The International Call to Stop The Gaza Siege Now

the Petition

To:  windowintopalestine@gmail.com

I Join In Full Support of Ending the Siege of Gaza that is a genuine call to rescue the people of Gaza from the dramatically deteriorating living conditions resulting from the siege of Israel. I want pressure put on Israel by my Government and Other Governments throughout the world to Stop It Now!

We Join End the Siege (The Palestinian International Campaign to End The Siege on Gaza). And also we join to collect a million messages and signatures (and more) that call for Ending The Siege in Gaza.

We call on Window into Palestine a website to make available our petition and results at a convenient time in a good manner.

We urge everyone into mobilizing individuals and organizations from all around the world, especially from the USA, Europe and Israel, to support the campaign through distributing documents and materials about the devastating impact of the siege and by letting everyone know about Stop The Siege Campaign.

In ending we call upon the international community to utilize all methods available, to stop the collective illegal punishment imposed on the people of Gaza who have done nothing to deserve what is happening to them by Israel.
Sincerely,

The Undersigned

View Current Signatures   -   Sign the Petition

no place to live

Reading this latest report from the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), in the Gaza Strip, I think of the many picnics I’ve seen…gatherings, a break from the norm (but in Gaza’s case no, there is never a break from the norm that is the terrorizing and shelling from the Israeli army, not to mention the starvation, dearth of medical supplies, dearth of food and drinkable water, of a life to live for essentially…). I think of my own family and how we cherished sunny days and spreading a checkered tablecloth and laying out picnic treats on warm day. I think of other countries I’ve visited: Cambodia, Korea, Tibet, India, Germany, France, Tunisia,…where I saw or participated in picnics…It is a universal joy, no?

It isn’t universal, however, that the picnic will be disrupted, torn apart rather, by a sudden missile, one which lands on the picnickers and dismembers them, aside from killing them instantly.

**************************************

Three Gaza picnickers killed by Israeli missile

Palestinian relatives of one of three Palestinians killed by an Israeli missile mourn outside the hospital of Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza Strip, 23 February 2008. (Wissam Nassar/MaanImages)

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) strongly condemns the Israeli war crime perpetrated in the evening of Saturday, 23 February 2008, east of the town of Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip. Three Palestinian civilians were killed by an Israeli rocket fired as they were on a picnic in the Nazaz area east of the town.

The Centre’s preliminary investigation indicates that at approximately 3:40pm on Saturday, Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) fired a surface-to-surface missile from one of its bases along the Gaza Strip border. The rocket targeted three friends in a bamboo hut in a field belonging to the family of one of the victims in the Nazaz area east of Beit Hanoun. The targeted area was approximately 1.2 kilometers away from the border with Israel. The rocket landed in the middle of the three civilians who were preparing food during their picnic in the field. They were instantly killed and dismembered. Their remains were taken to the Beit Hanoun Hospital. They were identified as:

• Mohammad Talal al-Za’anin (20), university student from Beit Hanoun
• Ibrahim Ahmad Abu Jarad (20), driver from Beit Hanoun
• Mohammad Hasan Hussein (22), an employee from Jabalia

After the incident, an IOF spokesperson was quoted on the Yediot Ahronot website claiming that the army targeted armed Palestinian rocket launchers. However, the Centre’s investigation refutes the claim, and affirms that they were civilians on a picnic in an open field. They were roasting meat and waiting for other friends to join them for dinner. The bombardment occurred before the others arrived.

***********************************
Who were these young men? An Israeli army spokesman, in the army spokesmen’s broken-record fashion, claimed the missile targeted rocket launchers. They use that claim a lot, don’t they? Like in Lebanon, when the Israeli army targeted the UN building, in which the Canadian peace-keeper was killed and now suddenly Canada cares a little –but just for it’s own people, not for those unmentionable Lebanese and Gazans that met the same fate during Israel’s war on Lebanon or on-going war on Palestinians.

According to the PCHR, the 3 young men were all in their early twenties, a university student, a driver, and an employee.

In their early twenties. I think of my Korean friends, with whom I would on weekends go for picnics, set up a camp-stove and roast vegetables and other edibles. What if that fate had befallen them? I am panicked by this thought.

But I am also panicked by the knowledge that this happened to Palestinians. More so, perhaps, because with their exponentially mounting death toll, don’t we all just pray that we won’t read of another war crime such as this, another attempt at living crushed with typical Israeli army brutality?

These reports repeat like broken records also. 3 civilians killed in northern Gaza today… 8 civilians killed in central Gaza today… a young child shot in the head…X houses demolished in Rafah yesterday…X acres of agricultural land razed by the Israeli army last week… On and on and on and on and on…

But that does not mean that we should tune out, block out the broken record, equate these very real, very present, daily tragedies to part of the “conflict that has been going on for so long” as the media would have us do.

I speak with people here, fresh from being over ‘there’ in Palestine, where these daily tragedies are very real and present. And well-intentioned people here inadvertently fall prey to the media: “I just don’t understand those people (who are those people??)? Why can’t they just get along? Oh, it’s a conflict that has been going on since time immemorial…”

No, no, no, no. It is not that complicated. There are two distinct major parties: Israel and Palestine. Palestine is Occupied, Israel is the Occupier. The West Bank is very clearly occupied, by the army, by illegal settlers (colonizers, let’s be frank) and their illegal settlements, and all the military infrastructure that go with them. Gaza is clearly occupied by the Israeli army who control every border point along the walled-in strip, as well as every basic human necessity (food, water, electricity, fishing waters, movement, humanitarian aid, building materials…).

And now this fresh massacre, in the footsteps of the killings, invasions, injuries, and human rights violations of the week preceding it:

IOF killed 6 Palestinians, including a child, in the Gaza Strip [Feb 14-20]

“During the reporting period, IOF conducted at least 23 military incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank, and arrested 48 Palestinian civilians. To date the number of Palestinian civilians arrested by IOF in the West Bank since the beginning of the year stands at 432.“

“Abdul Karim Mohammed al-Ghalban, 24, was killed by a gunshot to the chest when he was on his way to his agricultural land… ” [Sunday, 17 February, al-Shouka village, southeast of Rafah]

“At approximately 16:00, IOF troops opened fire at houses in the area. As a result, Tamer Mohammed Abu Sha’ar, aged 11, was killed by a gunshot to the head while he and his family attempted to escape from their house due to the intense IOF gunfire.” [Tuesday, 19 February, Wadi al-Salqa village in the central Gaza Strip]

And then there is the fine print, the details of the destruction of homes and personal belongings which comes with these military incursions:

“…the missile hit the rooftop of a 400-square-meter house belonging to Hassan Hussein Kalloub, in which 18 people live. The roof, the kitchen and the bathroom were all destroyed, although no casualties were reported. In addition, nine neighboring houses were damaged.” [Friday, 15 February,‘Izbat Bein Hanoun area in the northern Gaza Strip.]

And there is the on-going siege on Gaza, ever-mounting death toll of medical patients:

3 Patients Dies and Ambulances Stopped Operation Due to the Lack of Fuels

distant confrontations

As I review my 8 months in Palestine, each face vivid with a distinct story to tell, I revisit also the pain of seeing the daily indignities, and also the pain of losing a friend.

I’ve hesitated to dwell on this, as losing a friend, loved one, family member is far too common in occupied Palestine. But it was new for me, aside from beloved pets and distant relatives. This was someone who only the day before I had seen and teased, whose sisters, mother, wife, and baby son live on without him. That abrupt loss of a friend was made worse by the fact that I was within blocks of his home –and heard the explosions –the night he was killed.

Explosions are normal in Nablus. Not because Nablusi are inherently ‘militant,’ ‘terrorist-minded,’ ‘extremist,’ or any of the other key words which are used to defame a resistance to a decades-old occupation (and deter from that fact)… Rather, explosions are normal because Nablus is in occupied Palestine and is still an area that actively resists, something which in almost any other nation would be supported and applauded. Terminology. Rhetoric. Words at the expense of lives.

I heard the bombs that killed Abed that night. I awoke to them. Sat up a bit, looked out the window of the central old-city Palestinian friend’s apartment I was sleeping in, and knew there was nothing I could do that night. Oddly, already accustomed to loud bombings and gunfire at night, I thought about it a while, then went back to sleep. Tomorrow was another day, of army confrontations and potential settler assaults, which was fruitful in both regards.

As I speak to people back in my own country about what I saw, experienced, felt, lost… it seems so distant. Life here has its own complications, but many in comparison seem engineered to distract from those very real, daily, debilitating, and horrific problems of life in occupied Palestine

sign on for gaza

Don’t Be Silent!

sign the petition

1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza are going through a devastating time with the Israeli siege of the Gaza Strip. Israel has blocked the shipment of fuel to Gaza, cutting off the only source of electricity in Gaza. This inhumane siege is causing shortages of food, medication and other fundamental necessities, in turn causing much suffering and deaths.

This siege must be put to an end. We need everyone’s input and participation in order to make a difference and have an impact on our government’s role in pressuring Israel to lift the siege.

Canada was the ONLY country that voted against a resolution that:
“demands that the occupying Power, Israel, lift immediately the siege it has imposed on the occupied Gaza Strip, restore continued supply of fuel, food and medicine and reopen the border crossings; [The Council] calls for immediate protection of the Palestinian civilians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory in compliance with human rights law and international humanitarian law; and urges all concerned parties to respect the rules of human rights law and international humanitarian law and to refrain from violence against the civilian population.” - United Nations Office of High Commissioner of Human Rights (24 January 200

Global pressure and assistance can help stop a crisis and protect civilians from harm.

Contact the Department of Foreign Affairs - Human Rights Division at 613-944-2701 Louis Carpian and question the bases of their vote. (quote the United Nations Office of High Commissioner of Human Rights ).
Come out to a vigil on Saturday, January 26 from 5PM to 7PM at the Human Rights Monument on Elgin Street organized by Capca and SPHR, among other organizations.
Phone or write your local MP
BREAK THE SILENCE ON GAZA!
DON’T DELAY! TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE!
Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, calls on its chapters, supporting organizations and individuals to organize to break the silence about the ongoing Israeli war crimes being committed against Palestinians in Gaza. Organize street actions and protests, and community meetings and delegations to religious leaders and educators. Call and write the media and
your congressional representatives.
People of the world watch in horror as the racist state of Israel, with the support and encouragement of the US government, engages in a genocidal project to eliminate the indigenous Arab people of Palestine.
The world community has denounced the government of ‘Israel’ for using its military for the purpose of collectively punishing the civilian population of the Gaza Strip, a clear war crime and violation of the 4th Geneva Conventions. The only power plant in Gaza was shut down today leaving the 1.5 million inhabitants without electricity, water, or any functional medical facilities.
Palestinians continue to endure starvation, aerial bombings, US CIA interventions, and Israeli army brutality. This murderous endeavor has caused the deaths of hundreds of Palestinian civilians and the already fragile economy of Gaza has been decimated.
NO FOOD, NO WATER, NO BREAD!
We appeal to all people living in the US:
SPEAK OUT TO DEMAND ONCE AND FOR ALL AN END TO THE SIEGE OF GAZA AND THE OCCUPATION OF ALL OF PALESTINE!
ORGANIZE STREET ACTIONS AND PROTESTS, CALL AND WRITE THE MEDIA AND YOUR CONGRESSIONAL REPRESENTATIVES.
ORGANIZE COMMUNITY MEETINGS AND DELEGATIONS TO RELIGIOUS LEADERS AND EDUCATORS.
DONATE TO HELP THE PEOPLE IN GAZA!

Gaza: humanitarian situation remains critical

The crossing into Egypt of hundreds of thousands of Gazans desperate to stock up on basic supplies is a dramatic illustration of their deprivation over the last seven months according to the ICRC’s Head of Operations for the Middle East, Béatrice Megevand-Roggo. The ICRC continues to insist that the basic needs of Gaza’s population must be met in the long run to prevent more hardship.

The humanitarian situation remains critical. Our delegates in Gaza say that the population’s rush to stock up on food, fuel and medicines in Egypt is a dramatic illustration of the deprivation they’ve had to endure over the past seven months.

Gaza has been increasingly closed off from the outside world since June 2007, resulting in a severe shortage of basic supplies. Months of trade restrictions on imported goods have left the population highly vulnerable and recent events have threatened their humanitarian situation even further.

The infrastructure is close to collapse and humanitarian efforts are being severely hampered, and in some cases stopped altogether, by stringent rules and entry procedures imposed by the Israeli authorities at the few entry points to the territory.

What impact has the Rafah border opening had on conditions in the territory?

According to the United Nations (UNRWA), almost half of the population of Gaza has crossed into Egypt , via the Rafah border, since 23 January. The opening of the crossing has offered some breathing space for Gazans, who are also using this opportunity to seek medical care in hospitals in Cairo and organize meetings with family members in the region.

Our team on the ground says that there has been some improvement in access to electricity for homes, shops, water pumping stations and hospitals in Gaza City, but private vehicles are rare on the city’s streets because of fuel shortages, as well as a heavy flow of traffic between Gaza and Egypt. Children, who need transportation in order to get to school, have been unable to attend classes, with an absence rate of around 45 per cent reported on 24 January.

On 22 January, fuel shipments were allowed at Nahel Oz crossing point, but only 13 trucks carrying humanitarian food items were able to cross into Gaza at Kerem Shalom, which is significantly less than the daily authorized quota of 50 trucks. That crossing included one ICRC truck containing 40 m3 of urgently needed essential drugs and disposable items.

While it’s been encouraging to see the partial re-opening of two crossing points controlled by Israel’s Defense Forces, we’re concerned that this will not be enough to ensure the regular supply of drugs and essential medical materials to Gaza’s health care providers. Fuel shortages are also a continual concern for hospitals.

What needs to change, according to the ICRC?

We insist that the delivery of essential humanitarian goods must be secured in the long run to prevent more hardship for the population. We have called on all responsible authorities to open the crossing points in a consistent way to ensure that the basic needs of the Gaza population are met.

The full closure of the Strip from 17 to 22 January has added to what was already a dire situation. This is why the ICRC is reiterating the necessity to go back to the same levels of access for humanitarian goods and personnel, which existed before June 2007.

The ICRC is also reiterating its call for Israel to respect its obligations under international humanitarian law, and for the Palestinian factions to stop targeting civilian areas and endangering the lives of civilians.

ICRC supplies cross into Gaza

On the day Israel allowed a one-day resumption of supplies to the Gaza Strip, ICRC health coordinator Eileen Daly speaks of the threats facing the civilian population because of the ban on goods entering the territory. Some essential drugs and other items were able to cross into Gaza in the afternoon of 22 January.

On 22 January, the Israeli government opened crossing points for fuel shipments and for essential humanitarian goods. What is the impact on the situation in Gaza?

This is certainly a positive step by the Israeli government. However, considering the serious situation in the Gaza Strip, the supply of essential humanitarian relief must be secured in the long term to prevent more hardship. People in Gaza are facing an extremely difficult situation after months of import restrictions. Key infrastructure – including medical facilities as well as water and sanitation facilities – is close to collapse.

What is the situation in Gaza’s hospitals?

There is an acute shortage of practically everything needed to ensure that hospitals can function normally. For instance, Shifa Hospital, Naser Paediatric Hospital and Central Medical Stores in Gaza City, as well as the European Gaza Hospital in Khan Younis, urgently need fuel. At the ICRC’s request, the United Nations (UNRWA) delivered 12,700 litres, enough to last just two days. Of the 11 hospitals monitored by the ICRC, only two have more than six days’ worth of fuel left.

The hospitals are cold, as heating units have been switched off to conserve fuel. The gas needed to cook meals for patients and staff is running low. Because of limited transport, medical personnel are struggling to get to work. Fuel is also needed for hospital laundries.

Can the hospitals remain open in view of these problems?

Four hospitals in Gaza city, including the main paediatric hospital in the Gaza strip, are on the brink of closure. The psychiatric hospital (39 beds) has no power; the eye hospital (31 beds) and Nasser paediatric hospital (151 beds) are treating only emergency cases.

At nightfall on 21 January, these three hospitals were without electric light other than the infant and paediatric intensive care units at the paediatric hospital, thanks to a small generator. Al Dorra paediatric hospital (79 beds) is without power except for the intensive care unit.

As a result, hospitals are treating only life saving cases – all diagnostic and elective surgery is cancelled. They are pooling all their fuel for the main generator to allow them to run essential services such as operating theatres, coronary care, intensive care, special care for babies, dialysis and the blood bank.

What about the supply of drugs to Gaza’s hospitals?

More than a fifth of the 470 essential drugs have run out, as well as a quarter of the 600 essential disposable items. Three-month stocks of these items are considerably reduced as well.

The drugs lacking include those for anaesthesia as well as silver sulfadiazine, which is crucial for the treatment of the increasing number of patients with burns. These and other essential drugs, as well as disposable items, are on a truck waiting to cross at Kerem Shalom from Israel into Gaza (Editor’s note: the truck crossed late afternoon on 22 January).

Are you aware of any patients having lost their lives due to such dire circumstances?

We know of one ventilated patient who died at Ahli Arab hospital during the process of switching over from the main power plant to the generator.

letter to PM Harper

Dear Mr. Prime Minister Harper January                23, 2008

The situation in Gaza is our responsibility as much as Israel’s. We cannot endorse Israel’s starvation and killing of Gazans, we cannot ignore Israel’s internationally illegal actions in Gaza, we cannot justify these completely disproportionate and illegal actions with the old pre-text that Israel is ‘defending itself’. The UN knows this, the EU knows this, Israeli academics, journalist, human rights organizations, and citizens know this, Canadians know this.

We as informed citizens of Canada would like to know what Canada is doing to hold Israel in compliance with international law as recognized by UN charters, and as recognized by the EU and various international bodies. Canada, in accordance with the findings of the United Nations very popularly declined involving ourselves with the war in and US-led occupation of Iraq. What then is the difference between UN decisions on international law with respect to Iraq and those with respect to Israel’s illegal actions in the Gaza Strip?

We are sure by now that you must be aware of the crisis in Gaza which has left at least 45 dead from medical-related deaths due to border closures alone, in addition to the killing by the Israeli army of at least 40 Palestinians in the last week alone, many of whom were civilian women and children. This is in addition to 52 Palestinians killed, including many civilians, and at least 123 wounded by Israeli attacks from January1 to 16, 2008 alone. [source PCHR www.pchr.org]

UN special rapporteur John Dugard is aware, and has stated that last week’s killings, along with: “the targeting of a government office near a wedding party venue with what must have been foreseen loss of life and injury to many civilians, and the closure of all crossings into Gaza raise very serious questions about Israel’s respect for international law and its commitment to the peace process.”

In addition to Israel’s unceasing attacks on the civilian population of Gaza, there the seriously dire and dangerous situation as a result of Israel’s closing of border and ceasing of fuel and electricity, after nearly 18 months of near-continuous closing of Gaza’s borders. There is not adequate electricity or fuel for the simplest tasks like baking bread or heating homes, let alone for vital needs like hospital equipment, ambulances, water filtering facilities. Thus, people are starving and dying, without adequate drinking water, without heat, without functioning equipment for baby incubators, dialysis machines, critical medical operations…

Christopher Gunness, spokesman for the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), knows firsthand about the realities on the ground and is equally baffled by Israel’s siege on Gaza, saying that “Gaza is completely shut down. This can only lead to the deterioration of an already dire situation,” and adding it is ‘imperative’ that Israel re-opens borders.

Israeli legal human rights group, Gisha, at least realizes that: “Punishing Gaza’s 1.5 million civilians does not stop the rocket fire. It only creates an impossible ‘balance’ of human suffering on both sides of the border.”

UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, the Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes has stated: “This kind of action against the people in Gaza cannot be justified, even by those rocket attacks.” While Israeli authorities are down-playing the very serious nature of the situation in Gaza, Holmes differs, speaking after Israel closed the borders to even UN aid on Friday, which he deemed ‘morally unjustifiable’: “It is a crisis already.”

Mr. Harper, it is time for you to take a stand against Israel’s collective punishment of 1.4 million Palestinians, to call on Israel to abide by the 4th Geneva Convention, to end the siege on Gaza, allow needed food, medical, and construction items in, open the borders, and stop bombing and killing civilians, something which John Dugard said “also violates one of the basic principles of international humanitarian law that military action must distinguish between military targets and civilian targets.”

The world is aware; Canadians are watching your moves as our elected leader. What is Canada’s stand, when UN and international bodies are calling on Israel to stop its military bombardment of the Gaza Strip, open its borders, and end the siege? When more civilians die as a direct result of Israel’s actions, will you again call Israel’s illegal and immoral actions “measured”?

Will Canada be able to live with the blood of civilians, including children, babies, on our hands because our indirect responsibility for Israel’s actions? Because we did nothing to stand up for the ethics and humanity that Canadians are world-respected for, to stop the humanitarian catastrophe that is ensuing in Gaza at this moment?

This is an issue that needs to be addressed immediately, and we very much look forward to your timely response,

the response:

Dear Ms. Bartlett:

On behalf of the Prime Minister, I would like to acknowledge receipt of your e-mail regarding the situation in the Middle East.

Please be assured that your comments have been carefully reviewed.

Thank you for writing to the Prime Minister.

L.A. Lavell
Executive Correspondence Officer
for the Prime Minister’s Office

Agent de correspondance
de la haute direction
pour le Cabinet du Premier ministre

speak out for gaza

The Palestinians need candles desperately and they need your voice to speak for them. There are many ways that you can do this. Organize demonstrations or vigils, or take part in ones that are already being organized. Take the time and write to newspapers and politicians urging them to take action and bring an end to this humanitarian disaster. Also, a deluge of letters to the Israeli Embassy would allow the Israelis to see that the world does not support a siege on the people of Gaza. The power is in your hands to spread the word through your churches, work groups, clubs, neighborhood networks, and simply by talking to everyone you know.

We cannot stand by and allow this slow agonizing death of a whole people to continue whatever justification Israel gives for its actions.

see Gaza’s last gasp  [22 january 2008]

and  No rights, little mercy  [21 january 2008]

and Gaza situation potentially disastrous  [21 january 2008]

and  Gaza power plant shuts down because of fuel shortage, officials say  [20 january 2008]

and Where does it end? [the role of the media 21 january 2008]

IN TORONTO:

EMERGENCY PICKET: END THE SIEGE ON GAZA! 

Date: Friday Jan. 25
Time: 5pm
Place: Israeli Consulate at 180 Bloor St. West
In the week of Jan 10 –16 alone, the Israeli military killed 26 Palestinians, and wounded 44 others in Gaza. Fatal bombing raids continue, killing Palestinian men, women and children. United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights, John Dugard said “Gaza is a prison and Israel seems to have thrown away the key.”

Israel is counting on our apathy to see how far they can go on starving the people of Gaza – so we need to act, be loud and clear – that the collective punishment of Palestinians is a crime against humanity.

LETTERS

To voice your concerns contact the Canadian Government:

The Right Honourable Stephen Harper
Address:
Office of the Prime Minister
80 Wellington Street
Ottawa, K1A 0A2
Fax: 613-941-6900
Email: pm@pm.gc.ca

The Honourable Peter McKay
Minister of Foreign Affairs
Tel: (613) 992-6022
Fax: (613) 995-9926
Email: McKay.P@parl.gc.ca

Postage free to:
House of Commons, Parliament Buildings
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A6

Find your MP

Letters to the Editor are an effective way of reaching a wide audience. They should be short - about 250 words. Letters can be written both for or against a particular issue.

Even if your particular letter does not get published, it will increase the likelihood that your future letters and those of others with similar views will be published. Editors are influenced by the volume of letters received on a particular topic.

(barely) live from Gaza

a friend from Rafah, Gaza reports:

I am writing this update, but where to start…, what to talk about…? The crippling electricity shortages, affecting hospitals as well as civilians? The air strikes & on-going, daily bombings by the Israeli army, their indiscriminate targeting of civilians and police stations…? Israel’s non-accidental, enforced starvation of 1.5 million people by closing off ALL borders and not allowing in even UN aid, let alone basic medicinal, food, and construction needs…?

Shortages of fuel have re-surfaced in Gaza: most of Gaza has no electricity and even more importantly, the shortage of medicine in Palestinian hospitals continues to increase, with the Ministry of Health reporting a looming humanitarian catastrophe.

Or should I begin with the bomb which just hit a wedding close to the Ministry of Interior building in Gaza City, with 15 apartment buildings within the bomb’s target range? One woman was killed and 47 others were injured –mostly children and women who had been inside their homes or playing on the street!! Scenes of children injured, bleeding and crying just moments after they had been enjoying a wedding celebration in a Gaza wedding hall…a horrific sight likely to go without mention of that in most news sources.

The injured were evacuated to Al Shifa hospital, where it was then hard to find enough beds and blankets for them, with children crammed three to four on a bed due to overcrowding.

Earlier Friday, Israel closed its border with the Gaza Strip to all traffic in what officials say is response to cross-border rocket fire, preventing even UN humanitarian supplies from getting in. The decision came after Israel vowed to broaden its military campaign against Gaza militants who have fired more than 110 rockets at southern Israel in the last three days resulting in the injury of two Israelis.

In contrast, 19 Palestinians were killed in one day last Wednesday during another Israeli attack, this one targeting the eastern part of Gaza City.

These are the latest attacks, but not the only: since the visit of US president and ‘peacemaker’, George Bush, within only 74 hours, Israel has killed 37 people and injured more than 90. Those numbers, which could again go up at any minute, were confirmed by Khaled Radi, the Ministry of Health spokesman in Gaza. Radi also said that Israel is using internationally illegal weapons, which makes it impossible for people to identify the bodies of their relatives as they have been destroyed to unrecognizable ends.

Among the tens killed were a 13 year old boy and his father and uncle, killed in what Israel claims was “a mistake”. Another Israeli attack killed a mother, Maryam Al Rahel, and her son, Saleh, who were on a donkey cart when an Israeli warplane bombed them. Their bodies, like so many others, were rendered into small pieces of flesh, scattered everywhere!

An Even Blacker Night!

I and some journalist colleagues went to offer condolences to a journalist friend of ours for the death of his cousin on Wednesday. While on the way, there was a lot of shooting going on, from funerals and demonstrations. Later, as we were starting to drive off from our parking spot, Mohammed, another journalist, suggested waiting for a moment. But as others preferred to not wait around, we eventually left.

After we had gone just a few minutes down the road, we learned that the place where our car had been parked had just been bombed, targeting and killing two Palestinians, injuring another three. “It could have been us who were killed,” one of the journalists said to me. I answered: “Thanks to God, it wasn’t. But this is so sad; it must be terrible for their families, with children left behind and no one now to support them.”

Update on Killings

As predicted, the death toll has risen since I began this report: another two have been killed in northern Gaza, and another 4 badly injured. Israeli defence ministry spokesman, Shlomo Dror says that: “It’s unacceptable that people in Sderot are living in fear every day and people in the Gaza Strip are living life as usual.”

And I wonder, what exactly does he consider “life as usual”? For if he means it is normal that over 35 civilians should be killed in 4 days, an entire population should be on the verge of starvation and should be forced to shiver through winter nights without electricity or sufficient blankets, that hospitals and medical centers should be forced to shut down or operate at sub-par capability and without needed medicine, food, blankets, and even space,…the list goes on…well then yes, we are living life as usual.

I’d add that the Guardian’s article [Israeli air strike 'destroys Gaza ministry'] does little to convey the very real horrors Gazans are living under, let alone the astonishing number of ‘accidental’ deaths in the past week alone, and serves more to normalize the idea that Israelis are suffering from this Gaza/Israel ‘conflict’ just as much as Gazans.

The January 18 article glosses over these alarmingly high, and still increasing, number of deaths and injuries, many civilian, many children and women, instead focusing on the Hamas and resistance groups’ firing of homemade rockets. It implies, yet again, that the sides are equal, that the Israeli attacks are always in retaliation to rocket firing –however ready Israel is for this ‘retaliation’… aside from the fact that rocket fire is a given these days (this is the resistance forces only means of resisting, however one might judge this means, it bears considering that the entire population is daily being besieged by tank or airfire), and underplaying the fact that the rockets fired are not killing, are causing only few casualties, and are, again, home-made, in massive contrast to the arsenal of weaponry that Israel is using against civilians.

Rory McCarthy’s article does more to convey the dire situation, very much so a humanitarian disaster:

Israel orders closure of Gaza crossings as Palestinian anger and casualties increase

see also:

UN warns of humanitarian crisis as Israel seals Gaza crossings

killing gaza

what do you say to someone who is living under siege, where 19 can be killed in half a day and it goes unnoticed by the world? what do you say when that person is subject to death, regardless of whether out on the street or inside his home, regardless of whether a civilian, a farmer, a resistance fighter resisting the helicopters, tanks, and resultant shelling of the world’s 4th largest military, one well-funded and backed by the US and the West…?

and how do you comprehend hearing directly from civilians in Gaza that the latest bout of Israeli army shelling and gunfire has killed 19, injured over 40, and yet is being reported –if at all –as an operation against militants, justified by the war on homemade rocket-fire, the war on terror, a lying president’s overtures –make that two…three…and the fact that an Islamic group was elected into power.

I spoke on the phone with my friend, a journalist, who doesn’t know if he will be shelled outside or inside his home, whose daily worries extend past giving a shit about Brittany Spears or Reality tv, extend instead to worrying about a mother who needed surgery for her critical disease…surgery in a prison where most medicines have long since run out, thanks to Israel and the West’s siege on civilians… His worries include that his mother didn’t even have enough blankets to keep warm in a hospital without sufficient power, food, and basic necessities.

aside from his mother, his worries extend to his neighbours, to the entire strip, who will inevitably be injured or killed by indiscriminate Israeli shelling which will be justified as an attack on militants. And even though Israeli human rights groups along with international bodies are condemning each fresh massacre of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, each fresh bulldozing of agricultural land, each fresh demolition of homes, each fresh shelling on fishing boats… even though the condemnation is there, does it matter?  does Israel stop? does any body in power really do anything to hold Israel accountable.

George Bush feigned concern over Israel’s occupation of the West Bank (and East Jerusalem) but said that Gaza was another matter altogether.  Written off.

how does one write off the humans who have less than 8 hours electricity a day, if that, have limited drinking water resources, if at all in some areas, are not permitted to leave their prison for medical care in Egypt, are not permitted to fish in their waters, are not permitted to live with dignity?

what did I say? I’m sorry. It’s wrong. It’s criminal. We care. These atrocities have to end.

what did that do. nothing. I’m sure it gave him no comfort whatsoever, nor did it comfort me.

Dignity Denied

An ICRC report 

Throughout the occupied Palestinian territories, in the Gaza Strip as well as in the West Bank, Palestinians continuously face hardship in simply going about their lives; they are prevented from doing what makes up the daily fabric of most people’s existence. The Palestinian territories face a deep human crisis, where millions of people are denied their human dignity. Not once in a while, but every day.

Nothing is predictable for Palestinians. Rules can change from one day to the next without notice or explanation. They live in an arbitrary environment, continuously adapting to circumstances they cannot influence and that increasingly reduce the range of their possibilities.

“First, they took land for the road, then more land for the security zone along the road, and then they destroyed my house because it was too close to the security zone. Now they have levelled the land again. I have nothing left.”

–Abdul, Gaza

Since Israeli air strikes destroyed a large part of the Gaza Power Plant in June 2006, it has been working at roughly half of its original capacity. The electrical supply to the Gaza Strip is precarious, unreliable and dependent on external sources. In its current state, it cannot produce sufficient power to meet the needs of the population.

As a result, essential infrastructure such as hospitals, water systems and sewerage systems is having to use backup generators. Relying on generators is risky, and creates new dependencies on fuel and spare parts, quite apart from the higher running costs. Current import restrictions are preventing delivery of essential fuel and spare parts, which means that vital services are in danger of complete collapse…