Friday, January 9, 2009

IN THE US, GAZA IS A DIFFERENT WAR

Israel accused of using illegal phosphorus shells
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynY-My59iV0

===

Video of a Bombed School in Gaza
http://uruknet.info/?p=m50522&hd=&size=1&l=e

===

IN THE US, GAZA IS A DIFFERENT WAR
By Habib Battah
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/libertyundergroundtalk/

The images of two women on the front page of an edition of The
Washington Post last week illustrates how mainstream US media has
been reporting Israel's war on Gaza.

On the left was a Palestinian mother who had lost five children. On
the right was a nearly equally sized picture of an Israeli woman who
was distressed by the fighting, according to the caption.

As the Palestinian woman cradled the dead body of one child, another
infant son, his face blackened and disfigured with bruises, cried
beside her.

The Israeli woman did not appear to be wounded in any way but also
wept.

Arab frustration

To understand the frustration often felt in the Arab world over US
media coverage, one only needs to imagine the same front page had the
situation been reversed.

If an Israeli woman had lost five daughters in a Palestinian attack,
would The Washington Post run an equally sized photograph of a
relatively unharmed Palestinian woman, who was merely distraught over
Israeli missile fire?

When the front page photographs of the two women were published on
December 30, over 350 Palestinians had reportedly been killed
compared to just four Israelis.

What if 350 Israelis had been killed and only four Palestinians -
would the newspaper have run the stories side by side as if equal in
news value?

Like many major news organisations in the US, The Washington Post has
chosen to cover the conflict from a perspective that reflects the US
government's relationship with Israel. This means prioritising
Israel's version of events while underplaying the views of
Palestinian groups.

For example, the newspaper's lead article on Tuesday, which was
published above the mothers' photographs, quotes Israeli military and
civilian sources nine times before quoting a single Palestinian. The
first seven paragraphs explain Israel's military strategy. The ninth
paragraph describes the anxiety among Israelis, spending evenings in
bomb shelters. Ordinary Palestinians, who generally have no access to
bomb shelters, do not make an appearance until the 23rd paragraph.

To balance this top story, The Washington Post published another
article on the bottom half of the front page about the Palestinian
mother and her children. But would the paper have ever considered
balancing a story about a massive attack on Israelis with an in-depth
lead piece on the strategy of Palestinian militants?

Context stripped

Major US television channels also adopted the equal time approach,
despite the reality that Palestinian casualties exceeded Israeli ones
by a hundred fold. However, such comparisons were rare because the
scripts read by American correspondents often excluded the overall
Palestinian death count.

By stripping the context, American viewers may have easily assumed a
level playing field, rather than a case of disproportionate force.

Take the opening lines of a report filed by NBC's Martin Fletcher on
December 30: "In Gaza two little girls were taking out the rubbish
and killed by an Israeli rocket - while in Israel, a woman had been
driving home and was killed by a Hamas rocket. No let up today on
either side on the fourth day of this battle."

Omitted from the report was the overall Palestinian death toll,
dropped continuously in subsequent reports filed by NBC
correspondents over the next several days.

When number of deaths did appear - sometimes as a graphic at the
bottom of the screen - it was identified as the number of "people
killed" rather than being attributed specifically to Palestinians.

No wonder the overwhelmingly asymmetrical bombardment of Gaza has
been framed vaguely as "rising tensions in the Middle East" by news
anchors.

With the lack of context, the power dynamic on the ground becomes
unclear.

ABC news, for example, regularly introduced events in Gaza
as "Mideast Violence". And Like NBC, reporters excluded the
Palestinian death toll.

On December 31, when Palestinian deaths stood at almost 400, ABC
correspondent Simon McGergor-Wood began a video package by describing
damage to an Israeli school by Hamas rockets.

The reporter's script can be paraphrased as follows: Israel wanted a
sustainable ceasefire; Israel needed to prevent Hamas from rearming;
Hamas targets were hit; Israel was sending in aid and letting the
injured out; Israel was doing "everything they can to alleviate the
humanitarian crisis". And with that McGregor-Wood signed off.

Palestinian perspective missing

There was no parallel telling of the Palestinian perspective, and no
mention of any damages to Palestinian lives, although news agencies
that day had reported five Palestinians dead.

For the ABC correspondent, it seemed the Palestinian deaths contained
less news value than damage to Israeli buildings. His narration of
events, meanwhile, amounted to no less than a parroting of the
official Israeli line.

In fact, the Israeli government view typically went unchallenged on
major US networks.

Interviews with Israeli spokesmen and ambassadors were not juxtaposed
with the voices of Palestinian leaders. Prominent American news
anchors frequently adopted the Israeli viewpoint. In talk show
discussions, instead of debating events on the ground, the pundits
often reinforced each other's views.

Such an episode occurred on a December 30 broadcast of the MSNBC
show, Morning Joe, during which host Joe Scarborough repeatedly
insisted that Israel should not be judged.

Israel was defending itself just as the US had done throughout
history. "How many people did we kill in Germany?" Scarborough posed.
The blame rested on the Palestinians, he concluded, connecting the
Gaza attacks to the Camp David negotiations of 2000. "They gave the
Palestinians everything they could ask for, and they walked away from
the table," he said repeatedly.

Although this view was challenged once by Zbigniew Brzezinski, a
former US official, who appeared briefly on the show, subsequent
guests agreed incessantly with Scarborough's characterisation of the
Palestinians as negligent, if not criminal in nature.

According to guest Dan Bartlett, a former White House counsel, the
Palestinian leadership had made it "very clear" that they were
uninterested in peace talks.

Another guest, NBC anchor David Gregory, began by noting that Yasser
Arafat, the late Palestinian president, "could not be trusted",
according to Bill Clinton, the former US president.

Gregory then added that Hamas had "undercut the peace process" and
actually welcomed the attacks.

"The reality is that Hamas wanted this, they didn't want the
ceasefire," he said.

Columnist Margaret Carlson also joined the show, agreeing in
principal that Hamas should be "crushed" but voicing concern over the
cost of such action.

Thus the debate was not whether Israel was justified, but rather what
Israel should do next. The Palestinian human tragedy received little
to no attention.

Victim's perspective

Arab audiences saw a different picture altogether. Rather than
mulling Israel's dilemma, the Arab news networks captured the air
assault in chilling detail from the perspective of its victims. The
divide in coverage was staggering.

For US networks, the bombing of Gaza has largely been limited to two-
minute video packages or five minute talk show segments. This has
usually meant a few snippets of jumbled video: explosions from a
distance and a momentary glance at victims; barely enough time to
remember a face, let alone a personality. Victims were rarely
interviewed.

The availability of time and space, American broadcast executives
might argue, were mitigating factors.

On MSNBC for example, Gaza competed for air time last week with
stories about the economy, such as a hike in liquor sales, or
celebrity news, such as speculation over the publishing of
photographs of Sarah Palin's new grandchild.

On Arab TV, however, Gaza has been the only story.

For hours on end, live images from the streets of Gaza are beamed
into Arab households.

Unlike the correspondents from ABC and NBC, who have filed their
reports exclusively from Israeli cities, Arab crews are inside Gaza,
with many correspondents native Gazans themselves.

The images they capture are often broadcast unedited, and over the
last week, a grizzly news gathering routine has been established.
The cycle begins with rooftop-mounted cameras, capturing the air
raids live. After moments of quiet, thunderous bombing commences and
plumes of smoke rise over the skyline. Then, anguish on the streets.
Panicked civilians run for cover as ambulances careen through narrow
alleys. Rescue workers hurriedly pick through the rubble, often
pulling out mangled bodies. Fathers with tears of rage hold dead
children up to the cameras, vowing revenge. The wounded are carried
out in stretchers, gushing with blood.

Later, local journalists visit the hospitals and more gruesome
images, more dead children are broadcast. Doctors wrap up the tiny
bodies and carry them into overflowing morgues. The survivors speak
to reporters. Their distraught voices are heard around the region;
the outflow of misery and destruction is constant.

Palestinian voices

The coverage extends beyond Gaza. Unlike the US networks, which are
often limited to one or two correspondents in Israel, major Arab
television channels maintain correspondents and bureaus throughout
the region. As angry protests take place on a near daily basis, the
crews are there to capture the action live.

Even in Israel, Arab reporters are employed, and Israeli politicians
are regularly interviewed. But so are members of Hamas and the other
Palestinian factions.

The inclusion of Palestinian voices is not unique to Arab media. On a
number of international broadcasters, including BBC World and CNN
International, Palestinian leaders and Gazans in particular are
regularly heard. And the Palestinian death toll has been provided
every day, in most broadcasts and by most correspondents on the
ground. Reports are also filed from Arab capitals.

On some level, the relatively small American broadcasting output can
be attributed to a general trend in downsizing foreign reporting. But
had a bloodbath on this scale happened in Israel, would the networks
not have sent in reinforcements?

For now, the Israeli viewpoint seems slated to continue to dominate
Gaza coverage. The latest narrative comes from the White House, which
has called for a "durable" ceasefire, preventing Hamas terrorists
from launching more rockets.

Naturally the soundbites are parroted by US broadcasters throughout
the day and then reinforced by pundits, fearing the dangerous Hamas.
Arab channels, however, see a different outcome. Many have begun
referring to Hamas, once controversial, as simply "the Palestinian
resistance".

While American analysts map out Israel's strategy, Arab broadcasters
are drawing their own maps, plotting the expanding range of Hamas
rockets, and predicting a strengthened hand for opposition to Israel,
rather than a weakened one.

Habib Battah is a freelance journalist and media analyst based in
Beirut and New York.

===

ISM Media Group View profile
More options Jan 4, 5:52 pm

From: ISM Media Group
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2009 14:52:10 -0800 (PST)
Local: Sun, Jan 4 2009 5:52 pm
Subject: ISM Digest 04/01/2009 - ISM Gaza: Why we are staying, Israel
targets medics
Reply | Reply to author | Forward | Print | Individual message | Show
original | Report this message | Find messages by this author
Digest January 4, 2009
1) Israel targets medics
2) Jabalia 6pm Sat til Sun midday
3) What the medics see, do, and are subjected to; uncensored
4) Interview: Alberto Arce in Jabaliya
5) Rafah, Gaza:Interview with Fida Qishta - ISM co-ordinator in the
Gaza Strip
6) Late Post for Saturday Night
7) The Guardian: Do Israeli pilots feel happy killing innocent women
and children
8) The Guardian: Land, sea, sky - all will kill you
9) Why we are staying

-------------
1) Israel targets medics

International Human Rights Activists working with Palestinian medical
crews today reported five Palestinian medics were killed today by
Israeli forces.

International Solidarity Movement activists spent the night
accompanying ambulances in Gaza. They were working with medical
personnel during the Israeli occupation forces ground invasion into
northern Gaza.

"In addition to the doctor and medic that the Israeli military
murdered on the 31st of December, they have killed five more medics
today. One was shot in Jabaliya, one in Al Sheikh Ejleen. Three
have
just been killed when a missile directly hit their ambulance in the
Tal Hawye neighborhood in Gaza City. The medics are constantly in
contact with the Red Cross for them to negotiate passage with the
Israelis. The Israelis constantly refuse."
Sharon Lock (Australia) – International Solidarity Movement

"The Israelis dropped a bomb in front of our ambulance to prevent us
accessing wounded people. However a donkey cart emerged carrying a
wounded family: a mother and father and three teenage brothers. One
of
the teenagers was attempting to shield the other two with a blanket.
They were both horrifically injured; I could see the lungs of one of
them. As I assisted the medics to move him off the cart I found my
hand inside his body."
Alberto Arce (Spain) – International Solidarity Movement

"I got a call 30 minutes ago, on a poor phone line, saying that
Arafat
is dead – killed while working – by Israeli fire. He was one of the
emergency medics I met two nights ago, compassionate, emotionally
strong, and with an unabashedly wacky sense of humor. I'm more
saddened by his death than I can express."
Eva Bartlett (Canada) – International Solidarity Movement

"Israel is claiming that there is no humanitarian crisis because they
do not consider us as humans."
Natalie Abu Shakra (Lebanon) – International Solidarity Movement

"Israel continues to violate international conventions by attacking
medical personnel. They are massacring the people of Gaza. With the
swelling number of civilian casualties, Israel must ensure that
medical assistance is available. Instead, they are intentionally
targeting the medical teams that are protected by the Geneva
Conventions. Israel's disregard for international law must be
confronted by the international community."
Vittorio Arrigoni (Italy) – International Solidarity Movement

"The ground invasion of last night has lead to Beit Lahiya and Beit
Hanoun being shut down. We managed to get into Beit Hanoun to
collect
bodies of some of the dead. We are now headed to Jabaliya to
continue
our work with ambulance accompaniment. There is nowhere for the
Gazan
people to escape to, civilians cannot leave for safety because of the
siege. These prolonged attacks on Gaza are horrific and last night's
ground invasion by the Israeli occupation forces has led to a
swelling
amount of civilian casualties."
Ewa Jasiewicz – Free Gaza Movement

2) Jabalia 6pm Sat til Sun midday

By Sharon in Gaza, for blog see talestotell.wordpress.com

(Gaza, January 4, 2009)5.30pm: at Ramattan media office. Shelling has
noticeably increased in the city in the last hours. Rumours increase
that the Israeli Occupation Force will begin the land incursion
tonight. We hear that a mosque in Beit Lahia has been attacked during
the prayer time just past, resulting in 50 injured and maybe 10 dead.
We decide to head immediately to Jabalia's Red Crescent Ambulance
Operations Centre, which is a walk from F's house which the family
has
left.

6pm: When we arrive, there is an air of chaos and anxiety, as the
ambulance workers have just finished dealing with the mosque injuries
which included children. Explosions are constant and nearby. We
understand that these are now coming from tanks shelling the area
from
the other side of the border, a new development.

7pm: Some semblance of calm has returned to the Centre but not the
surroundings. A magnesium rocket (we understand this is designed to
set things on fire) lands in the field beside the Centre. The
explosions continue through the whole night without pause, rocking
the
building. We can see many people leaving the area on foot. We hear a
water tank is destroyed.

7.30: Ambulances called out. We are unable to pass a huge crater in
the road into which a car has already nosedived. Taking the long way
round, we collect a man in traditional dress, in his 60s, from what
seems to be his family farm. He is bleeding from the face and very
frightened. On the way to Karmel Adwan hospital a particularly close
explosion rocks the van. I mustn't have jumped enough, beacuse the
driver mimes "did you hear that?" to me. I am beginning to realise
Palestinians are fond of rhetorical questions, such as "how do you
find Gaza at the moment?"

8pm: We collect a man in his 30s from a family house in a main
street.
He is continually bleeding from the face near his eye and also has
wounds to his hand and upper and lower legs. He has made makeshift
bandages for himself. We take him to Al Awda hospital. On the way
back
we pick up a woman and her daughter who are in danger having gone to
collect water.

8.20: Bread and tea at the Centre. Ambulances called out.

8.40: Medic worries "we are taking too long; ten minutes." However at
our dangerous and darkened destination no-one arrives in response to
the ambulance loudspeaker, the electricity lines are down, and smoke
fills the air. The ambulances retreat, describing it as a no-go area.
Immediately beside it, a peasant family of about 10 emerge from the
smoke, looking bewildered. Some of the children are crying, everyone
is holding tight to each other's hands. One woman is pregnant. The
medics shout at them to leave the area, then decide to evacuate them
in the ambulances. We drop them in the nearest town, to go god knows
where.

8.55: we hear the Israeli army has crossed the border - in Rafah, in
Gaza centre near Bureij camp, and here in Jabalia. We hear Israel has
told the Red Cross (the communication medium) that people must
evacuate to a distance of 1km in this area. I glimpse a teapot and
tea
but we are called out again.

9.10: We collect a young woman and an older. I am not sure what the
issue is, although the younger woman appears pregnant. We deliver
them
to Al Awda hospital where we are given tea. H, one of the medics,
tells me about his 3 children and his wife, who is very worried about
him.

9.30: Back to the Centre for short period of quiet (except for the
noise.) Our driver has decided he likes me because my beret reminds
him of Che Guevara. He is driving with his arm in plaster.

10pm: Ambulances called out. A family of about 12 was round the fire
outside their house, having no other way to cook or get warm. They
were hit by a rocket and all are injured. Many ambulances converge at
Karmel Adwan to transfer them to Al Shifa in Gaza city which has more
resources. The wounded are pushed into one after the other. We have a
young man, perhaps a teenager, whose breathing is being done for him
by a medic with a handheld pump. I can't help but wonder if one of
the
29 ventilators is free right now. But our driver says afterwards that
he probably won't survive the night.

10.55: We leave Al Shifa to head back to the Jabalia Centre. There is
coffee. Mo makes a coffee sandwich, which is just weird. There is a
pause in the calls. Hassan asks me about my book, "Nature Cure"; I
explain it is about an ecologist's route out of depression. "People
get depressed in the West?" he asks in surprise. Understanding how
implausible that must sound right now, I say that many people get
caught up in a life that mainly holds work and buying stuff, and
without some sort of meaning - religion, or the dream of your land
being free, or something like that, people can get very lost.

"Actually Israel is trying to force us into a meaningless life like
this," he says. "Like, sometimes I feel that all that really matters
to me right now is a kilo of gas. I built a stove for my family and I
feel like I did something amazing." The discussion becomes animated
as
all the medics join in, but it's in Arabic. We have a quiet stretch -
again, despite the noise.

1am: This is a call to a woman in labour. V has a similar call. What
a
night to give birth. The stress is bringing on labour early for many
women. Hassan says he should have documents for her to hand in at Al
Awda, but they've not been allowed through from the West Bank for
some
time.

At this point I lose track of the time for a while and also get a
couple of hours sleep. When I wake I find that A has come back from a
grim call. The ambulances were called to the Beit Lahia Salatin area,
outside the Mu'a'ia School to assist the Atar family. However the IOF
forced them to turn back by dropping a bomb in front of the
ambulances
and shooting in front of them, so they were not able to access the
wounded.

However, as they turned back, a donkey cart pulled in front of A's
ambulance. On it were an older man and woman, probably the parents of
the three teenage boys on the cart. One of the teenagers was
attempting to shield the other two with a blanket. One of these two
had a serious head wound and his eye was detached. The other had an
open chest wound, and his arm was partially detached. Despite this he
was conscious and shouting. A could see his lungs, one appeared
punctured, and the clearly disturbed mother was patting his wounds.
Back at the Jabalia Centre, A quietly described how he had assisted
the medics to lift this boy off the donkey cart, and in doing so,
found his hand inside the boy's body.

6am: My ambulance goes to three women, waiting in the dark street.
They are young and quietly weeping. One carries a boy of about 4
years
old wrapped in a blanket. His head flops back and his eyes are half
open. I find myself hoping maybe he has just fainted from fright.
Eventually I understand, perhaps from the weight of grief on their
faces, that he is dead. We deliver them to the hospital.

6.30: several of the ambulances leave again to try again to reach the
Atar family. Mine only gets a short way before rubble bursts the
tire.
This appears to happen nightly. While the medics try to fix it, we
see
a rocket strike very close to the Ambulance Centre. By the time we
get
back from getting spare tires, we have been told not to return to the
Centre as the shooting is now right near it.

8.15: We return to evacuate the Centre as the army is now very close.
People on the streets are running away. We move our base to someone's
shop in a Jabalia main street. No more tea kettle or generator.

9.30: 3 ambulances attempt to reach wounded. We wait to have access
co-
ordinated with Israel by the Red Cross. Israel refuses.

9.45: Israel broadcasts the message all over the Gaza strip: "for
your
own safety, leave your homes immediately and head towards the city
centre." Mamy people have been on the streets this past night,
carrying children and bundles, and now the number increases. But
there
are also many people simply waiting at home, without any belief in a
safe place. A rocket hits near us while the ambulances are all off.
The injured man is pushed into a car, which rushes off.

10.50: We collect an old women from a farming area. She is very
distressed and has a bullet wound to her upper shoulder. The medic
inserts a cannula into her arm despite the bumpy road.

11.30: We go straight from the hospital to another call. As with many
of our calls, locals line the way, pointing the ambulance to the
correct turn. A house has just been bombed. Neighbours are
frantically
dragging out the wounded and the medics cram four people into our
ambulance, which is meant for one.

The stretcher place is taken by the dead body, covered in dust, of a
man in his 30s. His abdomen is ruptured and damaged organs visible.
His legs look as if they no longer contain bones and are twisted
implausibly. One foot detaches as he is put in the ambulance. Another
man, maybe older, looks to have internal injuries and might also have
had injured legs, but the chaos is such that I can't clearly identify
his injuries, neither can I with the man in his sixties, who is
shoved
into the remaining space. He is in shock, sweat covering his grey
face. I helplessly stroke his cheek, wondering if he is about to stop
breathing. Halfway through the journey, his eyes focus slightly. I
hope not enough to realise he is crushed against a corpse. The
injured
boy of about 3 is held in the front seat by his father.

At Karmel Adwan hospital, a wail of grief goes up from all waiting
there at this scene of disaster. They haul out the living, and we are
left with the dead man. We move the ambulance away from the delivery
area. Our medic strokes the man's face. "Actually, he was my friend."
he tells me. "His name was Bilal Rabell."

We are told that since last night 47 people are dead, 12 of them
children, and more than 130 injured. These numbers are increasing as
more people are found and as more die from their injuries.

http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2009/01/04/journal-jabalia-6pm-sat-
...

----------------
3) What the medics see, do, and are subjected to; uncensored

By Eva Bartlett in Gaza, for blog see ingaza.wordpress.com

(Gaza, January 4, 2009) On 31st December, around 2 am, two emergency
medical services personnel were targeted by an Israeli missile as
they
attempted to reach injured in the Jabaliya region, northern Gaza. The
first died immediately, the second soon after of complications from
his internal injuries.

Two days later, 2 more medics were injured in the area east of Gaza,
again in the line of duty, again trying to reach the injured.

Under the Geneva Conventions, Israel is obliged to allow and ensure
safe passage to medical personnel to the injured. Instead, Israel
routinely targets them.

At the Jabaliya Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) station, the
team there tells me of their injuries. Half, they say, of emergency
medics and drivers in Gaza have been injured by Israel while trying
to
perform the duties.

One shows me a scar from a gunshot wound to his arm. Another tells of
being twice injured: once, shot in the stomach, another time, also
shot in the arm. The bullet holes in their ambulances speak for
themselves.
Internationals from the ISM (International Solidarity Movement) and
the Free Gaza Movement have decided to join the EMT personnel in
their
work around Gaza.

I start in Jabaliya, in northern Gaza at the eastern border, where I
meet an amiable team of professionals. After delivering a pregnant
woman to hospital, our first serious call is to retrieve the bodies
of
two killed resistance fighters, hit by shells. The sight of the one
in
our ambulance is ugly, his face has exploded. The knowledge of his
life and death is uglier: he was born into a life of occupation, and
he has chosen to resist, as one would when being invaded. The ugliest
aspect lies in the knowledge that he was undoubtedly a father, a
husband, a man who probably has a mixture of photos on his phone:
beautiful women, cute children, cats, a fighter with a gun, pictures
of his family, random lovely scenes of nature, and the slapstick
video
clips that seem to be common among those with high tech-cell phones.
He was a regular guy, of this I'm sure, thrust into an unbearable,
deadly role. His silver lining is that at least he doesn't have to
live in hell on earth any longer.
The next call, at just after 4 am, is to retrieve one injured, one
dead, at the American high school in Beit Lahia, the northwest of the
Strip. We have to navigate roads that are more than pot-holed,
destroyed by time, lack of construction materials (the siege), and
more recently, the F-16 missiles. Finding only the one injured man,
we
take him to hospital, returning after daybreak to find the corpse.

After sunrise, we return to the northwest, passing a dead cow on the
side of the road. En route, near the bombed high school, the van gets
a flat. We walk in from there, moving quickly as drones and F-16s
still circle, second and third strikes are all too common. In the
light, I see what had been a large structure, a quality high school a
friend had studied at. What's left of the body has been found and
brought out to the nearest clearing, the playground. [Later in the
morning, I re-visit the site with a film crew, tell the story. I
notice the sea beyond, hadn't seen it in the dim morning light.
Notice
the twisted wreckage of the playground, and the pieces of shrapnel
littering the ground. As we film, 2 missiles blast in the vicinity.
It's hard not to feel like prey in this open area, clearly visible].
I
don't immediately see the corpse unwrapped, but I suspect that he is
not all there. The dead, a 24 year old night watchman, had no warning
of the at least 2 missiles which leveled the school and tore him
apart.

The medics work to load the corpse, first having to replace the flat
tire. Working frantically, still fearful of potential strikes, they
crowd the ambulance, hoist the van, replace the flat. A missile hits
50 metres away. Surely, undoubtedly, those warplanes above us know –
from the markings of the ambulance, the clothes of the medics, the
crystal clear photos their drones can take –that we are civilians and
medics below. Yet they fire.
They change the tire, load the body, and we're off, screeching as
much
as the tired ambulance and pathetic roads will allow. It's straight
around the back of the hospital, to the mortuary, where men mourning
the latest dead before ours are ushered out, ordered to make room for
this new body. In the cold room, the body is transferred to the
fridge
shelf, but while that happens the blanket comes undone. The patch of
burned skin, in no way human, reveals itself to be a half-body, the
head hanging loosely by what neck remains.
I see it, as I saw the dead man in the ambulance. And I write it,
because everyone must see it, hear of it. The children of Gaza must
see these images, or are these images, so we have no right to
censorship from such gruesome deaths.

But I cry, too, at the disfigurement of the young corpse, and the
knowledge that he is one of so many (over 470 now) killed in the last
week.

The medics have seen ghastly things and urge me to keep it in, keep
working. They must, and so I do.
We return to the centre, I leave them intending to return a day
later,
to spend my day reporting and writing. In the end I return to the
ambulance station a half day later, as Israel ramps up its
bloodletting.

For Photos: http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2009/01/04/journal-what-
the-medics-...

---------------
4) Interview: Alberto Arce in Jabaliya

http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=9Mfb5g1orBw&eurl=http://www.palsolidar...

----------------
5) Rafah, Gaza:Interview with Fida Qishta - ISM co-ordinator in the
Gaza Strip

http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=czz8rni0KtA&eurl=http://www.palsolidar...

-----------------
6) Late Post for Saturday Night

By Sharon in Gaza, for blog see talestotell.wordpress.com

Last night E rode with the Palestinian Red Crescent in Jabalia, where
attacks have continued to be very heavy, and was witness to the
collection of three martyred folks - one was 24 year old caretaker of
the American school, whose body was in a terrible state as a result
of
the school being bombed during the night.

Our Jabalia friends, F's family, had further near misses during the
night and were very distressed, so E went to see them this morning.
She found that Israel had dropped leaflets in the area announcing
that
everyone must leave their houses because they will be destroyed. So
F's family have today left behind what must now seem like the
comparative safety of their basement. But E met the neighbours, who
have ten children, and are not leaving - because they simply have
nowhere to go. And also, Sara's husband from F's family is not
leaving
the neighbourhood, though he won't stay in the empty house. I guess
he's just had enough, and perhaps only wants to join his wife in
paradise.

Our local colleague Mo told us of a teenager from his youth group who
died yesterday. 16-year-old Christian girl, Christine Wade'a al Turk,
died of a heart attack brought on by a severe asthma attack,
resulting
from the stress of the ongoing strikes.

Bombing across the road from me at the port this morning destroyed
further boats, filling the sky with thick black smoke. One wonders
what the point is. V and I will be with Jabalia's Red Crescent
Service
tonight.

THANK YOU for today's rallies! I've made a new section on the blog
called Gaza Solidarity Worldwide, please post any reports there you'd
like to share.

Shortly after I got this far with this draft, we had to go to
Ramattan
for a press conference stating that though 400 internationals left
yesterday, many of us are remaining to stand beside our Palestinian
friends. And to state our belief that Israel wants no outside
witnesses to its next actions, and perhaps no possibility of being
called to account for the deaths of any inconvenient Westerners. At
about 5pm the rumour reached us that the army's ground incursion was
about to begin, and we dropped everything else to run to the Red
Crescent in Jabalia…

-----------------
7) The Guardian: Do Israeli pilots feel happy killing innocent women
and children?

By Fida Qishta - ISM co-ordinator in the Gaza Strip

A Palestinian in Gaza chronicles life under Israeli bombardment

(Gaza, Saturday 27 December, 2009) I go to visit friends in the Block
J neighbourhood in Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip. While I am
in
a friend's house, my phone rings. It's a friend from Gaza City,
calling for a chat. Suddenly I hear the sound of an explosion at his
end. At the same time I hear an explosion in Rafah too. Just outside,
somewhere near. My friend says: "Fida, they are attacking nearby." I
say: "They are attacking here too."
I run into the street and everybody is running, children and grown-
ups, all looking to see if their relatives and friends are alive. It
is the time for children to go to school for the second shift, after
the first shift finishes at 11.30am.Naama is aged 13. This is what
she
tells me: "I was sitting in the classroom with my friends when the
attack happened. We were scared and we ran out of our school. Our
headmaster asked us to go home. We saw fire everywhere."

People are looking at the remains of a police station. There are
still
bodies under the wreckage. It is scary because the attack isn't over,
and from where we are we can see an Israeli airplane attacking
another
police station.

At the hospital, I speak to a wounded police officer, aged 39. "We
were at the police station," he said. "The Israeli planes came and
suddenly the building collapsed on us. I saw four dead bodies near
me.
They were in pieces. Outside there were more bodies. Everyone was
shouting. I lost consciousness and then found myself in hospital."

Later I am at home with my family. We've just received a phone call
on
our land line. It's the Israeli defence ministry, and they say that
any house that has guns or weapons will be targeted next, without
warning and without any announcement. Just to let you know, we don't
have any weapons in our house. If we die please defend my family.

Sunday 28 December

I wake up at 7am after an Israeli F-16 attack. Our house is shaking.
We all try to imagine what has happened, but we want to at least know
where the attack was. It is so scary. We try to open the main door to
our flat, but it's stuck shut after the attack. I have to climb out
of
the window to leave the house. I am shocked when I find out our
neighbour's pharmacy was the target. It is just 60 metres from our
house. They targeted a pharmacy. I still can't believe it.

Om Mohammed says: "They [Israeli forces] attack everywhere. They have
gone crazy. The Gaza Strip is just going to die … it's going to die.
We were sleeping. Suddenly we heard a bomb. We woke up and we didn't
know where to go. We couldn't see through the dust. We called to each
other. We thought our house had been hit, not the street. What can I
say? You saw it with your own eyes. What is our guilt? Are we
terrorists? I don't carry a gun, neither does my girl.

"There's no medicine. No drinks, no water, no gas. We are suffering
from hunger. They attack us. What does Israel want? Can it be worse
than this? I don't think so. Would they accept this for themselves?

"Look at the children. What are they guilty of? They were sleeping at
7am. All the night they didn't sleep. This child was traumatised
during the attack. Do they have rockets to attack with?"

Monday 29 December

The Israeli army is destroying the tunnels that go from Rafah into
Egypt. For the past year and a half the Israeli government has
intensified the economic blockade of Gaza by closing all the border
crossings that allow aid and essential supplies to reach Palestinians
in Gaza. This forced Palestinians to dig tunnels to Egypt to survive.
From our house we can hear the explosions and the house is shaking.At
night we can't go out. No one goes out. If you go out you will risk
your life. You don't know where the bombs will fall. My mother is so
sad. She watches me writing my reports and says: "Fida, will it make
any difference?"

Before the attack started we got some food aid from the EU. It's not
much, but it's enough, we're not starving. But some of our friends
have nothing. My mum warns me: "Fida, don't leave the house, it's too
dangerous outside." Then she goes out to share our food with the
neighbours who have nothing.

Wednesday 31 December

11.40pm: a powerful air strike somewhere nearby. I was sleeping but
the blast wakes me up. I see my mum looking from the window. She
points at one of the refugee camps. "The attack was there," she said.

I went back to sleep – not because I don't care, but because I can't
deal with it. If the attack was really aimed at one of the camps that
means hundreds are going to be injured or even killed, the houses
destroyed. I really can't imagine it.

Thursday 1 January

In the morning I get up early and call a friend who lives in
Alshabora
camp. He confirms the attack had hit there and I go to meet him.

It looks like an earthquake. Many houses have been damaged, and many
people have been wounded. The people who had escaped injury were
trying to clean the place up – they have nowhere else to go. But the
biggest shock is when I ask about the target. It was the children's
playground.

"We heard a strong explosion happen, but with all the smoke and the
dust we couldn't see well, and the electricity was off," I am told by
a small child.

"We saw everything fall down – the window broke on us. We went
downstairs, and people were saying that the playground's been
targeted. This park is not a member of Hamas, it's a park for
playing.
It's for civilians – so why did they attack it?," asks one 12-year-
old
girl who lives nearby.

The target was a civilian area – but there was no warning, not one
phone call from the Israeli army to tell civilians to beware.

I visit the main hospital in Rafah. There are so many injured people,
most of them children. In one ward, I meet four children aged five or
six. They are in deep shock. They can't speak, they just look at you.

Only one child could say his name: "Abdel Rahman". That's all he can
say. Otherwise, he just stares. He's five. His ear was wounded by
shrapnel, his head is covered by bandages.

There is a 16-year-old girl also suffering from shrapnel injuries.
Three of her brothers were killed; all her family were injured. She
looks like a zombie and says nothing at all. Her mother is dying in
the intensive care unit.
The hospital manger, Abu Youssef Alnajar, gives the statistics for 1
January: two dead – a young man aged 22 and a woman aged 33; 59
injured – 16 children, 18 women and the rest old people. Most of them
had been sleeping when the bombs dropped.

I go back home and the first thing I do is take a shower. I feel
really upset after what I have seen. As always I am trying to cope
with the situation but sometimes it is too much to deal with.

A short message to the pilots in the Israeli F-16s: does it make you
feel happy to kill Palestinian children and women? Do you feel it's
your duty? Killing every child and woman, man and teenager in Gaza? I
don't know what exactly you feel, what exactly you think, but please
think of your mother and sister, your son and daughter.

Friday 2 January

I am in the hospital again. An ambulance crew has been called out to
help an injured man somewhere near the ruins of the old Gaza airport.
He's a civilian, one of the bedouin who tend their sheep in that
area.
Four shepherds saw an explosion and went to investigate – when they
arrived at the scene there was a second bomb and they were injured.
An
ambulance managed to rescue three of the men. But one of their
friends
is still there, bleeding.

The ambulance crew are afraid to go back for him. The wounded man is
just 50 metres away from the green line so they are afraid the
Israeli
soldiers will target them.Outside there are still planes in the air.
I
have just heard a big explosion on the border area.

http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2009/01/03/the-guardian-do-israeli-
...

-----------------
8) The Guardian: Land, sea, sky - all will kill you

By Karma Nabulsi

Mohammed is burying his family. So is Jamal. Haider doesn't feel safe
in his flat so is sheltering in his car. In a series of phone calls
to
friends besieged in Gaza, one writer reveals the reality of life
under
daily attack

Last Saturday, the first day of massive air strikes on Gaza, I
finally
get through to my old friend Mohammed. We speak for a few moments, he
reassures me he is OK, he asks about my now-delayed trip to Gaza, and
suddenly I ask: "What is that noise?" It is a sort of distant
keening,
like the roar of approaching traffic, or a series of waves hitting a
rocky shore. "I am at the cemetery, Karma", he says, "I am burying my
family." He now sounds
exhausted. He repeats, over and over again in his steady, tired voice
as if it were a prayer: "This is our life. This is our life. This is
our life."

I had just come off the phone with Jamal, who at that moment was in
another cemetery in Jabaliya camp, burying three members of his own
family. They included two of his nieces, one married to a police
cadet. All were at the graduating ceremony in the crowded police
station when F16s targeted them that Saturday morning, massacring
more
than 45 citizens in an instant, mortally wounding dozens more. Police
stations across Gaza were similarly struck. Under the laws of war (or
international humanitarian law as it is more commonly known),
policemen, traffic cops, security guards: all are non-combatants, and
classified as civilians under the Geneva conventions. But more to the
point, Palestinian non-combatants are not mere civilians, but possess
something more real, more alive, more sovereign than a distancing
legal classification: the people in Gaza are citizens. Some work in
the various civic institutions across the Strip, but most simply use
them on a daily basis: their schools, police stations, hospitals,
their ministries.

Later on that first day I finally reach Khalil, who runs a prisoners'
human rights association in Gaza. He was trying to organise a press
conference. It was chaotic: he was shouting, he couldn't finish his
sentences or form words. When I told him what I had just heard, he
told me that he too had just come from the cemetery. His cousin,
Sharif Abu Shammala, 26 years old, had recently got a job as a guard
at the university. He had been asked to go in that morning to sign
his
worksheet at the local police station; he had felt lucky to find the
work.
For the one and a half million Palestinian citizens living in Gaza,
ways to absorb and describe their daily predicament - these
collective
and individual experiences of extreme violence - had already been
used
up by the two years of siege that preceded this week's carnage.
Hanging out with Mohammed at his office in Gaza City six months ago,
mostly just watching him smoke one cigarette after another, he
abruptly leant over his desk and said to me: "Everyone is dead. There
is no life in Gaza. Capital has left. Ask someone passing by: where
are you going? They will answer: I don't know. What are you doing? I
don't know. Gaza today is a place of aimless roaming."

On this New Year's Day at his home in Sheikh Radwan, his walls
tremble
from the F16 aerial bombardment under way in his neighbourhood. The
intensity of it courses down the line into my ear, his voice a cloud
of smoke. His house is just next to the mosque. Earlier this week,
his
wife's cousin in Jabaliya refugee camp lost five of her children:
they
lived next to a mosque the Israeli air force had bombed. "So where
can
I sleep, my children sleep?" he asks down the phone. "I don't know
how
to tell you what this is like, as I have stopped sleeping, myself. We
cannot go out, we cannot stay in: nowhere is safe. But I think I
would
rather die at home."
I first met international law professor Richard Falk when he was a
member of the Seán MacBride commission of inquiry into the Israeli
invasion of Lebanon in 1982. The UN rapporteur of human rights to the
Palestinian territories, he has studied massive bombardment of this
type many times before. Yet he too struggled to put words on to the
singular horror unfolding: "It is macabre … I don't know of anything
that exactly fits this situation. People have been referring to the
Warsaw ghetto as the nearest analog in modern times." He says he
cannot think of another occupation that endured for decades and
involved this kind of oppressive circumstances: "The magnitude, the
deliberateness, the violations of international humanitarian law …
warrant the characterisation of a crime against humanity."

A friend of mine, a brilliant and experienced journalist from Gaza,
has been covering these indescribable things in her job for an
American newspaper. She tells me: "I don't know what to do. I feel
overwhelmed by what I am seeing, and what they are doing: I simply
can't understand the enormity of what I witness in the hospitals,
where they keep bringing in children, or out in the streets - they
are
killing all of us. I don't know how to write about it." She feels
utterly weighed down by the fact that the Israeli government have
refused to allow international journalists into Gaza to see what she
is seeing. Despite her bewilderment she, like all the other citizens
of Gaza I speak with this week, seem to know exactly what to do:
although filled with fear, they run to volunteer, help pull
neighbours
from under the rubble, offer to assist at the hospital (where more
than half of the staff is now voluntary), write it all down, as best
they can, for a newspaper.

Only a gifted few have found for us the words we keep seeking, and
indeed Palestinian poetry of siege has a tradition going back
generations. Mahmoud Darwish wrote some for an earlier Israeli siege,
26 years ago in Beirut:

The Earth is closing on us
pushing us through the last passage
and we tear off our limbs to pass through
The Earth is squeezing us
I wish we were its wheat
so we could die and live again
I wish the Earth was our mother
so she'd be kind to us

During that siege, in the daily bombardment from F16 fighter planes,
entire buildings would come down around you - six, seven stories
high,
hundreds of neighbours, colleagues, and friends disappearing forever
under a tonne of rubble and plumes of smoke. We stopped racing down
to
the cellar: better to sleep up on the roof. This week the citizens of
Gaza find themselves seized with the same dread choices. On Wednesday
night one colleague, Fawwaz, a professor of economics, was trapped
under the rubble of his house near the ministry of foreign affairs.
He
managed to text a friend to send emergency workers to rescue him.
Haider, another university colleague, tells me about it in wonder. He
hasn't known where to place himself inside his flat: all parts of it
have been struck with building debris and huge flying shards of
glass.
He is sitting outside in his car while we speak, although I can't see
that this is the right move. Many now sleep on the roofs, he says, as
if their visible presence may deter the Apache helicopters,
earsplitting drones, and fighter planes that are demolishing
everything in their path - more than 400 buildings in six days.

The recently completed building of the ministry of education (paid
for
by European donors) is damaged; the ministry of justice, the foreign
ministry utterly destroyed: all national institutions of the
Palestinian Authority, none military. On New Year's Day, Khalil tells
me in a voice gone hard with a combination of anger and
despair: "When
we heard the news last night that the British government are giving
something like €9m [£8.65m] for humanitarian assistance, all of us
understood immediately that this Israeli war against our citizens
will
not stop but will continue, and that the donation is the invoice. We
understood the Europeans will pay the price - with us". He is roaming
around his office as we are chatting, assessing the damage to it: he
works just across from the Palestinian Legislative Council, where the
democratically elected parliament sat; now flattened by Israeli
aircraft. Every neighbourhood in Gaza is a mixture of homes, shops,
police stations, mosques, ministries, local associations, hospitals,
and clinics. Everyone is connected and fastened down right where they
are, and no citizen is safe in today's occupied Gaza from the Israeli
military, whose reach is everywhere.

As a way to share time on the phone, while my friend Houda's
neighbourhood was under aerial assault for more than 40 minutes, she
and I discussed at length comparisons between previous Israeli
military sieges we had been under. The carefully planned and
premeditated strategy of terrorising an entire population by
intensive
and heavy bombardment of both military and civic institutions -
destroying the entire civic infrastructure of a people - was
identical. What is unprecedented here is that in Gaza there is
nowhere
to evacuate people to safety: they are imprisoned on all sides, with
an acute awareness of the impossibility of escape. Land, sea, sky:
all
will kill you.

My friend As'ad is a professor of phonetics at one of the
universities
in Gaza. He had been giving the students poetry to read these last
months, and this summer told me about a class where they had worked
on
a piece by the late Palestinian poet Abu Salma. "It spoke to our
situation so powerfully that all at once they began to sing it:
`Everyone has a home, dreams, and an appearance. And I, carrying the
history of my homeland, trip … wretched and dusty in every path.'" He
told me yesterday on the phone, when I finally reached him after days
of trying: "They bombed the chemistry lab at the university. I have a
phonetics lab. Will they bomb that too?"
Before this week's war on the citizens of Gaza, the government of
Israel and its war machine had been attempting to fragment the soul
and break the spirit of one and a half million Palestinians through
an
all-encompassing military siege of epic proportions. The theory
behind
besieging a population is to annihilate temporal and spatial domains,
and by so doing slowly strangulate a people's will. Siege puts
extreme
pressure on time, both external and internal, and on space:
everything
halts. Nothing comes in, nothing comes out. No batteries, no writing
paper, no gauze for the hospitals, no medicines, no surgical gloves
even - for these things, say the Israeli military, cannot be
classified as humanitarian. Under siege no one can find space to
think
lucidly, for the aim is to take away the very horizon where thoughts
form their reasoning, a plan, a direction to move in. Things become
misshapen, ill-formed, turn in on themselves. Freedom, as we know, is
the space inside the person that the siege wishes to obliterate, so
that it becomes hard to breathe, to organise, above all to hope. Not
achieving its aim, and even now with no international action to put a
stop to it, the siege this week reached its natural zenith. Western
governments, having overtly supported the blockade for two years, now
fasten their shocked gaze upon the tormented and devastated Gaza they
have created, as if they were mere spectators.

I wish we were pictures on the rocks
for our dreams to carry as mirrors.
We saw the faces of those who will throw
our children out of the window of this last space.
Our star will hang up mirrors.
Where should we go after the last frontiers?
Where should the birds fly after the last sky?
Where should the plants sleep after the last breath of air?
We will write our names with scarlet steam.
We will cut off the hand of the song to be finished by our flesh.
We will die here, here in the last passage.
Here and here our blood will plant its olive tree.
(Mahmoud Darwish)

This week Palestinians have created an astonishing history with their
stamina, their resilience, their unwillingness to surrender, their
luminous humanity. Gaza was always a place representing cosmopolitan
hybridity at its best. And the weight of its dense and beautiful
history over thousands of years has, by its nature, revealed to those
watching the uncivilised and cruel character of this high-tech
bombardment against them. I tell each of my friends, in the hours of
conversation, how the quality of their capacity as citizens inspires
a
response that honours this common humanity. From the start of the
attack, Palestinians living in the cities and refugee camps across
the
West Bank and the Arab world took to the streets in their tens of
thousands in a fierce demand for national unity. More than 100,000
people erupted on to the streets of Cairo; the same in Amman. Earlier
this week I regaled my friend Ziad, who lives in Rafah refugee camp,
with an account of how, at the demonstration in London on Sunday, a
young man threw his shoe over the gates of the Israeli embassy.
Rushed
by police (who perhaps thought it was a bomb), the mass of British
protesters poured off the pavement to envelop him. Ziad laughed for
ages and then said quietly, "God only knows, he must be from Gaza."

http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2009/01/03/the-guardian-land-sea-
sk...

-----------------
9) Why we are staying

By Eva Bartlett, see blog at ingaza.wordpress.com

(Gaza, January 2, 2009) 1:13 pm

Israeli authorities benevolently announced that today, January 2nd,
the 7th day of Israel's air attacks throughout Gaza, internationals
would be permitted to leave through the Erez crossing.

As I write, the radio reports the latest attack: a drone rocket
targets an area near Al Quds Open university in Khan Younis, killing
3
young girls from the same family, al Astal, between the ages 10-13,
I'm told.

1:30 pm
I write from the Al Shifa hospital ICU staff room, where I've just
seen another recently-dead patient, 13 years old. "He died as a
result
of his different injuries: internal bleeding,and the most important
injury, brain trauma, brain matter out," Dr. Rami tells me. "He
arrested, we administered CPR for 30 minutes and no response."
The next bed contains a woman in her thirties, unconscious, injured
in
the 1st day of attacks as she went to her work.

Another bed holds a youth, Mohammed,15, injured yesterday afternoon
in
the bombing of al Farooq mosque and the house of a nearby politician,
Abu Narr. "The boy was returning to his house. The injury was to his
head: head trauma, massive injury, shrapnel in the foot, in the back.
The most dangerous injury is in the head. The patient is unconscious
now, under sedation, connected to the ventilator. His case is too
critical, too critical."

2:40 pm
"Now another child died, in the operation room," a nurse tells me.
Mohammed Abu Aju, 13 years old, explosive wounds, in Shejaiee. "He
was
in the street, " I'm told. "He was hit around 1 pm. He had head
trauma, amputation of the lower limbs, shrapnel wounds all over –more
than 100," he tells me.

We discuss the unfathomable situation here, how incredible it is that
it's gone this far, that it began at all.
"My brother is a policeman, not hamas, not fatah, just a policeman.
He
worked as a policeman before Hamas came to power, and he continued.
Thankfully, he wasn't near any of the many targeted police stations
on
Saturday, he is alive," one of the ICU nurses tells me.

Approximately 435 internationals are said to have left, from what
journalists have told me, but I have no intention of doing so, we
have
no intention of doing so.

Here are some reasons why we stay:

Israel not only controls who is unable to leave Gaza, but who is
unable to enter Gaza. Since November 4, Israel has banned foreign
journalists from entering Gaza, making a minor exception for a few
days in early December. At present, with the over 420 dead, over
2,100
injured and the many civilian homes and buildings destroyed, there is
an urgent need for foreign journalists.

I've seen the demolished houses, mosques, universities, water lines.
I've seen the newly-homeless, asking where they will live now that
their home is rubble, now that the winter cold combines with rain,
now
that there are continually drones, helicopters and F-16s overhead.

I've heard the accounts of recently-killed: the 5 girls living next
to
a targeted Jabaliya mosque; the 2 boys collecting wood; the 55 year
old mother of my friends; the 9 and 12 year old girls who stopped in
a
grocery store after school and were killed by the missile which
targeted the police station across the street ["One girl had shrapnel
injuries all over her, it took a long time for her to die from her
internal injuries," the ICU doctor tells me. The other, he
says, "lost
half of her head and a shoulder" in the blast (at just after 11 am,
the time when many civilians are on the streets)], and the 50 year
old
father of a patient in the nearby hospital, also killed; the family
attempting to work collecting scrap metal, even despite the siege,
despite the air invasion, blown to piece and burned.

I've felt the terrifying impact of missiles landing 30 metres from a
thin-walled ground-floor room hearing the screams of terrorized
families trapped in their homes, 50 metres from a thin-walled
apartment room, 100 metres from hospital buildings windows already
shattered. I've been rocked awake night after night, if I've fallen
asleep, by missiles outside of whatever building in whatever region I
stay: Gaza City, Jabaliya, beside the port… I avoid the coastal road
where Israeli naval boats continue to fire upon Gaza, but I walk
under
buzzing drones every day and night, under the warplanes, leaving one
truly feeling like a target, no matter where we are.

I've heard time and time and time again, "They call us the
terrorists,
yet it's our kids, our wives, our mothers, our brothers dying. What
can we do? This is our life," from Palestinians, even before the
attacks, when it was Israel's siege on Gaza that was the most urgent
factor. Now that urgency is amplified beyond imagination by the on-
going attacks.

1.5 million Palestinians throughout the Gaza Strip are unable to run
from, escape from, these illegal attacks. My life, internationals
lives, are no more important than Palestinians' lives. We will stay
on
during their suffering, in solidarity and to document the illegal
acts
Israel is doing, the war crimes Israel clearly does not want the
world
to see, to understand, and is preventing journalists from reporting.
To see, to understand, means to stop Israel's bombardment of Gaza,
its
contravention of international humanitarian law and international
law.

[facts below according to the latest stats journalists are
publishing.
Again, bearing in mind that the attacks CONTINUE and the dead and
injured are still being brought in from new attacks, absolute numbers
are presently impossible. Certainly the numbers may be higher]

*428 dead from Israel's indiscriminate missile attacks throughout the
Gaza Strip
*2100 injured, many of these critically-so, standing death, lasting
brain damage, lasting internal problems, amputations
Of the dead and injured, significant numbers of civilians: children,
women, elderly, and innocent men who have been targeted.
*2 emergency medical personel targeted, killed; 15 further injured
* at least 8 mosques targeted, destroyed
*a park in Rafah targeted, killing two civilians (22 and 33 years
old)
and injuring 10s
* 3 different universities targeted, including Islamic University,
repeatedly targeted.
* schools targeted, including a secondary school
* UN schools suffering damage from targeting near the schools
*a kindergarten targeted
*charitable societies, providing life-skills training, targeted

===

For photos, see: http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2009/01/03/journal-
why-we-are-staying/

===

Jewish Women Occupy Israeli Consulate in Toronto*
Toronto: Wednesday January 8, 2009

A diverse group of Jewish Canadian women are currently occupying the
Israeli consulate at 180 Bloor Street West in Toronto.

This action is in protest against the on-going Israeli assault on the
people of Gaza.

The group is carrying out this occupation in solidarity with the 1.5
million people of Gaza and to ensure that Jewish voices against the
massacre in Gaza are being heard. They are demanding that Israel end
its military assault and lift the 18-month siege on the Gaza Strip to
allow humanitarian aid into the territory.

Israel has been carrying out a full-scale military assault on the Gaza
Strip since December 27, 2008. At least 660 people have been killed
and 3000 injured in the air strikes and in the ground invasion that
began on January 3, 2009. Israel has ignored international calls
for a ceasefire and is refusing to allow food, adequate medical
supplies and other necessities of life into the Gaza Strip.

Protesters are outraged at Israel's latest assault on the Palestinian
people and by the Canadian government's refusal to condemn these
massacres. They are deeply concerned that Canadians are hearing the
views of pro-Israel groups who are being represented as the only voice
of Jewish Canadians. The protesters have occupied the consulate to
send a clear statement that many Jewish-Canadians do not support
Israel's violence and apartheid policies. They are joining with
people of conscience all across the world who are demanding an end
to Israeli aggression and justice for the Palestinian people.

The group includes: Judy Rebick, professor; Judith Deutsch,
psychoanalyst and president of Science for Peace; B.H. Yael,
filmmaker; Smadar Carmon, an Canadian Israeli peace activist and
others.

===

Signs of Zionist Defeat Despite Palestinian Tragedy
The Free Palestine Alliance
January 7, 2009
http://wewillreturn.blogspot.com


As we prepare this 12th FPA statement, more than 697 Palestinians
have been murdered and at least 3,075 have been injured, with many
with very serious conditions. The majority of the casualty continues
to be children and their mothers and fathers. Many elders have also
been killed as they attempted to take refuge with their children and
grandchildren. Medics, rescue workers, and journalists are also
repeatedly targeted, causing the death and injury of many. All the
Palestinian political parties have reported that very few Palestinian
fighters have been killed, and that the overwhelming majority of the
targets have consistently been residential neighborhoods, including
schools, mosques, churches, and clinics. This was evident in the
repeated outrageous shelling of schools, as was the case yesterday,
killing more than 43 in one single bombing of the UN-run Jabalya
school.

The FPA continues to renew its call to sustain a widespread popular
protest, and to heed a call for a National Emergency Plan of Action
issued by the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, MAS Freedom, the Free Palestine
Alliance, the National Council of Arab Americans, and Al-Awda. We
call on our community to join the National March on Washington on
January 10, as we have an obligation to send a loud and clear message
of condemnation and outrage to the Bush administration and to the
incoming president, Barak Obama, who has arrived to Washington
awaiting his inauguration.

· For details and to find out about a protest near you,
please go here.
· For all previous FPA statements, go here.
· To know more about the FPA and read our statements, go
here.

Zionist Options are Slim:

As casualties increase in the ranks of the Zionist army, it is now
facing a major decision indicative of their impending defeat: to stop
where they are or move forward deeper on the ground to a third and
more engaged phase. Regardless of the decision, the outcome is dire
for the Zionist leadership. If they stop and withdraw, their plan
would be faced with a clear political defeat. If they move forward,
they will essentially have to stop at some point and withdraw; and
this will be at a higher political and military price. Their
available option at this point is to attempt to maximize damage while
simultaneously finding ways for political cover.

As the Israeli elections come closer, there are many unanswered
questions that the Zionist leadership cannot handle. For example,
will this slaughter achieve the declared goals, let alone the
undeclared? Will it have to be repeated, as was the case in
Lebanon? What will the political, military, economic, and diplomatic
costs be? Has the Zionist army lost its presumed supremacy as a
military force, once and for all – and that they are simply regarded
worldwide as killers of children? How does the Israeli polity
reconcile the massive Palestinian resistance within the 1948 borders
with the concept of a unified polity? How long will the Israeli
polity be able to sustain its colonial Apartheid character,
especially when exacerbate with military conquest?

Effectively, the Israeli Zionist establishment is at a point where it
has to search very hard for a political cover, internally and
externally. This provides great difficulties for its allies, such as
the US and Arab regimes, as they too have to search for their own
interests in the region. At what point do these interests diverge,
is a question that faces the axis of colonists and their proxy
functionaries. To be sure, the intensity of the Zionist onslaught
only aggravates the answers to this and similar questions, and makes
the alliance that much more difficult to sustain, particularly for
the weak Arab despots who are despised by the Arab people.

Diplomatic and Political Status:

In the most principled and practical position yet taken by a head of
state, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez expelled the Israeli
Ambassador from Venezuela in an act of solidarity with the
Palestinian people. President Chavez's action is in sync with
previous solidarity positions taken by him when the same Zionist army
attacked Lebanon in 2006. Simultaneously as we salute this
principled position by President Chavez, we reiterate our strongest
condemnation of positions adopted by the US, the European Union, and
Arab regimes. The UN Security Council once again failed to take an
appropriate position, and continued the charade of condemning "both
side", hence equating the colonists with the colonized.

The Egyptian regime, supported by the PA's Mahmud Abbas and Nicolas
Sarkozy of France, put forth an initiative for a "temporary cease
fire". The Israelis announced that they will halt the bombardment
everyday for 3 hours to allow for "humanitarian support". Both of
these positions are transparent for what they are, a fig leaf to
cover the murderous onslaught. The real purpose is to realign the
political and military configuration to gain control over a runaway
situation headed for Zionist defeat.

As we have indicated before, and as is being reiterated by many,
including Zionist military experts, there are no Israeli options for
political or military victory in this situation. Israel's defined
goals are flat out unattainable. They are only capable of inflicting
damage on the Palestinian population with the false hope that the
Palestinians will opt to surrender the resistance.

Clearly, one of their major goals is to replace the current political
formation in Gaza with a more obedient functionary polity, to be
headed by Mahmud Abbas. This option is now nearly impossible to
attain since the Palestinians will not accept a replacement that
would come on an Israeli tank. Recognizing this reality, Abu Mazen's
PA yesterday announced that they would not seek or participate in a
regime change in Gaza under these conditions. In reality, Abbas
could stop the negotiations, terminate all agreements, announce that
the Palestinians everywhere would mobilize in every manner to support
the Gaza Strip, and send all possible aid/support through Egypt.
This is what any respectable leader would have done in this case,
unless that presumed leader is complicit in the attack.

As for Egypt, it is not at all difficult to understand what the
appropriate response should be: Open the Rafah crossing, allow all
support to enter, terminate all relationships with the Zionist
polity, stop the supply of natural gas, and provide the Palestinians
with a support base. This is just the minimum. Of course, the
remaining Arab regimes are no exceptions.

In the Context of History and Geopolitics:

We here would like to refute the claim that the Arab nation does not
possess enough power to affect change. We believe that we do. We
are the owners and producers of the majority of the world's oil. We
control the intersection of three continents (Asia, Africa, and
Europe). We are major trade partners with Asian, African and
European nation. We control maritime, land and air trade routes. We
are the custodians of the birth place of the three monotheistic
religions (Christianity, Islam, and Judaism). We span a land mass
from the Arabian Gulf to the Atlantic Ocean that borders many
significant powers in the world. Currently, Arab regimes act as
hosts to various western bases and hubs for a variety of purposes.
Therefore the Arab people have the ability to exert massive economic,
diplomatic, and political pressure in a very effective manner. What
is needed, however, is a clear political will.

Effectively, this is what this entire onslaught is about: control
over the Arab nation and the placement of obedient functionaries as
the effective powers over millions of impoverished Arabs. In this
context, consider the position of Hugo Chavez. A similar position
would not be possible by the Arab regimes due to their servitude to
their colonial and neo-colonial powers. The real independence of
Venezuela allows not only principled positions, but also the
appropriate use of its wealth in the service of its own people and
the people of the world.

Such was the essence of the conflict during the decolonization era of
the fifties, sixties, and seventies, when the primary struggle was
between colonists attempting to control wealth and resources and the
colonized struggling to assert power over their own destiny. In
1956, the Tripartite attack on Egypt was in response to a Pan-Arabist
perspective championed by Gamal Abdel-Nasser that Arab wealth belongs
to the Arab people, and hence nationalized the Suez Canal to secure
funds to build the Aswan dam and rebuild Egypt. France, Britain and
Israel found that unacceptable and attacked, including attacking
Gaza. The international solidarity that existed at that time, and
the steadfast of the Egyptian leadership and people, secured a
victory in the face of the onslaught. In the same context, consider
the CIA coup in Guatemala in 1954 against Jacobo Arbenz, who dared to
challenge the robbery of United Fruit Company and the impoverishment
of the Guatemalan people. Such were, and continue to be, the same
pretexts used against the people of Cuba, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and
other Latin American countries to destabilize liberation movements
and sovereign nations in favor of colonial or neo-colonial control.
On the African continent, Amilcar Cabral, Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice
Lumumba, and many similar unique leaders for national liberation were
targeted for attempting to secure freedom for colonized people.

Essentially, the wrath of colonists is aimed not only at destroying
the lives of people and the robbery of nations, but also at the
cumulative reservoir of the culture of resistance that humanity
continuously achieves. The assault on Gaza, futile and horrendous as
it maybe, could and has destroyed many lives. But certainly, it will
be defeated in its attempt to destroy the Palestinian resistance
movement to colonial control.

===

ISM Digest January 5, 2009

1) Jabalia - 4th Jan 6pm - 5th Jan 5pm
2) Please support ISM Palestine's work in Gaza and the West Bank
3) It's really hard to post from here
4) Israel shells damage al-Awda hospital, Jabaliya
5) Interview with Alberto Arce regarding the Israeli attacks on
Palestinian medical personnel
6) Four medics killed by Israeli forces in Gaza

--------------------
1) Jabalia - 4th Jan 6pm - 5th Jan 5pm
By Sharon in Gaza, see blog at talestotell.wordpress.com

(Gaza, January 4, 2009) 6pm: To Al Awda hospital, run by the Union of
Health Work Committees. It normally has a 50 bed capacity but has
been
stretched to 75. E and Mo interview Ala'a, the medic from Jabalia RC
who was injured when Arafa was killed yesterday.

The story goes as follows:

It was about 8.30 am Saturday morning in Jabalia. Five teenagers
found
themselves under shell attack and tried to get away. Three escaped.
One, Tha'er, 19, had his foot blown off. His friend Ali, also 19,
tried to pick him up and carry him to safety, but was shot in the
head
and killed. It took 75- 90 minutes before a Jabalia Red Crescent
ambulance could reach them. Medic Arafa, 35, and Ala'a, 22, carried
Tha'er to the ambulance, and then went back for Ali's body. As they
closed the van door, they were shelled.

Ala'a says "I felt nothing - just that I was flying in the air and
then falling." Other ambulances evacuated all. Arafa, who was married
with 5 children, had a severe chest wound with most of one lung gone
and only survived 2 hours. Ali's head was blown off. Ala'a is now in
hospital with severe shrapnel wounds all over, especially chest and
legs. Tha'er survived but also now has several lacerations to back
and
body from shrapel.

Arafa was a teacher for the UN, gave medic training, and volunteered
as a medic after being one professionally earlier.

7pm: We arrange to sleep in shifts at Al-Awda hospital. V and I
crash.
E, A and M hitch a ride with the first RC ambulance that turns up,
out
to Karmel Adwan hospital, the Red Crescent's second new base since
evacuating their centre. The base is a few blankets in a corridor,
but
there is tea sometimes.

11pm: E comes back to sleep, V and I ride with O's ambulance to
Karmel
Adwan. O has a scarf wrapped round his knee, he was shot there some
years ago and has pain in cold weather. I talking A and Mo into going
to back to rest, but fail to convince EJ. The night turns out to be
quiet. Unfortunately, I soon understand this is because a) a lot of
Jabalia people have run away, and b) Israel is not letting the
ambulances collected most of the wounded that do call for help.

2pm: we collect a woman in labour. Back at the hospital, I chat to
Om,
who is a nurse but volunteers at the Al-Assyria Centre that the Union
of Health Work Committees runs. Also to M, in a hospital bed. He is
23, six months married, and made the mistake of standing next to the
Jabalia mosque that was bombed two days ago. He is now recovering
from
abdominal surgery.

Everyone has naps in the ambulances. EJ and I are being called hourly
by the BBC to contribute to news bulletins, "live from Gaza".

5am: we hear that there has been a threat to bomb Al Wafa hospital
which I understand is a centre for the disabled.

7.15am: we collect a man seriously injured by rocket explosion from a
house in Sikha St, Jabalia; I doubt he has more than minutes to live,
but he is still alive when we reach the hospital.

Injured woman having panic attack9am: we collect a woman whose home
has just been shelled, she is having a panic attack and I am not
clear
on her injuries. Back at the hospital people are loudly grieving for
two recent dead. These may be the nearly dead man my ambulance
collected and another I saw arrive, both horribly mangled by rockets
and the now-familiar grey colour.

9.30: we hear that Beit Hanoun is almost completely occupied by the
Israeli army, as is the nearby small town Zahra which commands the
north/south road. The north (us) and the south (F, G, and OJ in
Rafah)
may now be cut off from each other. We check in by phone, making
contingency plans.

10am: Mo's sister calls to tell him his village of Khosa is being
shelled; the farmland in the centre which is surrounded by housing.
"There's nothing there, just people's homes." he tells us. He says
there are now Israeli tanks in the Attatta and Shaimah areas of Beit
Lahia. This is 1km inside the border, and 2km away from us at
Jabalia.
He says tank invasions used to take main roads, but he expects this
time they will do what they did in February; bring in bulldozers and
go directly through the houses.

He tells us that today Palestinian phones are receiving recorded
messages from the army, saying "To the innocent civilians: our war is
not with you, but with Hamas. If they don't stop launching rockets,
you are all going to be in danger."

11.50: Call to near Gaza beach, turns out to be a mistake. Instead we
pick up a family with two little children who are evacuating, sat on
the side of the road, worn out from carrying bags. We passed Beit
Lahia UNRWA school earlier, it is filling up with refugee families.
Like Naher El Bared all over again.

N draws my attention to one more extremely crowded bread queue, and
then we discover a young teenage boy in the queue has collapsed from
exhaustion; the medics treat him to the extent they can.

4pm: F calls to say they've heard Al Awda hospital has been shelled.
I
ring EJ. She says a structure immediately beside it received two
shells; one person was injured, the man who lent her his jacket last
night. He has shrapnel to the head and she says he isn't looking too
good. A apparently caught the shelling on his camera. We wonder if we
should head back there to be again with Jabalia RC instead of Gaza
city RC. But Gaza city lost 3 of their medics yesterday.

Latest:

There have been two separate reports about Israeli attacks on funeral
tents. We are trying to confirm deaths and injuries for one. The
second of the funerals attacked was medic Arafa's yesterday
afternoon;
5 people were injured.

We have also had reports that in the Zaytoun area two days ago,
Israeli soliders rounded up a group of people into two houses; women
and children into one, men into the other, where they were kept for
two days. Then this morning at 11am Israeli forces shelled the
houses.
We have heard the number of deaths as between 7 and 20. One was a
seven year old boy whose father was interviewed on TV while holding
his body. We are trying to find out further details. It is getting
very hard to keep up with this insanity.

We asked the Jabalia Red Crescent admin person how much of the
emergency calls Israel is not letting them go to. These are in areas
where co-ordination must be made with the invading forces via the Red
Cross to enter. He said they are not being allowed to attend to about
80% of the calls from the north, covering the Beit Lahia, Beit
Hanoun,
and Jabalia area.

Shall I repeat that?
80%.. Eight of ten people calling for help are being prevented from
receiving it.

See photos at: http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2009/01/05/jabalia-
4th-jan-6pm-5th-...

--------------------
2) Please support ISM Palestine's work in Gaza and the West Bank

***Please circulate widely***

Dear Friends

Volunteers with the ISM from various countries are right now in Gaza,
witnessing, documenting and reporting on the Israeli massacre that
started December 27. They arrived on the Free Gaza Movements boats
that have repeatedly broken Israel's illegal blockade of Gaza; some
have been in Gaza since August.

Because they on are on the ground in Gaza, these international
volunteers are able to see first hand what is really going on. The
eyewitness information and photographs they have been able to get out
expose the true nature of Israeli war crimes.

ISM volunteers in the West Bank have been primarily working in East
Jerusalem, Ni'lin, Bil'in, and the Hebron and Nablus regions. They
work in coordination with the local residents in providing solidarity
against ethnic cleansing by residing with local families in
threatened
areas, supporting communities in their struggles against the Israeli
Apartheid Wall, and maintaining a nonviolent international presence
to
deter abuses by Israeli settlers and soldiers.

In addition to sending funds from your organizations, we urge you to
coordinate fundraisers in your area. Fundraisers are a great way to
spread the word about the situation in Palestine and collect the
money
necessary for us to continue.

If you can help provide funds for these vital causes please consider
these options for donation:

1. Donating via PayPal on the ISM website

2. If you wish to make a tax-deductible donation, please make your
checks of $50 or more to `NorCalISM' and put in the subject line
ATTORNEY FEES. Send to:

NorCalISM
405 Vista Heights Rd.
El Cerrito, CA 94530

3. Transferring money directly into the ISM Palestine bank account;

Please contact palrepo…@gmail.com for bank account details

In Solidarity,

ISM Palestine

http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2009/01/05/please-support-ism-
pales...

-----------------------
3) It's really hard to post from here
By Eva Bartlett, see blog at ingaza.wordpress.com

(Gaza, January 5, 2009) Every time I manage to make it back to Gaza
to write for a period, a new calamity.

"They're shelling Awda hospital," in Jabaliya, the news reports. Our
internationals there at the moment report it was two shells at a
police post next to the hospital, one hospital worker getting
shrapnel to the head, but surviving.

The numbers slaughtered and injured are so high now –521 and 3,000 as
of this morning, Gaza time — that sitting next to a dead or dying
person is becoming normal. The stain of blood on the ambulance
stretcher pools next to my coat, the medic warning me my coat may be
dirtied. What does it matter? The stain doesn't revolt me as it would
have, did, one week ago. Death fills the air, the streets in Gaza,
and I cannot stress that this is no exaggeration.

Back in Gaza city briefly, after a day and night again with the
medics, I'll try to summarize, though there is too much to tell, too
much incoming news, and it's too hard to reach people, even those
just a kilometer away. Before dropping me off, the medics had gone to
different gas stations, searching for gas for the ambulances. Two
stations, no luck. Some at a final source fills their tanks. The
absence of gas is critical. So is the absence of bread, which goes
on, the lines longer than ever yet.

A text tells me (at this point I have to rely on news from phone and
text messages, when reception is available) that the UN says 13,000
have been displaced since these attacks, that 20% of the dead are
women and children, 70 % are without drinking water. There are many
more facts to sober one drunk on apathy, but I can't source or share
them now.

The Israeli army occupied areas in the north, shelled houses,
demolishing them, many injuries, dead, many off-limits to the
ambulances.

Beit Hanoun is occupied by the Israeli army, which is now controlling
the entry points to the northern region, cutting it off. One small,
sub-par hospital without an ICU is staggering under the influx of
injured from house demolitions, shellings, shootings… Two ambulances
serve this region, I don't have any information on their condition,
the amount of petrol they have, or what areas of the Beit Hanoun
region are accessible or not.

Entering via an ambulance to take an emergency case to Gaza's Shifa
hospital, I see the Beit Hanoun hospital crammed, with a frenzied
air, families desperate to get their injured care…those who have been
able to get to the hospital. Mohammed Sultan, 19, stands dazed with a
gunshot graze to the back of his head. From Salateen, northwestern
Gaza, he had to walk 1 km before a car could reach him and take him
here.

The man we transfer to Shifa has been shot in the face. He is about
35, is a civilian, was in or near his house. His face has exploded,
and we move as fast as possible over torn up roads, ambulance jarring
as we move and as the medics try to administer delicate care. It's on
everyone's mind that the army is present here, that our safety is
not.

Beit Lahia and beyond, in the northwest, are mostly off-limits to
ambulances, leaving the wounded and dead where they are. The calls
from there for help, for evacuation, have been non-stop and now go
ignored.

In Zaytoun, reports have one extended family being separated men from
women, locked inside two houses, and the houses shelled a day later
(this morning, around 11 am). Bodies are still being pulled and
carted to Shifa hospital. Many estimate that as many as 20 were
killed, 10s more injured. I will go to Shifa after this to try to
confirm numbers, though again the disclaimer that confirmation in
these conditions takes time (and working phone lines). Zaytoun area
is occupied in parts, making ambulance access again nearly-
impossible, if not fully, I don't know at this point.

I'm told that areas further south have been invaded, shelled,
occupied. Like Zahara, and Juhadik in central Gaza. Press TV reporter
Yusuf al Helo told me this morning that the reason he hadn't answered
my phone calls last night (he is one of the better sources for up-to-
date news) was because his uncle, in the extended Zaytoun area, just
off the main Salah el Din street, was killed when Israeli forces
shelled their house. "My cousins were in the house too," he told me,
as were many more injured. Over 15 hours after the assault, Yusuf
updates me: "until now they still haven't been able to take the
injured and dead out of my uncle's house."

Last night, in a Jabaliya hospital, I talk with one nurse who tells
us that his brother Adham, an 8 year old, was shot in the neck and in
the chest at 4:30 pm that day (January 4th) when on his rooftop in
the same northwestern area that ambulances now cannot reach.

Mohammed tells me his village, Khosar, east of Khan Younis was
shelled in an agricultural area, one of the many open areas
continuing to be pummelled. One of the many areas period: open,
residential, market…

Painfully, I learn that after a hasty funeral, Arafa's mourning tent
was shelled yesterday, mourners inside. At least five injuries and
much insult.

at 4:37, Haidar updates me that "the house of the El Eiwa family,
from Shejaiyee, was attacked. Lots of casualties, including
children."

He updates me on a BBC report: "the one o'clock news on the local BBC
channel interviewed a Norwegian doctor in Gaza wo said some of the
victims bear traces of depleted uranium in their bodies."

http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2009/01/05/it%E2%80%99s-really-
hard...

4) Israel shells damage al-Awda hospital, Jabaliya

(Gaza, January 5, 2009) 2pm, Al-Awda hospital, Jabaliya, Gaza: The al-

Awda hospital in northern Gaza has been damaged by two Israeli
shells.

Spanish Human Rights Activist Alberto Arce reported:

"Two consecutive shells just landed in the busy car park 15 meters
from the entrance to the emergency room of the Al Awda hospital. The
entrance of the emrgency rooml was damaged. At the time of the
shelling Ambulances were bringing in the wounded that keep pouring
in. Medical teams and facilities are being targeted. Nowhere is safe"
Alberto Arce (Spain) – International Solidarity Movement

This attack on the hospital come the day after four medics were
killed by the Israeli military as they attempted to rescue injured
people. Six Palestinian medical personnel have now been killed by
Israeli attacks.

On December 31st, medic Mohammed Abu Hassera was killed on the spot
as his ambulance was shelled while trying to access the wounded. Dr
Ihab Al Mathoon, who was also on the ambulance, died in hospital a
few hours later. Yesterday, 4th January, Yaser Shbeir, Raf'at Al-
A'kluk, Arafa Hani `Abdul Dayem and Anes Fadel Na'im were killed when
Israeli shells targeted the ambulances they worked in.

"Israel has continued to violate international conventions by
attacking medical personnel. They are massacring the people of Gaza.
With the swelling number of civilian casualties, Israel must ensure
that medical assistance is available. Instead, they are intentionally
targeting the medical teams that are meant to be protected by the
Geneva Conventions. Israel's disregard for international law must be
confronted by the international community." – Vittorio Arrigoni
(Italy) – International Solidarity Movement

International Solidarity Movement activists are accompanying
ambulances in Gaza. They were, and will continue, working with
medical personnel during the Israeli Occupation Forces' ground
invasion into northern Gaza.

http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2009/01/05/israel-shells-damage-al-
...

5) Interview with Alberto Arce regarding the Israeli attacks on
Palestinian medical personnel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=S5reew35ujg&eurl=http://www.palsolidar...

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