarity
in the West Bank, ’48 and the broader Middle East. This is a light of
conscience turned into activism by people all over the world. We can turn
a spotlight onto Israel’s crimes against humanity and the enduring
injustice here in Palestine, through coming out onto the streets and
pressurizing our governments; demanding an end to Israeli apartheid and
occupation, broadening our call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, and
for a genuine Just Peace.
Through institutional, governmental and popular means, this can be a light
at the end of the Gazan tunnel.
-----
Ewa Jasiewicz is an experienced journalist, community and union organizer,
and solidarity worker. She is currently Gaza Project Co-coordinator for
the Free Gaza Movement.
http://www.FreeGaza.org
By Ewa Jasiewicz
As I write this, Israeli jets are bombing the areas of Zeitoun and Rimal
in central Gaza City. The family I am staying with has moved into the
internal corridor of their home to shelter from the bombing. The windows
nearly blew out just five minutes ago as a massive explosion rocked the
house. Apache’s are hovering above us, whilst F16s sear overhead.
UN radio reports say one blast was a target close to the main gate of Al
Shifa hospital – Gaza and Palestine’s largest medical facility. Another
was a plastics factory. More bombs continue to pound the Strip.
Sirens are wailing on the streets outside. Regular power cuts that plunge
the city into blackness every night and tonight is no exception. Only
perhaps tonight it is the darkest night people have seen here in their
lifetimes.
Over 220 people have been killed and over 400 injured through attacks that
shocked the strip in the space 15 minutes. Hospitals are overloaded and
unable to cope. These attacks come on top of existing conditions of
humanitarian crisis: a lack of medicines, bread, flour, gas, electricity,
fuel and freedom of movement.
Doctors at Shifaa had to scramble together 10 make shift operating
theatres to deal with the wounded. The hospital’s maternity ward had to
transform their operating room into an emergency theatre. Shifaa only had
12 beds in their intensive care unit, they had to make space for 27 today.
There is a shortage of medicine – over 105 key items are not in stock, and
blood and spare generator parts are desperately needed.
Shifaa’s main generator is the life support machine of the entire
hospital. It’s the apparatus keeping the ventilators and monitors and
lights turned on that keep people inside alive. And it doesn’t have the
spare parts it needs, despite the International Committee for the Red
Cross urging Israel to allow it to transport them through Erez checkpoint.
Shifaa’s Head of Casualty, Dr Maowiye Abu Hassanyeh explained, ‘We had
over 300 injured in over 30 minutes. There were people on the floor of the
operating theatre, in the reception area, in the corridors; we were
sending patients to other hospitals. Not even the most advanced hospital
in the world could cope with this number of casualties in such a short
space of time.’
And as IOF Chief of Staff Lieutenant-General Gabi Ashkenaz said this
morning, ‘This is only the beginning.’
But this isn’t the beginning, this is an ongoing policy of collective
punishment and killing with impunity practised by Israel for decades. It
has seen its most intensified level today. But the weight of dread,
revenge and isolation hangs thick over Gaza today. People are all asking:
If this is only the beginning, what will the end look like?
11.30am
Myself and Alberto Acre, a Spanish journalist, had been on the border
village of Sirej near Khan Younis in the south of the strip. We had driven
there at 8am with the mobile clinic of the Union of Palestinian Relief
Committees. The clinic regularly visits exposed, frequently raided
villages far from medical facilities. We had been interviewing residents
about conditions on the border. Stories of olive groves and orange groves,
family farmland, bulldozed to make way for a clear line of sight for
Israeli occupation force watch towers and border guards. Israeli attacks
were frequent. Indiscriminate fire and shelling spraying homes and land on
the front line of the south eastern border. One elderly farmer showed us
the grave-size ditch he had dug to climb into when Israeli soldiers would
shoot into his fields.
Alberto was interviewing a family that had survived an Israeli missile
attack on their home last month. It had been a response to rocket fire
from resistance fighters nearby. Four fighters were killed in a field by
the border. Israel had rained rockets and M16 fire back. The family,
caught in the crossfire, have never returned to their home.
I was waiting for Alberto to return when ground shaking thuds tilted us
off our feet. This was the sound of surface to air fired missiles and F16
bombs slamming into the police stations, and army bases of the Hamas
authority here. In Gaza City , in Diere Balah, Rafah, Khan Younis, Beit
Hanoon.
We zoomed out of the village in our ambulance, and onto the main road to
Gaza City , before jumping out to film the smouldering remains of a police
station in Diere Balah, near Khan Younis. Its’ name - meaning 'place of
dates' - sounds like the easy semi-slang way of saying ‘take care’, Diere
Bala, Diere Balak – take care.
Eyewitnesses said two Israeli missiles had destroyed the station. One had
soared through a children’s playground and a busy fruit and vegetable
market before impacting on its target.
Civilians Dead
There was blood on a broken plastic yellow slide, and a crippled, dead
donkey with an upturned vegetable cart beside it. Aubergines and
splattered blood covered the ground. A man began to explain in broken
English what had happened. ‘It was full here, full, three people dead,
many many injured’. An elderly man with a white kuffiyeh around his head
threw his hands down to his blood drenched trousers. ‘Look! Look at this!
Shame on all governments, shame on Israel, look how they kills us, they
are killing us and what does the world do? Where is the world, where are
they, we are being killed here, hell upon them!’ He was a market trader,
present during the attack.
He began to pick up splattered tomatoes he had lost from his cart, picking
them up jerkily, and putting them into plastic bags, quickly. Behind a
small tile and brick building, a man was sitting against the wall, his
legs were bloodied. He couldn’t get up and was sitting, visibly in pain
and shock, trying to adjust himself, to orientate himself.
The police station itself was a wreck, a mess of criss-crossed piles of
concrete – broken floors upon floors. Smashed cars and a split palm tree
split the road.
We walked on, hurriedly, with everyone else, eyes skyward at four apache
helicopters – their trigger mechanisms supplied by the UK ’s
Brighton-Based EDM Technologies. They were dropping smoky bright flares –
a defence against any attempt at Palestinian missile retaliation.
Turning down the road leading to the Diere Balah Civil Defence Force
headquarters we suddenly saw a rush of people streaming across the road.
‘They’ve been bombing twice, they’ve been bombing twice’ shouted people.
We ran too, but towards the crowds and away from what could possibly be
target number two, ‘a ministry building’ our friend shouted to us. The
apaches rumbled above.
Arriving at the police station we saw the remains of a life at work
smashed short. A prayer matt clotted with dust, a policeman’s hat, the
ubiquitous bright flower patterned mattresses, burst open. A crater around
20 feet in diameter was filled with pulverised walls and floors and a
motorbike, tossed on its’ side, toy-like in its’ depths.
Policemen were frantically trying to get a fellow worker out from under
the rubble. Everyone was trying to call him on his Jawwal. ‘Stop it
everyone, just one, one of you ring’ shouted a man who looked like a
captain. A fire licked the underside of an ex-room now crushed to just 3
feet high. Hands alongside hands rapidly grasped and threw back rocks,
blocks and debris to reach the man.
We made our way to the Al Aqsa Hospital. Trucks and cars loaded with the
men of entire families – uncles, nephews, brothers – piled high and
speeding to the hospital to check on loved ones, horns blaring without
interruption.
Hospitals on the brink
Entering Al Aqsa was overwhelming, pure pandemonium, charged with grief,
horror, distress, and shock. Limp blood covered and burnt bodies streamed
by us on rickety stretchers. Before the morgue was a scrum, tens of
shouting relatives crammed up to its open double doors. ‘They could not
even identify who was who, whether it is their brother or cousin or who,
because they are so burned’ explained our friend. Many were transferred,
in ambulances and the back of trucks and cars to Al Shifa Hospital.
The injured couldn’t speak. Causality after casualty sat propped against
the outside walls outside, being comforted by relatives, wounds
temporarily dressed. Inside was perpetual motion and the more drastically
injured. Relatives jostled with doctors to bring in their injured in
scuffed blankets. Drips, blood streaming faces, scorched hair and shrapnel
cuts to hands, chests, legs, arms and heads dominated the reception area,
wards and operating theatres.
We saw a bearded man, on a stretcher on the floor of an intensive care
unit, shaking and shaking, involuntarily, legs rigid and thrusting
downwards. A spasm coherent with a spinal chord injury. Would he ever walk
again or talk again? In another unit, a baby girl, no older than six
months, had shrapnel wounds to her face. A relative lifted a blanket to
show us her fragile bandaged leg. Her eyes were saucer-wide and she was
making stilted, repetitive, squeaking sounds.
A first estimate at Al Aqsa hospital was 40 dead and 120 injured. The
hospital was dealing with casualties from the bombed market, playground,
Civil Defence Force station, civil police station and also the traffic
police station. All leveled. A working day blasted flat with terrifying
force.
At least two shaheed (martyrs) were carried out on stretchers out of the
hospital. Lifted up by crowds of grief-stricken men to the graveyard to
cries of ‘La Illaha Illa Allah,’ there is not god but Allah.
Who cares?
And according to many people here, there is nothing and nobody looking out
for them apart from God. Back in Shifa Hospital tonight, we meet the
brother of a security guard who had had the doorway he had been sitting in
and the building – Abu Mazen’s old HQ - fall down upon his head. He said
to us, ‘We don’t have anyone but God. We feel alone. Where is the world?
Where is the action to stop these attacks?’
Majid Salim, stood beside his comatosed mother, Fatima. Earlier today she
had been sitting at her desk at work – at the Hadije Arafat Charity, near
Meshtal, the Headquarters of the Security forces in Gaza City. Israel’s
attack had left her with multiple internal and head injuries, tube down
her throat and a ventilator keeping her alive. Majid gestured to her, ‘We
didn’t attack Israel, my mother didn’t fire rockets at Israel. This is the
biggest terrorism, to have our mother bombarded at work’.
The groups of men lining the corridors of the over-stretched Shifaa
hospital are by turns stunned, agitated, patient and lost. We speak to one
group. Their brother had both arms broken and has serious facial and head
injuries. ‘We couldn’t recognise his face, it was so black from the
weapons used’ one explains. Another man turns to me and says. ‘I am a
teacher. I teach human rights – this is a course we have, ‘human rights’.
He pauses. ‘How can I teach, my son, my children, about the meaning of
human rights under these conditions, under this siege?’
It’s true, UNRWA and local government schools have developed a Human
Rights syllabus, teaching children about international law, the Geneva
Conventions, the International Declaration on Human Rights, The Hague
Regulations. To try to develop a culture of human rights here, to help
generate more self confidence and security and more of a sense of dignity
for the children. But the contradiction between what should be adhered to
as a common code of conducted signed up to by most states, and the
realities on the ground is stark. International law is not being applied
or enforced with respect to Israeli policies towards the Gaza Strip, or on
’48 Palestine, the West Bank, or the millions of refugees living in camps
in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.
How can a new consciousness and practice of human rights ever graduate
from rhetoric to reality when everything points to the contrary – both
here and in Israel ? The United Nations have been spurned and shut out by
Israel , with Richard Falk the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Human Rights
held prisoner at Ben Gurion Airport before being unceremoniously deported
this month – deliberately blinded to the abuses being carried out against
Gaza by Israel . An international community which speaks empty phrases on
Israeli attacks ‘we urge restraint…minimise civilian casualties’.
The Gaza Strip is one of the most densely populated regions on the planet.
In Jabbaliya camp alone, Gaza ’s largest, 125,000 people are crowded into
a space 2km square. Bombardment by F16s and Apaches at 11.30 in the
morning, as children leave their schools for home reveals a contempt for
civilian safety as does the 18 months of a siege that bans all imports and
exports, and has resulted in the deaths of over 270 people as a result of
a lack of access to essential medicines.
A light
There is a saying here in Gaza – we spoke about it, jokily last night. ‘At
the end of the tunnel…there is another tunnel’. Not so funny when you
consider that Gaza is being kept alive through the smuggling of food, fuel
and medicine through an exploitative industry of over 1000 tunnels running
from Egypt to Rafah in the South. On average 1-2 people die every week in
the tunnels. Some embark on a humiliating crawl to get their education,
see their families, to find work, on their hands and knees. Others are
reportedly big enough to drive through.
Last night I added a new ending to the saying. ‘At the end of the tunnel,
there is another tunnel and then a power cut’. Today, there’s nothing to
make a joke about. As bombs continue to blast buildings around us, jarring
the children in this house from their fitful sleep, the saying could take
on another twist. After today’s killing of over 200, is it that at the end
of the tunnel, there is another tunnel, and then a grave?’, or a wall of
international governmental complicity and silence?
There is a light through, beyond the sparks of resistance and solidarity
in the West Bank, ’48 and the broader Middle East. This is a light of
conscience turned into activism by people all over the world. We can turn
a spotlight onto Israel’s crimes against humanity and the enduring
injustice here in Palestine, through coming out onto the streets and
pressurizing our governments; demanding an end to Israeli apartheid and
occupation, broadening our call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, and
for a genuine Just Peace.
Through institutional, governmental and popular means, this can be a light
at the end of the Gazan tunnel.
-----
Ewa Jasiewicz is an experienced journalist, community and union organizer,
and solidarity worker. She is currently Gaza Project Co-coordinator for
the Free Gaza Movement.
http://www.FreeGaza.org
International Witnesses speak out from Gaza
27th December 2008, Gaza, Palestine - Human Rights Defenders from Lebanon, the UK, Poland, Canada, Spain, Italy and Australia are present in Gaza and are witnessing and documenting the current Israeli attacks on Gaza.
Due to Israel's policy of denying access to international media, human rights defenders and aid agencies to the
Occupied Gaza Strip, many of these Human Rights Defenders arrived in Gaza with the Free Gaza Movement's boats.
"At the time of the attacks I was on Omar Mukhtar street and witnessed a last rocket hit the street 150 meters away where crowds had already gathered to try to extract the dead bodies. Ambulances, trucks, cars - anything that can move is bringing injured to
the hospitals. Hospitals have had to evacuate sick patients to make room for the injured. I have been told that there is not enough room in the morgues for the bodies and that there is a great lack of blood in the bloodbanks. I have just learned that among the civilians killed today was the mother of my good friends in Jabalya camp." - Eva Bartlett (Canada) International
Solidarity Movement
"Israeli missles tore through a children's playground and busy market in Diere Balah, we saw the aftermath - many were injured and some reportedly killed. Every Hospital in the Gaza strip is already overwhelmed with injured people and does not have the medicine or the capacity to treat them. Israel is committing crimes against humanity, it is violating international and human rights law, ignoring the United Nations and planning even bigger attacks. The world must act now and intensify the calls for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel; governments need to move beyond words of condemnation into an active and immediate
restraint of Israel and a lifting of the siege of Gaza" - Ewa Jasiewicz
(Polish and British) Free Gaza Movment
"The morgue at the Shifa hospital has no more room for dead bodies, so bodies and body parts are strewn all over the hospital." - Dr. Haidar Eid, (Palestinian, South African) Professor of Social and Cultural
Studies, Al Aqsa University Gaza
"The bombs began to fall just as the children were on the streets walking back from school. I went out onto the stairs and a terrified 5
year old girl ran sobbing into my arms."- Sharon Lock (Australian) International Solidarity Movement
"This is incredibly sad. This massacre is not going to bring security for the State of Israel or allow it to be part of the Middle East. Now
calls of revenge are everywhere." Dr Eyad Sarraj - President of the Gaza
Community Mental Health Centre
"As I speak they have just hit a building 200 metres away. There is smoke everywhere. This morning I went to the building close to where I
live in Rafah that had been hit. Two bulldozers were immediately attempting to clear the rubble. They thought they had found all the
bodies. As we arrived one more was found." Jenny Linnel (British) International Solidarity Movement
"The home I am staying in is across from the preventive security compound. All the glass of the house shattered. The home has been
severely damaged. Due to the siege there is no glass or building materials to repair this damage. One little boy in our house fainted. An
eight year little boy was trembling on the ground for an hour. In front of our house we found the bodies of two little girls under a car,
completely burnt. They were coming home from school. This is more than just collective punishment. We are being treated like laboratory animals. I have lived through the Israeli bombardment of Beirut and the Israel's message is the same in Gaza as it was in Beirut- The killing of civilians. There was just another explosion outside!" Natalie Abu Eid (Lebanon) International Solidarity Movement
Human Rights Defenders in Gaza:
Dr. Eyad Sarraj (Arabic and English) -+972 599400424
Ewa Jasiewicz, Free Gaza Co-Ordinator in Gaza (Polish, Arabic, and
English) - +972 59 8700497
Dr. Haider Eid (English and Arabic) - + 972 59 9441766
Sharon Lock (English) - +972 59 8826513
Vittorio Arrigoni (Italian) - +972 59 8378945
Fida Qishta (English and Arabic) +972 599681669
Jenny Linnel (English) - +972 59 87653777
Natalie Abu Shakra (Arabic and English) 0598336 328
For more information on the Free Gaza Movment (FGM) or the International
Solidarity Movement (ISM) contact in the West Bank:
Adam Taylor (ISM) - 972 59 8503948
Lubna Masarwa (FGM)- 972 50 5633044
It was too good to happen anyway.. the truce..Israel has begun their air strikes again injuring alot of people already.
One resistance group attacked on the invading Israeli soldiers in Gaza strip..
A news paper said that some arab states has given Israel the permission to murder Hamas leaders if they do not continue the truce..
Very disturbing news.. I don't agree on killing anyone, no matter what is the reason or in whos side this happens. Killing people is not the answer. Not to anything.
We should be protecting life, not taking lives.
There should be a better way to ease the situation in between Palestin and Israel. This continuos fighting and killing has been going on now for "quite some time" and has not lead to an answer what would be good for both sides!
I don't understand why Israel doesn't let Palestiniasn keep the little peace of what is left from their country, this few percent peace of land is no use for Israel and it is obvious that they will never get it too.
But Israel is greedy. They wan't it all, and they wan't it empty. No Palestinians, that is their goal.
So what can people do then? They have no other choise but to resest. Resist on this on-going evillness and killing. Resist this wipeout of the Palestinian people and life. Resist air strikes. Resist torture. Resist the Israeli goal to decay all the Palestinians and the Palestinian lifestyle and heritage.
Resist is the only thing left in their life, because all the efforts what Israel claims that they make to get the peace and justice to this situation is a lie, it's a fake, they are only comitting horrible crimes at the area and they lie to us and lie to the world and makes us belive that the Palestinians are the bad people that they are the ones who is comitting crimes.. But it is the opposite..
The world should intervene this already! How is that England who begun this thing is not getting it to an end? It is Palestinians right to get some justice, peace to their life! How come EU, UN, nobody want's to get involved here?? Why do we let this go on and on?? Where is the justice here huh??
Many human right organisation and report has made it clear that crimes happen there everyday, but why do we let this go on?! Is 1,5 million people not enough lives to save??
Dear friends,
Israeli journalist, Amira Hass has been arrested as she attempted to cross back into Israel from Gaza, after spending three weeks there (coming into Gaza on one of the Free Gaza Movement boats). Over the past few weeks, Hass has been filing on the ground reports from Gaza about life under the siege.
Hass, the child of Holocaust survivors, became the first and only Israeli journalist to be ever based in Gaza, moving there in 1993 to live and work. Today, she is still the only Israeli journalist to based in the Occupied Palestinian Territories moving to Ramallah in 1997. Three weeks ago, she once again became the only Israeli journalist to enter Gaza since the current illegal Israeli siege began, as not only has the Israeli military have prevented Israeli journalists for some time and recently also began preventing foreign journalists from entering Gaza.
Please find below the brief article on her arrest which appeared in the Haaretz, the paper she writes for.
In solidarity,
Kim
www.livefromoccupiedpalestine.blogspot.com
www.directaction.org.au
When questioned, Hass pointed out that no one had stopped her from entering the Strip, which she did for work purposes.
Chief Superintendent Shimon Nahmani, commander of the Sderot police station, said Hass had entered Gaza by sea three weeks ago.
Hass was released under restriction, and Nahmani said her case will be sent to court in the coming week.
Israel Press Council chairwoman Dalia Dorner, a former Supreme Court justice, commented that even journalists are subject to the law and the council cannot defend a reporter who breaks the law. Instead, she said, local journalists ought to petition the High Court of Justice against the army's order.
Israeli journalist, Amira Hass has been arrested as she attempted to cross back into Israel from Gaza, after spending three weeks there (coming into Gaza on one of the Free Gaza Movement boats). Over the past few weeks, Hass has been filing on the ground reports from Gaza about life under the siege.
Hass, the child of Holocaust survivors, became the first and only Israeli journalist to be ever based in Gaza, moving there in 1993 to live and work. Today, she is still the only Israeli journalist to based in the Occupied Palestinian Territories moving to Ramallah in 1997. Three weeks ago, she once again became the only Israeli journalist to enter Gaza since the current illegal Israeli siege began, as not only has the Israeli military have prevented Israeli journalists for some time and recently also began preventing foreign journalists from entering Gaza.
Please find below the brief article on her arrest which appeared in the Haaretz, the paper she writes for.
In solidarity,
Kim
www.livefromoccupiedpalestine.
www.directaction.org.au
| |||||
| Haaretz journalist Amira Hass arrested for illegal stay in Gaza | |||||
| By Tomer Zarchin, Haaretz Correspondent http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/ | |||||
| Tags: Haaretz, Amira Hass | |||||
Haaretz correspondent Amira Hass was detained by Sderot police last night for having entered the Gaza Strip without a permit. By order of the army, Israeli journalists have been barred from entering Gaza since the abduction of soldier Gilad Shalit in June 2006. Hass was stopped by soldiers at the Erez Checkpoint, on the Gaza-Israel border, as she was returning to Israel from the Strip. Upon discovering that she had no permit to be in Gaza, the soldiers transferred her to the Sderot police. | |||||
When questioned, Hass pointed out that no one had stopped her from entering the Strip, which she did for work purposes.
Chief Superintendent Shimon Nahmani, commander of the Sderot police station, said Hass had entered Gaza by sea three weeks ago.
Hass was released under restriction, and Nahmani said her case will be sent to court in the coming week.
Israel Press Council chairwoman Dalia Dorner, a former Supreme Court justice, commented that even journalists are subject to the law and the council cannot defend a reporter who breaks the law. Instead, she said, local journalists ought to petition the High Court of Justice against the army's order.
