date:2012-11-16

  • No safe haven: Civilians under attack in the Gaza Strip
    Nov 16, 2012 05:43 am | International Eyewitnesses in Gaza
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    Salem Waqef (Photo: Lydia De Leeuw)

    Gaza City, 16 November 2012

    The Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip have entered their third day. We write this report amid the sounds of incessant bombings, which have continued all day yesterday and throughout the night.

    The military escalation carried out by the Israeli Army continues all over the Gaza Strip. From Gaza City, we hear incessant noise of drones and F-16 fighter jets crashing through the sky above our heads. Bombs repeatedly fall in our surroundings, in densely populated civilians areas. At this point, Israeli air forces have conducted nearly 200 airstrikes, bringing the death toll to 19. Among the casualties are ten civilians, including six children and one woman. More than 180 people have been injured by the attacks, the vast majority civilians. The areas targeted included Beit Hanoun, Jabalia refugee camp, Sheikh Radwan and al-Nasser neighbourhoods in Gaza City, Maghazi, Deir El Balah, Khan Younis, and the tunnel area in Rafah.
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    Haneen Tafesh (Photo: Gisela Schmidt-Martin)

    Yesterday we visited Al Shifa hospital, where most of the injured are brought to. There we spoke with doctors, patients, their relatives, and witnesses about what they are going through in the current escalation in the Gaza Strip. We wish to share some of the stories of the people we met.

    Salem Waqef, a 40 year old man, was severely injured when his home was destroyed in an attack during the early morning of 15 November. His doctors say Salem suffered a brain injury when he was deprived of oxygen. He was brought into the International Care Unit of Al Shifa hospital at 5am where he was placed on a ventilator. He remains in a coma and the doctors said he was in a serious condition.

    At approximately 1.10pm, as we were leaving the ICU, a 10 month old girl, Haneen Tafesh, was brought into the ward. She was unconscious and her tiny body was grey. She had suffered a skull fracture and brain haemorrhage, which resulted from an attack that took place at around 11am yesterday in Gaza’s Sabra neighbourhood. She was in a coma and on mechanical ventilation. Later in the afternoon, we checked how Haneen was doing and doctors said her condition had deteriorated. After returning home in the evening, we learned that she had died.
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    Ahmed Durghmush (Photo: Lydia De Leeuw)

    Ahmed Durghmush is in his early twenties and was brought to Al Shifa ICU at around 9pm Wednesday night, 14 November, after he was injured by an airstrike carried out on the Tel al Hawa neighbourhood in Gaza City. He had suffered a severe brain trauma, caused by shrapnel from an explosion. Dr Fauzi Nablusia, a doctor in the ICU, explained that, when Ahmed arrived, some of his brain matter was protruding from his head wound. He suffered a brain haemorrhage and was operated on. When we asked doctors about Ahmed’s condition later today, they said it had deteriorated. A relative was standing over Ahmed’s bed, expressing his feelings of powerlessness and fear for Ahmed’s fate.
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    Basma Mahmoud el Tourouq (Photo: Lydia De Leeuw)

    The emergency room was dealing with spikes in victim arrivals throughout the day. One of those brought in was 5 year old Basma Mahmoud el Tourouq from Rimal neighbourhood, Gaza City. She was injured in an airstrike near her home around 2.30pm today. The shockwave of the explosion threw her across her bedroom, causing her lower arm to be fractured as she fell on the floor.

    We later listened to the stories of some of the injured children, women and men and their relatives who had been moved up to the different wards of Al Shifa hospital.

    Mohammed Abu Amsha, a two and half year old boy, was injured while he was sitting in front of his grandfather’s house in Beit Hanoun. An F16 fired a missile nearby, and scattering rubble struck him in the head. As we were about to leave, Mohammed’s father mentioned that Mohammed’s uncle had also been injured.
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    Mohammed Abu Amsha (Photo: Gisela Schmidt-Martin)

    Zuhdiye Samour, a mother and grandmother from Beach refugee camp in western Gaza City, was still visibly shaken by what had happened when she shared her story: “We were sitting together in our house. It was around 8.30 in the evening and we were watching TV, playing films so that the children would be less afraid. Then, we heard the sound of 12 shells being fired from gunboats in the sea.” Zuhdiye and three other civilians were injured as shells dropped in her neighbourhood, a residential area in the north of Gaza City.

    Khalid Hamad, the Director of Public Information for the Ministry of Justice, was one of the other civilians injured in the indiscriminate attack of the residential area. He was at home with his family in Nabarat, Northern Gaza City, when they heard the sound of shelling, targeting a neighbour’s home. A number of people in the neighbourhood rushed outside to help and were targeted by a series of six additional shells. Hamad’s teenage nephew was lightly injured,and another man received shrapnel wounds. “They targeted civilians deliberately”, he said. “The Israeli forces don’t make mistakes.”
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    Duaa Hejazi (Photo: Lydia De Leeuw)

    A 13 year old girl, Duaa Hejazi, was coming back to her home in Gaza’s Sabra neighbourhood, after a walk with her mother and siblings, when an Israeli missile fired on the road in front of their home around 8 o’clock at night. “I was bleeding a lot. My brother was injured too, in his hand. The neighbours brought me to the hospital” Duaa sustained shrapnel injuries throughout her upper body, with some pieces still imbedded in her chest. She would like to pass on a message to other children, living outside of Gaza:

    “I say, we are children. There is nothing that is our fault to have to face this. They are occupying us and I will say, as Abu Omar said, “If you’re a mountain, the wind won’t shake you”. We’re not afraid, we’ll stay strong.”

    During our time al Shifa we also met with Dr Mithad Abbas, the Director General of the hospital. When we asked him about the ways in which Shifa hospital is coping with the incoming patients, he said, “When those cases arrive at our hospital, it is not under normal circumstances. They come on top of the siege, the blockade, which has resulted in a lack of vital medicines and required medical supplies.” The hospital lacks essential basic medicines and supplies, such as antibiotics, IV fluid, anesthesia, gloves, catheters, external fixators, Heparin, sutures, detergents and spare parts for medical equipment.

    The hospital also relies on a store of fuel, which provides power during the daily electricity cuts. If power cuts reach the level of more than 12 hours per day, Dr Abbas estimates that the hospital only has enough fuel in storage to run for approximately one week.

    Hospital staff are encountering chaotic and emotional scenes, as hallways and rooms become overcrowded with people trying to ascertain whether their relatives or friends have been hurt. “People enter the emergency room in panic, looking for their relatives. It is very difficult to deal with,” says Abbas.

    No one knows where the next missile will hit, no one knows where they can be safe. Parents are unable to keep their children safe, let alone provide them a sense of safety.

    These are the names of the martyrs killed in the attacks:

    1- Walid Abadlah, 2 1/2 years

    2- Marwan Abu Al-Qumsan, 52 years

    3- Ramai Hamamd

    4- Khalid Abu Al-Nasser

    5- Habes Mesbeh, 30 years

    6- Wael Al-Ghalban

    7- Hisham Al-Ghalban

    8- Ahmed Al-Jaabari, 52 years

    9- Mohammed Al-Hams

    10- Ranan Arafat, 3 years

    11- Essam Abu El-Mazzah, 20 years

    12- Hani Al-Kaseeh, 18 years

    13- Ahmed Al-Masharawi, 11 months

    14- Hiba Al-Masharawi, 19 years, pregnant woman

    15- Mahmud Sawaween, 65 years old

    16- Hanin Tafish, 10 months

    17- Tareq Jamal Naser, 16 years

    18- Oday Jamal Nasser, 14 years

    19- Fares al-Bassiouni

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    For further information, please contact:

    Adie Mormech (British) +972 (0) 592280943

    Adriana (Italian, Spanish) +972 (0) 597241318

    Gisela Schmidt Martin (Irish) +972 (0) 592778020 blipfoto.com/GiselaClaire

    Joe Catron (United States) +972 (0) 595594326 twitter.com/jncatron

    Lydia de Leeuw (Dutch) +972 (0) 597478455 asecondglance.wordpress.com

    Meri (Italian) +972(0)598563299

    We are a group of internationals living in the Gaza Strip, working in the fields of journalism, human rights, education, and agriculture. We seek to defend and advocate for the rights of Palestinians in the context of the Israeli occupation and military operations. Besides being eyewitnesses ourselves, we gather our information from our personal networks across the Gaza Strip, from local media reports, medical staff, and local and international NGOs in Gaza.

    We verify the information we send out and hope our reports will contribute to accurate media coverage of the situation in Gaza.

  • Israeli Ground Invasion of Gaza Imminent

    Posted: 16 Nov 2012 12:50 AM PST

    IDF heavy weaponry, including tanks and armored personnel carriers are massing near the Gaza border, signalling Israel’s intent to launch a ground invasion of the enclave. 16,000 reservists have been summoned for military service, another sign of a planned assault. The AP has been speaking of tomorrow as the date for launching the new offensive. If these indications prove correct, then the killing machine will move into high gear and we should expect a rise in the casualty count (on both sides).

    My Israeli source tells me that there is one dominant reason why Bibi must invade. He can’t allow himself to be outdone by his rival, Ehud Olmert, who had an invasion of his own in 2009. Ehud Barak too, needs an invasion because he was defense minister during the first Gaza war and couldn’t stand for accepting less than what he “achieved” then. You may argue that this is overly cynical. My response? First, this perspective comes not from me, but from someone who has played senior roles in past governments and knows the players in this game well. Second, this should tell you how much great Israeli decisions of state are motivated by naked ambition, self-pride, and political survival. It may be true that when other world leaders launch a war they do so with strategic objectives in mind and for well-thought-out reasons. Not so, Israel. There, an election or a petty political rivalry is enough to cause the deaths of thousands. It reminds me of Nero’s fiddling while Rome burned.
    no to gaza war

    “No to Gaza War: Protest”

    Till now, 15 Gazans have died (including several small babies) and three Israelis have died. Today, a rocket struck Rishon Lezion, a southern suburb of Tel Aviv and a missile landed in the sea near Tel Aviv. This is the first time these communities have seen such weapons since the 1991 Iraq War.

    Israel has the Iron Dome anti-missile system. But as of yesterday, it only intercepted 20 of 80 projectiles fired into Israel. Even if we discount those which it detected would land harmlessly and which it didn’t target, clearly Iron Dome is quite fallible. It’s supposed to have an 80% success rate. I doubt it’s achieved that level of effectiveness.

    In my ongoing effort to deconstruct the lies and myths of the Israeli propaganda machine, it’s been common to hear Ahmed Jabari, the assassinated leader of Hamas’ military wing, spoken of as Gaza’s Osama bin Laden. It’s a great sound byte, punchy, visceral, dramatic. But as usual with these things, if you spend a few seconds contemplating the parallel, it’s entirely inapt. Jabari and bin Laden have only one thing in common: both were Muslims. Aside from that, little or nothing. Jabari stood for Islamism in the context of Palestine. He was a Palestinian nationalist, unlike bin Laden who dreamed of a world caliphate. Jabari believed in the gun, but only as a tool, not as a permanent strategy. He was, in fact willing to negotiate with Israel when it suited his purposes, which is how the Gilad Shalit deal was reached.

    A much more apt analogy is between Jabari and Israeli pre-state military heroes like Rabin, Sharon, Begin, Shamir or Avraham Stern. They too were radical in their demands. Truculent and willing to kill both the enemy (Arab and British) and their own fellow Jews if it advanced the cause of Jewish-Israeli nationalism. You hear few Israelis concede that if they look closely in the mirror they see Palestinians as reflections of themselves, their own national aspirations, and violent guerrilla past.

    One of the most disturbing developments today, is this article published by Haaretz, which reveals for the first time that Gershon Baskin, who was the Israeli mediator with Jabari in the Shalit deal, had transmitted to the Hamas leader only a few hours before his murder, a draft for a permanent truce agreement. The Israeli government appointed a staff committee to work on the project. The deal would’ve provided for Israel and Hamas to put down their weapons over an extended period of time. The agreement, if implemented, might have radically transformed the southern front and created room for further peace initiatives.

    For those of you with longer memories of the conflict, this will echo another historic assassination of a Hamas leader, Saleh Shehadeh in 2003. At that time, news reports spoke of his exploration of a long-term deal that would’ve called for a de-escalation of the conflict with Israel.

    This tells you that Israel doesn’t want stability on the Palestinian side. It doesn’t want a responsible partner. If a potential partner is responsible, better that he be killed.

    There is yet another historical parallel here to what happened among the Palestinians in the 1970s and 80s. Those who pursued a pragmatic approach that involved accommodation with Israel were pursued and assassinated by the radical elements of the Palestinian movement: Issam Sartawi was but one example. The rejectionists, whether Israeli or Palestinian, need chaos in order to achieve their ends. For Bibi, the end is permanent decimation of the Palestinians so they pose no threat to his expansionist national agenda.

    Do not believe another Israeli government representative who tells you Israel wants peace, Israel wants a ceasefire (as Michael Oren mendaciously told NPR today), etc. Israel wants war until it pulverizes the Palestinians into permanent submission.

    Speaking of Michael Oren, if you heard his interview, did you note both the interviewers relatively softball questions (BBC interviewers are MUCH tougher), and the fact that they interviewed no one critical of the Gaza assault to balance his hasbara? It reminds me of Oren’s last visit to Seattle during which Steve Scher of KUOW interviewed him for 20 minutes during which there was no guest to offer a counter-perspective, nor were listener call-ins permitted. Our U.S. media has caved shamefully to the hasbara steamroller. Instead of being journalists, they allow themselves to be exploited on behalf of Israel’s national interests.

    I was also tickled by Oren’s practically beseeching Hamas to accept a ceasefire, one that the Islamist movement offered Israel a day or so before it murdered Ahmed Jabari. The Gentleman Liar wants the world to believe that Israel doesn’t want to kill Gazans, but that the victims simply give them no choice. Diabolical, as is so much of Israeli hasbara these days.

    The hasbarafia of UK Jewry has rallied to Israel’s defense, touting the IDF’s “Jewish ethical ethos.” This is a moral abomination. Killing babies is neither Jewish nor ethical. Support this travesty if you wish. But not in the name of Judaism.

    Rabbi Eric Yoffie, former leader of Reform Judaism, has also attempted to co-opt Jewish progressives by arguing that this war is just, and that continuing the intolerable status quo:

    …Undermines the sovereignty of the Jewish state and strikes a fatal blow at the very raison d’etre of Zionism.

    L’hefech, learned rav. Murdering babies does far more to undermine Israeli sovereignty and the Zionist Idea. I was raised to respect rabbis and the rabbinate. But such nonsense reminds me that even rabbis can be just as stupid as the rest of us.