Gaza Human Rights

Welcome Swallow

2009-04-18T16:51:00.001+10:00

Welcome Swallow
Originally uploaded by steve happ

Acts of Terrorism and Acts of War

2009-02-20T10:21:00.001+11:00

Acts of Terrorism and Acts of War

The standard dictionary definition of terrorism is the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion (see note). As a condition, terror is a state of intense fear or anxiety. As an act, terror is violent or destructive behavior motivated by a desire to intimidate a population or government into changing course or granting a demand. Although, as with any term, there is no universal definition of terrorism, the consensus is that terrorism refers to acts intended to terrorize people (not merely the destruction of property or sabotage), that are systematic and motivated by political goals, and that either deliberately target or consistently disregard the safety of non-combatants (civilians).
Granting this understanding, and setting aside contrived definitions of terrorism found in self-serving law codes created by specific states to advance particular interests, it is difficult to argue that those individuals who attacked the Navy destroyer the USS Cole in October 2000, while harbored in the Yemeni port of Aden, are terrorists. True, seventeen American sailors were killed in the attack. But sailors are not non-combatants. Whether you agree with the motive of those who carried our the bombing, the USS Cole was a legitimate military target. In March of 2007, a federal court ruled that the Sudanese government was responsible for the bombing, arguing the al-Qaeda operatives who carried out the attack could not have done so without the assistance of the Sudanese government. This ruling means that the attack on the USS Cole was an act of war. It follows, then, that those held by US authorities at Guantanamo Bay are to be treated in a manner consistent with the Geneva Convention and other international principles concerning the treatment of prisoners or war. To consistently identify the case of the USS Cole as part of an ongoing war on terror (whatever this war is really about) is inappropriate.
In contrast, the acts of Israel in Gaza, Operation Cast Lead, which started on December 27, 2008 and lasted until January 18, 2009, killing more than 1300 Palestinians, injuring thousands more, and destroying hundreds of millions of dollars worth of property, do constitute terrorism, as the acts amounted to the systematic use of terror as a means of coercing Palestinians into ceasing acts of resistance to Israeli colonization and occupation of Palestinian land. The Israeli policy of both targeting civilians (around 70 percent of those killed were civilians, one third were children) and consistently disregarding the safety of civilians was intended to terrorize Palestinians. Yet, the United States not only backed Israel all the way, but is now seeking to prevent Palestinians access to weapons to defend themselves from violence and resist colonization while continuing to sell weapons to Israel (including DIME and white phosphorus ordinance).
Note: Coercion is often defined as restraining or dominating by force or to achieve by force of threat. But it is also defined as an act or situation that compels persons to act certain ways or choose certain things. To compel means to drive or urge forcefully or irresistibly. Hunger, for example, compels one to behave in ways that increase the likelihood of food, since hunger compels one to eat (failure to eat causes death, therefore any policy that causes starvation is homicide). For example, a situation in which land is monopolized by a few, and the many are forbidden to freely seek food, compels the many to act in ways they otherwise would not, by either submitting themselves to the wishes of the few or organizing to overthrow the rule of the few (for those who own the land inevitably rule those who do not). The former usually takes the form of some type of servitude, ranging from chattel slavery (where persons are outright owned) to wage slavery (where persons are compelled to rent their bodies). Any situation becomes coercive when there are few or no alternatives to acting in ways contrary to the actor's wishes. Not all coercion is wrong. Ideally, the criminal law is designed to coerce people into making socially-appropriate choice, these designed to enhance the freedom of society as a whole.

http://wwsword.blogspot.com/2009/01/acts-of-terrorism-and-acts-of-war.html

Caryl Churchill play: Seven Jewish Children: a response to Gaza

2009-02-19T18:02:00.002+11:00

Caryl Churchill, one of Britain's leading playwrights has written a short play, called Seven Jewish Children: A Play for Gaza, which is a ten minute history of Israel, ending with the bombing of Gaza. Thirteen performances are taking place on the main stage of the Royal Court in London. Churchill has said "It came out of feeling strongly about what's happening in Gaza - it's a way of helping the people there. Everyone knows about Gaza, everyone is upset about it, and this play is something they could come to. It's a political event, not just a theatre event…. Anyone can perform it without acquiring the rights, as long as they do a collection for people in Gaza at the end of it."
The Guardian’s Michael Billington writes “The work consists of seven cryptic scenes in which parents, grandparents and relatives debate how much children should know and not know. It moves, implicitly, from the Holocaust to the foundation of the state of Israel through the sundry Middle East wars up to the invasion of Gaza. At first, the advice indicates the deep divisions within Israel ("Tell her they want to drive us into the sea" / "Tell her they don't"); at the end, it becomes a ruthless justification for self-preservation ("Tell her we're the iron fist now, tell her it's the fog of war, tell her we won't stop killing them till we're safe")…What she captures, in remarkably condensed poetic form, is the transition that has overtaken Israel, to the point where security has become the pretext for indiscriminate slaughter. Avoiding overt didacticism, her play becomes a heartfelt lamentation for the future generations who will themselves become victims of the attempted military suppression of Hamas.”
An extract of the play is below:
“Don’t tell her how many of them have been killed
Tell her the Hamas fighters have been killed
Tell her they’re terrorists
Tell her they’re filth
Don’t
Don’t tell her about the family of dead girls
Tell her you can’t believe what you see on television
Tell her we killed the babies by mistake
Don’t tell her anything about the army
Tell her, tell her about the army, tell her to be proud of the army. Tell her about the family of dead girls, tell her their names why not, tell her the whole world knows, why shouldn’t she know? tell her there’s dead babies, did she see babies? Tell her she’s got nothing to be ashamed of. Tell her they did it to themselves. Tell her they want their children killed to make people sorry for them, tell her I’m not sorry for them, tell her not to be sorry for them, tell her we’re the ones to be sorry for, tell her they can’t talk suffering to us. Tell her we’re the iron fist now, tell her it’s the fog of war, tell her we won’t stop killing them till we’re safe, tell her I laughed when I saw the dead policeman, tell her I wouldn’t care if we wiped them out, the world would hate us is the only thing, tell her I don’t care if the world hates us, tell her we’re better haters, tell her we’re chosen people, tell her I look at one of their children covered in blood and what do I feel? Tell her all I feel is happy it’s not her. “
The full text of the play can be downloaded from:
http://www.royalcourttheatre.com/files/downloads/SevenJewishChildren.pdf
The URL for the Royal Court is:
http://www.royalcourttheatre.com/whatson01.asp?play=548

Gaza:WHAT CAN I DO? SOME SUGGESTIONS here

2009-02-17T09:38:00.002+11:00

BRINGING IT HOME

http://www.transcend.org/tms/article_detail.php?article_id=823

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By Jake Lynch

I live in the northern Sydney suburb of St Ives, in an area known as Ku-ring-gai, so called after the Aboriginal people who are its traditional owners and custodians. Ku-ring-gai was named in a survey last year as having the highest quality of life of anywhere in Australia. Australia being, at the same time, top of the UN’s Human Development Index, we could be said to enjoy the highest quality of life anywhere in the world (that grinding sound you can hear is the local real estate agents sharpening their pencils).
It was people like me, no doubt, who Rihab Charida had in mind when she told a Sydney audience recently that they could have “literally no idea” what life was like for Palestinians. As I listened to her, I remembered how I found, on my first trip to the West Bank, that nothing I had read had quite prepared me for the day-to-day realities confronting the friends who made us feel so welcome.

And nothing encountered on short visits can give anything more than a general impression of the impotence, unpredictable peril and sheer randomness of living under Israel’s military occupation.
Charida is known to many of us as the Australia correspondent for the Iranian television news channel, Press TV, in which capacity she has been to interview me several times. She’s also the daughter of Palestinian refugees, and she was speaking at a weekly gathering that has become a Sydney institution, Politics in the Pub.

The pub looming large in many Australian communities, there is a sense in which the exchanges there, which actually take place in a local Gaelic club, serve to bring world events home to us in our privileged and largely sheltered part of the world. Every Friday evening, a different panel of speakers take it in turns to make statements and answer audience questions.
This particular evening was opened by the celebrated stage and screen actress, Judy Davis. She risked – and, through exquisite comic timing, carried off – an anecdote about her attempt to cater for a Jewish dinner guest, which went awry when the meal she’d prepared turned out, inadvertently, to infringe on religious observances. She went on to recall conversations she’d had, over the years, with showbusiness colleagues, about the conflict with the Palestinians.

Davis’ humorous yet moving contribution ended by inviting us to join her in saluting the courage of those who speak out, like Charida, and fellow panellist Antony Loewenstein, the journalist and author who has specialised in raising, from within Sydney’s Jewish community, questions that many would rather remain unasked.
One of these questions brings the conflict home as far as leafy St Ives itself. The suburb boasts a branch of the chocolate café chain, Max Brenner. It’s a hang-out for local youth – preferable, no doubt, to their parents at least, to having them drawn to the pub – but it also makes us complicit in the conflict, and even in the behaviour of the so-called ‘Israeli Defence Force’. Recently, Loewenstein has been alerting us to boasts by the café’s corporate owners of how they support the troops.
Under the heading, ‘In The Field With Soldiers’, the Strauss group tells browsers of the ‘Corporate Responsibility’ page of its website that:
“Our connection with soldiers goes as far back as the country, and even further. We see a mission and need to continue to provide our soldiers with support, to enhance their quality of life and service conditions, and sweeten their special moments. We have adopted the Golani reconnaissance platoon for over 30 years and provide them with an ongoing variety of food products for their training or missions, and provide personal care packages for each soldier that completes the path. We have also adopted the Southern Shualei Shimshon troops from the Givati platoon with the goal of improving their service conditions and being there at the front to spoil them with our best products”.
The Givati platoon took part in ‘Operation Cast Lead’, the assault on Gaza which began on December 27, 2008, and the Golani platoon are carrying out their reconnaissance in territory that Israel illegally seized from Syria in 1967, and has illegally hung onto ever since.
Apartheid
It therefore places Max Brenner on a different front line, the one looming large in the minds of anyone who – like many in the audience at Politics in the Pub – has asked: what can I do, in response to the naked brutality and lawlessness of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians?

The chocolate on sale in Max Brenner is imported from Israel, so profits go directly to support the country’s economy and the company – by its own account – goes out of its way to support the military. It therefore falls squarely into a category singled out by Naomi Klein as a valid target for boycotting.
It’s one of a number of persuasive comparisons between the situation facing the Palestinians and that of blacks in Apartheid South Africa. Indeed, the then South African Intelligence Minister, Ronnie Kasrils – a veteran Communist of Jewish descent – said a couple of years ago, on a visit to the occupied territories, that the architecture of segregation he had witnessed was worse than the bad old days in his homeland.

“The best strategy to end the increasingly bloody occupation is for Israel to become the target of the kind of global movement that put an end to Apartheid”, Klein wrote, in The Nation, as the pounding of Gaza was at its height.
Back in the 1980s, I remember attending the massive anti-Apartheid demonstration in London, where exiled ANC leader Oliver Tambo spoke, along with the Reverend Jesse Jackson. “It’s not the destitute, or the prostitute”, Jackson intoned, to the assembled masses in Trafalgar Square, “but the man in the three-piece suit that is keeping Apartheid alive in South Africa today”. It was a plea to put the bite on businesses, which ultimately depend on our custom and goodwill to survive.
Sport was also seen as a means to bring pressure to bear. “Sports and business have a lot of common ground”, the Strauss website burbles. “It is no wonder that the language of business often uses terms from the world of sports such as team work, friendship, tolerance and support”.

One of the classic anti-Apartheid posters, which festooned our student bedsits, showed a South African policeman wielding a sjambok on a crowd of black protestors, above the slogan, “If you could see their national sport, you might be less keen to play them at rugby”.
I can imagine handing out leaflets outside Max Brenner in St Ives, perhaps showing a stricken Palestinian family being lowered over by a gun-toting Israeli soldier with some wording such as, “If you could see what they have for breakfast, you might be less keen to eat their chocolate”. It could cause ructions.

St Ives is home to a sizeable Jewish community, although we should not leap to the conclusion that its members automatically support Israel, any more than does Antony Loewenstein – indeed, many may very well be emboldened to speak out for what they believe is right, by his courage and example. Another notable contingent locally is South African émigrés, many of whom were glad to see the end of Apartheid, only to become disillusioned at the country’s continuing problems, and vote, with their feet, to leave.
Lobbying
Activists in Australia are now redoubling their lobbying efforts to get the government to take a firmer line. Pronouncements by the acting Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, in the early days of the latest crisis, proclaiming Israel’s “right to defend itself”, became a focus for particular discontent. Foreign Minister Stephen Smith has now agreed to meet a deputation, which will call on Australia to:
“Use its diplomatic leverage to:
· Request that the Quartet on the Middle East and its Special Envoy Tony Blair, and the US Special Envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell, expedite a just peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by ending Israel’s economic blockade and illegal occupation of Palestinian Territories.

· Demand full and unimpeded humanitarian access for humanitarian staff and assistance, including of food, fuel and medical treatment.

· Secure the immediate lifting of the Israeli blockade on Gaza to allow freedom of movement of people and trade in and out of Gaza”.
The letter sent to Smith continues:
“We also urge the Australian Government to increase its humanitarian commitment to the Palestinian civilians affected by the conflict:
· By immediately increasing its allocation of funding and resources for relief and reconstruction efforts for long-term recovery.

· To immediately provide in-kind support to civilians, and specific support and resources for women and children, affected by the conflict to ensure access to adequate health services (including treatment in third countries - and/or Australia as needed).

· To immediately increase access to education services for Palestinians, including scholarship programs in Australia, to build capacity for long-term reconstruction in Gaza”.
This last point brings the issue home in a different way, of course, since we university academics would, in many cases, gladly accept Palestinian scholarship students on to our degree programs. Another option, that is often raised, would find us more divided, however. Should we extend our boycott from the men in suits at the Strauss Group to men and women in academic gowns?
When this question arose at Politics in the Pub, Rihab Charida had a ready answer – only shun contact with academics and institutions clearly complicit in the regime. That’s a relief for me, since I have enjoyed good cooperation and collegiality with Israeli colleagues who work courageously, in both professional and personal capacities, for peace. They deserve our support.
There is a phenomenon of social psychology known as ‘the bystander effect’. The more onlookers there are, at an incident of danger or depravity, the less likely it is that any one of them will take decisive action to bring it to an end.

The murderer witnessed in the act by fifty people will get away, because everyone will assume someone else has called the police. Michael Ignatieff, in The Warrior’s Honor, argues that television’s global reach has now made the inequalities of today’s world into everyone’s business, and an implicit moral challenge to all of us. But it may simply have increased the number of bystanders.

My colleague, Annabel McGoldrick, has found that the way conflicts are reported tends to make us feel ‘disconnected’ from any prospect of a solution to the all-too evident problems. It has to start somewhere, though – so it may as well start here, with a chocolate melt.

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Gaza-- In Gods Light - from me

2009-02-16T21:48:00.000+11:00

Gaza Human Rights: Scenes from Gaza Catastrophe

2009-02-16T10:04:00.005+11:00

February 14, 2009

Scenes from the 'new Nakba'

The following report was written by a delegate on a recent National Lawyers Guild delegation to Gaza.

The Second Nakba

By: Reem Salahi

History repeats itself. With the key to her demolished home around her neck, the middle-aged Palestinian woman standing before me had escaped the first Nakba (meaning 'Day of Catastrophe' marking the exodus of Palestinians from their homes with the creation of the State of Israel) of 1948 only to live through the second Nakba; the Nakba of 2009, which was more destructive and deadly than the first.

In order to reach the tent city in Jabalia, we walked down a long road of pure destruction and demolition; destroyed homes, mosques, buildings, bakeries and stores.

I had wanted to see the tent city in Jabalia to take pictures and talk to the residents living there. Undoubtedly, these people were the most affected by Israel's recent offensive as their livelihoods were minimized to nothing more than a 6x8 foot white tent which had no amenities and housed up to fifty persons per tent.

Wherever we looked there was destruction and children; children who had lost the roof over their heads and now stood vulnerable to not only the elements, but also to Israel's continued bombing of border villages. One child walked up and down the road with a piece of rubble tied to a long cord. It was his new toy since his old toys were lost under the ruins of what used to be his home. Men stood around, drinking tea and talking. With the backdrop of mounds of rubble and tents was another man, praying, on a piece of tarp. While the Israelis had taken away everything else of his, they did not take away his God, and to this, he bowed his head in gratitude.

These Palestinians stand under the burning sun day-in and day-out living their lives for no particular purpose. Many of them used to be farmers. Most of them had lost multiple family members. All of them had lost their homes and farms. An older woman sat in the sand swatting flies. We approached her, as we were told by the residents of this tent city that she had lived through both Nakbas – the Nakba of 1948 and the Nakba of 2009.

Born in 1945, Sabha Yousef Mohammad Abed had lived through the first Nakba but had lost her husband and her farm in the second. Sabha had left her home in Brett (sp?) near Jaffa in what is currently considered Israel-proper when the Zionist forces had first come. Her family fled from one village to the next to escape the Zionist forces until she eventually landed in Gaza, in the village of Jabalia, a few months later. After the first Nakba, she lived for a few years in tents but slowly her life improved as the tents changed into block rooms and from block rooms to actual homes and farms. While Sabha was very young during the first Nakba, she remembers the fear and the constant fleeing from one village to the next. She remembers being shot at and losing family members. She remembers the uncertainty of life and the tents and the running sewage. But more so, she remembers building her life block by block from scratch and establishing a home for herself and her family. Sabha lost this home during the first week of Israel's offensive and is now living in a tent with her children.

While Sabha has never experienced complete stability due to ongoing wars and bombardment from Israeli forces and settlers, she had never seen the magnitude of bloodshed and brutal force used against Palestinians as she saw in Israel's recent offensive. Israeli forces began their aerial strikes against Jabalia on the second day of the offensive. Israeli forces bombed homes and civilians indiscriminately as her neighbors tried to flee. Many of those who tried to flee were taken as hostages by Israeli soldiers and many others were killed or fatally injured. Those who were only mildly injured bled to death due to the lack of medical access and the ambulance drivers' inability to drive the less than one kilometer stretch from the headquarters of the Palestinian Red Cross Society to the bombed-out areas.

As Sabha spoke about Israel's recent offensive, she shook in anger. Tell me where are the militants, she kept asking. Are these children militants? Does any human being deserve to live the way we live, fifty people to one tent with no blankets, no food, no water. And where do we defecate? They have even taken away our dignity. We are less than animals in their eyes. Even animals have more rights than us. To Sabha, Israel's objectives were nothing short of genocide. The Zionists fled from a holocaust and created a new one. They want a land with no people, she stated simply. A land without people for a people who have been purged from their land. For Sabha, this was not a war with Hamas, it was a massacre, and its only objective was to eliminate the Palestinians, to wipe them from the face of the earth.

Sabha told us of how the Israeli soldiers entered their village in midday and separated the men from the women. The soldiers' faces were painted black and they shot at the villager's feet. When Sabha saw her sons being taken away as hostages, she left her aging husband and farm behind and hid in the home adjacent to the hostages. The other women were made to march to the city center under the aerial strikes and constant bombing. Those who resisted or turned back were immediately shot. All around the streets were the dead and injured. The area smelled of phosphorus and rotting bodies. Sabha stayed in hiding for many days. During that time, her husband was forced from their farm as Israeli bulldozers demolished the farm and bulldozed the walls of the farm over their goats, sheep, chicken and camels. Sabha's husband, who stood on the street and watched his farm and home being demolished before his eyes, was killed moments later by an Israeli missile. One of the farm's walls fell over his dead body, and his body lay rotting for days.

As Sabha spoke, the entire village surrounded us. Even the children stood around in a circle and added to Sabha's narrative. One girl, about seven or eight years of age, tugged at my sleeve. That was my home over there, she whispered, pointing at rubble. She was in school when the bombing started. Embarrassedly, she admitted that she was so scared during the bombings that she fainted and peed on herself. Her brother was killed as was many of her extended family.

Sabha is not alone in her anger. I have not met one Palestinian in Gaza who was not shocked and angered by the extent of Israel's brutality in the recent offensive. After conducting an interview with one of the delegates, anchorman and filmmaker Ashraf Mashharawi from British Channel 4 spoke with me about his 16 year old cousin, Ahmad, who was sliced in half by what is believed to be a DIME missile. DIME or Dense Inert Metal Explosives produce an unusually powerful blast within a small area and cause strong biological effects. The blast does not cause bleeding, but rather slices a body as smoothly as though the body was amputated. While Israel's use of DIME has not been officially confirmed, it has been unofficially confirmed by weapons experts and doctors who have visited Gaza.

Ahmad along with Ashraf's younger brother, Mahmoud, age 11, were playing on the rooftop when they were targeted by a drone missile. Both Mahmoud and Ahmad were killed on impact and Ahmad was sliced in half. Days later, the bottom portion of Ahmad's body was located a few kilometers from the rooftop that both Mahmoud and Ahmad were playing on. Parts of Ahmad's legs and one of his arms similarly separated from his body and were found on the rooftop by family members.

Having seen pictures of these DIME-caused amputations, I must admit that it is the most horrifying sight one can imagine. One of the doctors at Al Awda Hospital showed me a video on his cell phone of a baby girl who was similarly sliced in half. Her top half was black from the blast and her bottom half was gone, cleanly cut from the waist down as her guts and insides were exposed for the world to see. In the video, when the doctor – who had undoubtedly seen death in all its forms – approached to see her, he fell to the ground and started wailing. I cannot describe the sight of the girl. Even now as I write about it, I feel light-headed and nauseous. No news station, not even Al-Jazeera, agreed to film this girl. Having seen the doctor's video, I can only sympathize.

Today is Israel's elections. Yet for the Palestinians, the question is not who will take over Ehud Olmert's position, but rather, when will be the next Israeli offensive, how many more Palestinians will be killed, and what will the next genocide that will undoubtedly wipe the memory of all Palestinians living in Gaza look like. Before leaving the tent city in Jabalia, I told Sabha that insha'Allah I will come back to see her in better days, in happier days. She laughed and patted my hand. When you come back, she said, you will be lucky to see any Palestinian left alive here. But maybe its better that we are killed, this life has been hard and painful. I have only wanted peace and stability throughout my life, and have gotten neither. Now I have lost hope. I have lived through many wars, yet I have never seen any war like this before. That is why I know that Israel is out to eradicate us. It failed to eliminate us this time, but will not fail next time. That is why I don't think you will come back and find us next time. Alhamdulillah (thanks to God), that is all I can say. Alhamdulillah.

Posted at 10:48 AM in Adam Horowitz, Gaza, Israel/Palestine | Permalink

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Amnesty call to LIFT THE BLOCKADE and to investigate war crimes in Gaza

2009-02-14T19:57:00.001+11:00

Gaza aid convoy due to leave UK

2009-02-14T19:32:00.003+11:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7889948.stm

A convoy of 110 vehicles is due to leave London for Gaza to deliver £1m of humanitarian aid.

Hundreds of volunteers will act as drivers during the mission, which is organised by umbrella body Viva Palestina and backed by Muslim groups.

Its 5,000-mile route will pass through France, Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt.

Respect MP George Galloway, who will help drive the convoy, said a peaceful "intifada" was sweeping the UK.

The Gaza Strip is facing a humanitarian crisis following Israel's recent three-week offensive.

About half of Gaza's population is dependent on UN food aid.

'Beleaguered population'

Other backers of the mission include the Stop the War Coalition, the Respect Party, the Anglo-Arab Organisation and several UK trade unions.

It will include 12 ambulances, a boat and trucks full of medicines, tools, clothes, blankets and shoe-boxes as well as gifts for children.

Mr Galloway said it would be the largest convoy of British vehicles to north Africa since the days of Field Marshall Montgomery.

"There is an intifada sweeping Britain," he added.

"It is a massive and peaceful movement in support of the beleaguered population of Gaza and Palestine.

"It is happening everywhere, but is especially strong in the north of England and especially among young Muslims."

Free Gaza Art Festival

2009-02-13T21:19:00.002+11:00

Free Gaza Art Festival

by Golrokhn

http://golrokhn.blogspot.com/

Free Gaza Art Festival

2009-02-13T21:08:00.001+11:00

Gaza: New video message from leading artists on war crimes accountability

2009-02-13T15:38:00.001+11:00

Gaza: New video message from leading artists on war crimes accountability
Posted: 11 February 2009

Video from artists says war crimes should not be ignored

'There's almost a conspiracy of silence over war crimes in Gaza' - Kate Allen

Acclaimed actors, directors and other artists are spearheading a new drive for accountability over war crimes committed during the Israel-Gaza conflict.

In a new video featuring the former Monty Python star and author Terry Jones, as well as Annie Lennox, Thandie Newton, Alexei Sayle, Mike Figgis, Katharine Hamnett and Jason Flemyng, the artists voice their support for Amnesty International's ongoing efforts to secure justice for both Palestinians and Israelis who suffered gross human rights abuses during the conflict.

The artists in the video also make an impassioned call for Israel to lift the blockade on Gaza, an action that Amnesty has denounced as 'collective punishment of Gaza's civilian population'.
Speaking in the video the film director Mike Figgis says:

'The targeting in particular of civilians, for whatever reason, let's be clear about this, this is a war crime.'

Meanwhile, Terry Jones says:

"Those within Hamas and the Israeli government must be held responsible, even if it means arresting senior people.'

Amnesty International and other human rights and humanitarian organisations have amassed significant evidence of war crimes committed by the Israeli Defence Forces and by armed Palestinian groups during the 22-day conflict. Amnesty researchers found undeniable evidence of war crimes, including the use of civilians as 'human shields', the indiscriminate firing of rockets into civilians areas, and the IDF's use of 'white phosphorous' shells in residential areas of Gaza.

Amnesty is now pressing for an independent international investigation into these violations of international law, with the perpetrators being brought to justice in fair trials.

Another supporter of the effort to tackle war crimes in Gaza is the former international Development Secretary, Clare Short MP, who said this week:

'It's depressing but predictable that, as things stand, with little word from the UN Security Council, no-one looks likely to be held responsible for the wiping out of hundreds of civilian lives in the three-week Gaza war.'

Amnesty International UK Director Kate Allen said:

'The more people that speak out about war crimes committed during the Gaza conflict the better and it's vitally important that the UK government breaks its own silence on this. There's almost a conspiracy of silence over war crimes in Gaza that's totally unacceptable. Speaking out is one way of trying to stop this horrible cycle of violence beginning all over again.'

The video is available at www.amnesty.org.uk/gazacrisis

Petition seeks Jews critical of Gaza action

2009-02-12T09:46:00.000+11:00

http://jta.org/news/article/2009/02/11/1002941/petition-seeks-jews-critical-of-gaza-action
Petition seeks Jews critical of Gaza action
February 11, 2009

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- A group of Jewish intellectuals and clergy is appealing to Jews who are "supportive of Israel but troubled by the Gaza campaign."

An advertisement soliciting signatures for a petition condemning Israel's recent action in the Gaza Strip as "unjust" and creating a "humanitarian disaster" is set to appear Thursday in The New York Jewish Week.

"We condemn Hamas and Israel for violating the human rights of civilians on both sides, although we do not necessarily declare these violations to be morally or legally equivalent," the petition reads. "We affirm the rights of both Israeli and the Palestinian peoples to self-determination and self-defense, as we affirm the rights of both Israelis and Palestinians to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

The petition is organized by two bloggers, Richard Silverstein and Jerry Haber, who have been critical of Israel's policies on Palestinians.

Rabbis and cantors are among the 350 signatories to date, as well as leftist intellectuals such as Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn and Murray Polner.

Organizers plan to run the ad in an Israeli newspaper as well.

GAZA -Steadfast Before Goliath

2009-02-11T20:38:00.003+11:00

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090223/bargouthi

Steadfast Before Goliath
By Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi
February 6, 2009

When I am asked about Palestinian identity, one idea keeps coming to mind. I was told it would be translated into English as "steadfastness." I looked up what a steadfast person would be like and the dictionary says, "One marked by firm determination or resolution--not shakable--of firm convictions and strong resolve. A man of unbendable perseverance and unwavering loyalty."

That's pretty close to what I had in mind, but somewhat incomplete--it is hard to capture an entire people in a word. Steadfastness refers to our Palestinian character of never giving in. It refers to our standing up to overwhelming odds time and again, without a friend in our corner. It is about our being beaten and abused in every way known to man, only to get back up with our heads held high.

This is impressive, but if it is understood only in this way steadfastness could easily be exchanged for a different, less appealing word: stubbornness. In itself, refusing to give up is not an admirable quality. After all, the rather unsavory and racist group of settlers in Hebron could also be described as steadfast. They too display "unwavering loyalty" and "firm convictions," and they too seemingly never give in.

What makes our steadfastness admired around the world is not only our perseverance but the justice of our cause, which is freedom, democracy and plurality. It is important to remember this broader definition of our character and our steadfastness. It is even more important for us to more loudly trumpet this, our true identity, throughout the world.

The reason is simple: Israel has dedicated an enormous amount of resources to perverting our identity and the character of our struggle. It has gained a significant degree of influence over the media, especially in the West, and has used this strength to transform and manipulate reality to its own ends. Thus despite our being slaughtered in the streets of Gaza, we are told that we are not only to blame but that the siege we are enduring is unworthy of international intervention.

Despite having thousands of our civilian brothers, sons, fathers, sisters, mothers and daughters in Israeli prisons routinely subjected to torture, we are told to immediately release a single captured Israeli soldier--or face another wave of high-tech brutality.

Despite the fact that we have international and human rights law on our side, it is said that we are "stubborn" because of our refusal to surrender the remainder of our historic birthright to Israeli occupation. We Palestinians are depicted in much of the media as steadfast only in our savagery, irrationality and propensity for violence.

From the 1920s onward, Palestinian resistance has been overwhelmingly nonviolent. The number of peaceful, unarmed Palestinian martyrs of this conflict far outweighs those of us who have fought the enemy on its own violent terms. From boycotts to business and hunger strikes, from demonstrations to diplomacy, we Palestinians are engaged daily in nonviolent struggle against the occupation of our land and the constant abuse of our dignity and security.

The international media do not focus on this, of course; instead they choose to emphasize the rare instances of Palestinian violence to such a degree that in the eyes of the international community, they appear to be comparable to the massive crimes of our occupier. There is no better example of this than the international coverage of the slaughter of our brothers and sisters in the Gaza Strip.

The world is told, and thus believes, that a "war" was being waged between two equals, rather than an asymmetric massacre being carried out by the world's fifth-largest military-industrial complex upon one of the world's last remaining stateless peoples.

Israel has not only killed hundreds of women, children and civilian men; it has systematically destroyed the economy and infrastructure of the tiny coastal Strip. It has employed illegal incendiary weapons against heavily populated civilian areas and munitions that burn through our skin, straight to the bone. Israel has killed doctors, journalists and aid workers alike in its "war against Hamas and terror" - and it remains brazenly unapologetic.

Our death toll has climbed well over 1,000 while the aggressor mourns the loss of little over a dozen - most of them soldiers, and many of whom have died as a result of Israeli army "friendly fire." Yet the world is still told it is watching a war unfold rather than a massacre.

The main reason so much effort is put into distorting the character of Palestinians is that if the world were to really know what is going on here, the collective emotion would shift from apathy toward our struggle to one of anger at our oppressor. Israel knows that if the world were able to see Palestine, it would have to draw conclusions and make comparisons. Americans allowed to watch the daily brutality committed against peaceful protesters would immediately connect our plight to that of the African-American civil rights movement of the 1950s and '60s.

If Africans were allowed to see the conditions of occupation in the West Bank, they would be unable to disassociate this from the South African anti-apartheid movement of the 1970s and '80s - which led to the triumph of the African National Congress and Nelson Mandela.

If the world were allowed to see what is actually taking place in Gaza right now, it would be unable to avoid comparisons with the Nazi ghetto-ization of Jews in the 1930s and '40s -- which culminated in systematic slaughter. But the world is not allowed to see these truths; instead, it is fed a daily dose of rhetoric taken out of context, or images from the occasional backlash of a Palestinian with nothing left to lose.

Despite the fact that our nonviolence goes unnoticed by a world biased in favor of our oppressor, we continue unabated. We continue not because nonviolence, resilience and the steadfast pursuit of justice is a "strategy" we hope will one day turn the tide of public opinion in our favor; we continue because this is who we are. It is our integrity that guides our struggle - not the constant humiliation and provocation of our oppressor.

This integrity, the justice of our cause and the means by which we pursue it are the gravest threat to Israel and the Zionist agenda for our land - far graver than homemade rockets or suicide bombers. Israel understands this, and thus works hard to pervert this reality in the minds of Israelis and the international community.

Their fear is evident in the means by which they suppress popular nonviolence throughout the West Bank. In Ni'lin over the past six months, four nonviolent youth have been turned into martyrs by the Israeli army. Countless others have sustained serious injuries, from tear-gas asphyxiation and beatings to bullets - the live kind and the rubber-coated steel sort.

Recently in Bi'lin, protesters donned the striped garb of Jews at the Warsaw Ghetto to remind Israel how its actions today are reflections of the crimes committed against Jews by the Nazis. This statement so incensed the Israeli soldiers that they abandoned their positions and chased the protesters right into the heart of the village. A number of them were beaten - presumably for reminding Israelis of their past and injuring their contemporary sensibilities.

On a regular basis, peace activists are humiliated, blindfolded and shot in the kneecaps, sprayed with sewage and chemicals, deafened and "microwaved" by newer and ever more sadistic methods of crowd control, imprisoned and tortured. They do it over and over again, usually on Fridays but often throughout the week. They engage the military more often than any or all of the armed militias in Palestine, and they go unarmed -- or at most with stones -- to fight Goliath again and again.

Out of fear and in retaliation, the Israelis resort to the only weapon available to those who neither possess integrity nor follow a just cause: violence. They do so in the hope that we will respond in kind -- that we will fight on their terms instead of our own. They do so in the hope that they can change what it is to be a Palestinian: steadfast in our pursuit of justice. Their efforts have failed and will continue to fail. Our character and our steadfastness are unshakable - and we will have the justice we deserve, in this life or the next.

Israel's most recent crime against our people in the Gaza Strip is only another attempt in its quest to undermine our identity and pervert our methods. The occupier screams from his watchtowers and F-16s, "We only understand violence! Fight! Fight! Fight!" They plead with us to take the bait and dehumanize them as they have done so completely to us.

We are steadfast in our cause and in our methods. We are armed with truth, justice, signs, flags and sometimes stones - nothing more. We will be marching again on Friday throughout the West Bank, and again the Friday after that, and again, and again...until we have defeated Goliath. A defeat that will finally liberate Palestinians and Israelis from the cancer of occupation and apartheid and that will open the way for our dream, where all human beings--whether they are Palestinian or Israeli--will be treated equally, with dignity and without prejudice.

About Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi
Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi, a physician, is general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative. He is a member of the Palestinian Parliament and was a presidential candidate in 2005. He is a campaigner for grassroots democracy and internal reform as well as a leading figure in the nonviolent, peaceful struggle against the occupation. more...

Remembering these children:lists each of these 1179 deaths. Arranged chronologically by date of death, each entry includes the child’s name, hometown,

2009-02-10T10:53:00.000+11:00

Too many of these children died in the course of what should have been normal childhood pleasures—playing soccer, eating pizza, shopping for candy, or going to or from school. Others were at home, looking out their window, eating dinner or playing in their front yard.
Even infants and the unborn have not been spared.
http://rememberthesechildren.org/about.html

A most marvellous blog

2009-02-09T19:28:00.000+11:00

http://meiroun.blogspot.com/

NLG Members in Gaza Document Executions of Civilians, Blocking of Humanitarian Aid, and Destruction of Civil Property

2009-02-09T16:53:00.000+11:00

National Lawyers Guild Announces the Arrival of Fact-Finding Mission to Gaza
Monday, February 2, 2009, 10:51 AM
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE—February 2, 2009

Contact: Paige Cram, NLG Communications Coordinator, 212-679-5100, ext.15

The National Lawyers Guild announces the arrival of a nine-member fact-finding mission to Gaza to assess the effects of the recent attacks on the people there. It will also determine what, if any, violations of international law occurred and whether U.S. domestic law has been violated as a consequence.

All, including Israel, recognize the disastrous effects of the attack on the civilian population of Gaza, and prior Guild delegations have recognized the importance of U.S. support to Israel. The delegation seeks to learn first-hand, and report its findings, how Gaza was affected and what the consequences of the attack have been. Jimmy Leas, one of the delegates, said: “We are looking forward to investigating the ongoing military and economic attacks by Israel that have devastated the civilian population of Gaza and to examining the pivotal role the United States played in those attacks.”

The members of the mission—seven lawyers and one law student, accompanied by a documentary filmmaker—come from varied backgrounds. They hope to remain in Gaza for more than one week, and will work closely with the Palestinian Center for Human Rights and the Al-Mezan Centre. They will interview communities particularly impacted by the recent Israeli offensive, including medical personnel, humanitarian aid workers and United Nations representatives. Upon returning to the U.S., the members will compile a fact-finding report, and share its analysis with the U.S. Congress, the press, and audiences at universities across the country.

The National Lawyers Guild, founded in 1937, is the oldest and largest public interest / human rights bar organization in the United States. Its headquarters are in New York and it has chapters in every state. It is also a member of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, which plans to send its own delegation. Both organizations plan to work closely with one another upon their return from Gaza to publicize their findings and help find a path to peace with justice in Palestine.

'Home' for families in Jabalia, Gaza

2009-02-09T14:09:00.001+11:00

'Home' for families in Jabalia, Gaza
Originally uploaded by freegazaorg

These are the temporary shelters for thousands of Palestinians whose homes have been destroyed or damaged beyond repair in Jabalia. Meanwhile, the BBC in the UK refuses to broadcast an appeal for humanitarian aid by the major international aid agencies. And Israel continues to prevent the passage of any building materials which are needed for reconstruction.

Free Gaza Photos on Flickr

2009-02-09T13:57:00.000+11:00

http://www.flickr.com/photos/29205195@N02/

The Free Gaza Art Festival :http://www.anis-online.de/2/freegaza/artfestival.htm

2009-02-09T13:03:00.000+11:00

http://www.anis-online.de/2/freegaza/artfestival.htm

Israeli massacre election stunt?

2009-02-08T18:52:00.000+11:00

Gaza tent camps stir memories of past exile
35 minutes ago

JABALIYA, Gaza Strip (AFP) — The homes of some 30,000 Palestinians were destroyed during last month's devastating 22-day Israeli onslaught, which killed more than 1,330 people and carved a vast swath of destruction across the besieged territory.

In recent days Gaza's Hamas-run government has partnered with international aid groups and local charities to erect hundreds of tents in the most devastated areas, a sight that stirs deep memories for Gaza's 1948 refugees.

Majid Asamna lived in a refugee tent in Gaza after fleeing what became Israel in 1948 -- now a new war has left him homeless again, along with tens of thousands of other Palestinians.

"I thought if I left I might never return, just like in 1948. And when I did come back, after the war, everything was destroyed," Asamna, 65, says as he surveys the sprawling ruins of six family houses crushed by Israeli troops.

"I'll never go back to (the Israeli town of) Ashkelon, and my children may never come back to this place. When they come in and kill people like this they make it impossible for anyone to live here."

Israel said the offensive was aimed at halting Palestinian rocket fire on towns and farms near the Gaza border -- including Ashkelon -- which have killed 21 civilians inside Israel since 2000.

But for Palestinians the war was the latest chapter in a tragedy that began 60 years ago, one in which bleak rows of tents are a recurring motif.

More than two-thirds of Gaza's 1.5 million residents are UN-registered refugees descended from the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled or were expelled from what is now Israel in the 1948 war.

Palestinian and some Israeli scholars have said Jewish militias expelled more than 700,000 Palestinians before and during the war that followed the creation of the Jewish state in a deliberate campaign of ethnic cleansing.

Palestinians refer to the expulsion as the Nakba, or catastrophe.

Other historians have said they were urged to leave by invading Arab armies and radio broadcasts. The fate of the refugees and their descendants -- now numbering 4.6 million -- is a core issue in the Middle East conflict.

During last month's war Asamna remained in his home after troops backed by tanks and helicopters roared into his neighbourhood, huddling inside with his 60 children and grandchildren for 11 days.

Then, after running out of food and water, they raised a white flag and marched out one by one, walking four kilometres (2.5 miles) to a relative's house in a neighbouring town, he says.

"They were still shooting. They shot at us while we were walking away."

When they returned after the war their farmstead had been flattened. Two six-door Mercedes taxis -- on which they made most of their living -- were crushed and half-buried in orchards plowed over by bulldozers.

Just up the dirt road from Asamna's ruined homestead local volunteers have in recent days erected dozens of white canvas tents surrounded by a short sand berm. They call it Camp Dignity.

The camp is just a few kilometres (miles) away from Jabaliya Camp, which was established in 1948 for some 35,000 refugees who were provided tents until the UN refugee agency (UNRWA) could build more permanent housing.

Camp Dignity is one of five new camps containing around 700 tents that have been established by the Hamas-run government to provide shelter to some of the 30,000 people it says lost their homes in the three-week conflict.

"We hate the tents, and would never want to return to them," says Dr Munir al-Bursh, a senior health ministry official overseeing the construction of the new camps. "But as you can see, they are still with us."

Most of the tents have been provided by the Palestinian Red Crescent society and UNRWA, Bursh says, adding that requests to import hundreds more have been denied by Israel and Egypt, which control Gaza's borders.

Since the Hamas takeover in June 2007 Israel and Egypt have prevented all but basic humanitarian aid from entering Gaza. Building materials are scarce, and reconstruction has been held up by the restrictions.

The Hamas-run government has demanded the opening of Gaza's border crossings as part of a long-term truce, while Israel -- which along with the West blacklists Hamas as a terror group -- has said the rockets must stop first.

On a recent day a few hundred people milled around the camp, sipping tea and socialising under the tents. Few appeared to have moved in permanently.

"It's worse than in 1948," says Ibrahim Shannan, a father of three whose house lies in ruins a few dozen metres (yards) from the camp.

"They have put a man on the moon, and here we are, living in tents," says the 27-year-old, whose family is from Gaza. "Now we are all refugees."

Shannan is still staying with relatives at night, sleeping 15 people to a room. He doesn't think the tents are thick enough to keep out the winter cold.

Others are afraid to stay in the tents after dark for fear Israeli troops will return. Bursh said he saw Israeli special forces prowling near one of the camps on Wednesday night.

Israel withdrew all ground troops from Gaza after it and Hamas declared separate ceasefires on January 18 but has launched tit-for-tat strikes as Palestinian militants have sporadically fired rockets from the territory.

Asamna, who fled in 1948, says this time he is determined to remain on his ruined land as long as he can.

"I don't expect things will ever get better," he says. "The Jews could come back anytime. No one who does something like this could possibly want peace."
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hURKjeUj9E4XYazFeHAouic3p1Eg

"Israel can do no wrong"- media rules

2009-02-08T15:02:00.000+11:00

Israel can do no wrong

By Gary Hupfer

Following are the Twelve Golden And Infallible Truths That The Media Is Obligated To Adopt:

1. In the Middle East, the Arabs always attack first and Israel always defends itself. This defense is called "retaliation."

2. Neither Arabs, Palestinians nor Lebanese have the right to kill civilians. This is "terrorism."

3. Israel has the right to kill civilians. This is called "legitimate defense."

4. When Israel massively kills civilians, the Western powers ask it do it with courtesy or politeness. This is called "reaction of the international community."

5. Neither Palestinians nor Lebanese have the right to capture Israeli soldiers inside military installations with sentry and combat positions. This has to be called "kidnapping of defenseless civilians."

6. Israel has the right to kidnap as many Palestinians or Lebanese as they wish and at any time or place. Their present figures are about 10,000 imprisoned, 300 of whom are children and 1,000 women. They do not need any evidence about their culpability. Israel has the right to detain such kidnapped prisoners indefinitely, even if they are people democratically elected by Palestinians. This is called "imprisonment of terrorists."

7. Whenever the word "Hezbollah" is mentioned, it is compulsory to add in the same phrase, "supported and financed by Syria and Iran."

8. When "Israel" is mentioned it is absolutely forbidden to add "supported and financed by the United States." This could give the impression that the conflict is uneven and that Israel's existence is not, after all, at risk.

9. In any statement about Israel, any mention of the following phrases is to be avoided: "occupied territories," "U.N. resolutions," "human rights violations" or "Geneva Convention."

10. Palestinians, as well as Lebanese, always are "cowards" hiding behind a civilian population that dislikes them. If they sleep in military accommodation with their families, this has a name: "cowardice." Israel is entitled to annihilate with bombs and missiles such barracks where they sleep. This is to be called a "surgical, high-precision action."

11. Israelis speak English, French, Spanish or Portuguese better than the Arabs. That is why they deserve to be interviewed more frequently and have better opportunities to explain to the audience at large the above rules. This is called "media neutrality."

12. Any newspaper in disagreement with the above rules is to be branded a "highly dangerous anti-Semitic terrorist media source." Right?

Hupfer lives in Cadott.

http://www.leadertelegram.com/story-opinions.asp?id=BIV1CH6QHS1

the original, legal owners of the Israeli land

2009-02-04T22:19:00.000+11:00

How easy it is to snap off the history of the Palestinians, to delete the narrative of their tragedy, to avoid a grotesque irony about Gaza which – in any other conflict – journalists would be writing about in their first reports: that the original, legal owners of the Israeli land on which Hamas rockets are detonating live in Gaza.
That is why Gaza exists: because the Palestinians who lived in Ashkelon and the fields around it – Askalaan in Arabic – were dispossessed from their lands in 1948 when Israel was created and ended up on the beaches of Gaza. They – or their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren – are among the one and a half million Palestinian refugees crammed into the cesspool of Gaza, 80 per cent of whose families once lived in what is now Israel. This, historically, is the real story: most of the people of Gaza don't come from Gaza.
But watching the news shows, you'd think that history began yesterday, that a bunch of bearded anti-Semitic Islamist lunatics suddenly popped up in the slums of Gaza – a rubbish dump of destitute people of no origin – and began firing missiles into peace-loving, democratic Israel, only to meet with the righteous vengeance of the Israeli air force. The fact that the five sisters killed in Jabalya camp had grandparents who came from the very land whose more recent owners have now bombed them to death simply does not appear in the story."
Robert Fisk: Why bombing Ashkelon is the most tragic irony,
The Independent, Tuesday, 30 December 2008

dESTUCTION OF EDUCATION FACILITIES

2009-02-04T17:14:00.000+11:00

The jewel of Gaza’s bare-bones education system a U.S.-style school on lush grounds overlooking the Mediterranean is now a mound of broken concrete. The territory’s only laboratory for genetic testing, at a Gaza university, lies in ruins.

Hamas: the true story, Hamas undemonised

2009-02-04T17:07:00.000+11:00

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article5420584.ece
From The TimesDecember 31, 2008

We must adjust our distorted image of Hamas
Gaza is a secular society where people listen to pop music, watch TV and many women walk the streets unveiled
William Sieghart
Last week I was in Gaza. While I was there I met a group of 20 or so police officers who were undergoing a course in conflict management. They were eager to know whether foreigners felt safer since Hamas had taken over the Government? Indeed we did, we told them. Without doubt the past 18 months had seen a comparative calm on the streets of Gaza; no gunmen on the streets, no more kidnappings. They smiled with great pride and waved us goodbye.

Less than a week later all of these men were dead, killed by an Israeli rocket at a graduation ceremony. Were they “dangerous Hamas militant gunmen”? No, they were unarmed police officers, public servants killed not in a “militant training camp” but in the same police station in the middle of Gaza City that had been used by the British, the Israelis and Fatah during their periods of rule there.

This distinction is crucial because while the horrific scenes in Gaza and Israel play themselves out on our television screens, a war of words is being fought that is clouding our understanding of the realities on the ground.

Who or what is Hamas, the movement that Ehud Barak, the Israeli Defence Minister, would like to wipe out as though it were a virus? Why did it win the Palestinian elections and why does it allow rockets to be fired into Israel? The story of Hamas over the past three years reveals how the Israeli, US and UK governments' misunderstanding of this Islamist movement has led us to the brutal and desperate situation that we are in now.

The story begins nearly three years ago when Change and Reform - Hamas's political party - unexpectedly won the first free and fair elections in the Arab world, on a platform of ending endemic corruption and improving the almost non-existent public services in Gaza and the West Bank. Against a divided opposition this ostensibly religious party impressed the predominantly secular community to win with 42 per cent of the vote.

Palestinians did not vote for Hamas because it was dedicated to the destruction of the state of Israel or because it had been responsible for waves of suicide bombings that had killed Israeli citizens. They voted for Hamas because they thought that Fatah, the party of the rejected Government, had failed them. Despite renouncing violence and recognising the state of Israel Fatah had not achieved a Palestinian state. It is crucial to know this to understand the supposed rejectionist position of Hamas. It won't recognise Israel or renounce the right to resist until it is sure of the world's commitment to a just solution to the Palestinian issue.

In the five years that I have been visiting Gaza and the West Bank, I have met hundreds of Hamas politicians and supporters. None of them has professed the goal of Islamising Palestinian society, Taleban-style. Hamas relies on secular voters too much to do that. People still listen to pop music, watch television and women still choose whether to wear the veil or not.

The political leadership of Hamas is probably the most highly qualified in the world. Boasting more than 500 PhDs in its ranks, the majority are middle-class professionals - doctors, dentists, scientists and engineers. Most of its leadership have been educated in our universities and harbour no ideological hatred towards the West. It is a grievance-based movement, dedicated to addressing the injustice done to its people. It has consistently offered a ten-year ceasefire to give breathing space to resolve a conflict that has continued for more than 60 years.

The Bush-Blair response to the Hamas victory in 2006 is the key to today's horror. Instead of accepting the democratically elected Government, they funded an attempt to remove it by force; training and arming groups of Fatah fighters to unseat Hamas militarily and impose a new, unelected government on the Palestinians. Further, 45 Hamas MPs are still being held in Israeli jails.

Six months ago the Israeli Government agreed to an Egyptian- brokered ceasefire with Hamas. In return for a ceasefire, Israel agreed to open the crossing points and allow a free flow of essential supplies in and out of Gaza. The rocket barrages ended but the crossings never fully opened, and the people of Gaza began to starve. This crippling embargo was no reward for peace.

When Westerners ask what is in the mind of Hamas leaders when they order or allow rockets to be fired at Israel they fail to understand the Palestinian position. Two months ago the Israeli Defence Forces broke the ceasefire by entering Gaza and beginning the cycle of killing again. In the Palestinian narrative each round of rocket attacks is a response to Israeli attacks. In the Israeli narrative it is the other way round.

But what does it mean when Mr Barak talks of destroying Hamas? Does it mean killing the 42 per cent of Palestinians who voted for it? Does it mean reoccupying the Gaza strip that Israel withdrew from so painfully three years ago? Or does it mean permanently separating the Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank, politically and geographically? And for those whose mantra is Israeli security, what sort of threat do the three quarters of a million young people growing up in Gaza with an implacable hatred of those who starve and bomb them pose?

It is said that this conflict is impossible to solve. In fact, it is very simple. The top 1,000 people who run Israel - the politicians, generals and security staff - and the top Palestinian Islamists have never met. Genuine peace will require that these two groups sit down together without preconditions. But the events of the past few days seem to have made this more unlikely than ever. That is the challenge for the new administration in Washington and for its European allies.

William Sieghart is chairman of Forward Thinking, an independent conflict resolution agency

Report of two surgeons workings in Gaza during the Israeli invasion

2009-02-03T18:13:00.000+11:00

http://www.thelancetglobalhealthnetwork.com/archives/608
EXCELLENT INFORMATION
February 2nd 2009
The Wounds of Gaza
Two Surgeons from the UK, Dr Ghassan Abu Sittah and Dr Swee Ang, managed to get into Gaza during the Israeli invasion. Here they describe their experiences, share their views, and conclude that the people of Gaza are extremely vulnerable and defenseless in the event of another attack.
The wounds of Gaza are deep and multi-layered. Are we talking about the Khan Younis massacre of 5,000 in 1956 or the execution of 35,000 prisoners of war by Israel in 1967? Yet more wounds of the First Intifada, when civil disobedience by an occupied people against the occupiers resulted in massive wounded and hundreds dead? We also cannot discount the 5,420 wounded in southern Gaza alone since 2000. Hence what we are referring to below are only that of the invasion as of 27 December 2008,

Over the period of 27 December 2008 to the ceasefire of 18 Jan 2009, it was estimated that a million and a half tons of explosives were dropped on Gaza Strip. Gaza is 25 miles by 5 miles and home to 1.5 million people. This makes it the most crowded area in the whole world. Prior to this Gaza has been completely blockaded and starved for 50 days. In fact since the Palestinian election Gaza has been under total or partial blockade for several years.

On the first day of the invasion, 250 persons were killed. Every single police station in Gaza was bombed killing large numbers of police officers. Having wiped out the police force attention was turned to non government targets. Gaza was bombed from the air by F16 and Apache helicopters, shelled from the sea by Israeli gunboats and from the land by tank artillery. Many schools were reduced to rubble, including the American School of Gaza, 40 mosques, hospitals, UN buildings, and of course 21,000 homes, 4,000 of which were demolished completely. It is estimated that 100,000 people are now homeless.

Israeli weapons
The weapons used apart from conventional bombs and high explosives also include unconventional weapons of which at least 4 categories could be identified.

Phosphorus Shells and bombs
The bombs dropped were described by eye witnesses as exploding at high altitude scattering a large canopy of phosphorus bomblets which cover a large area.

During the land invasion, eyewitnesses describe the tanks shelling into homes first with a conventional shell. Once the walls are destroyed, a second shell - a phosphorus shell is then shot into the homes. Used in this manner the phosphorus explodes and burns the families and the homes. Many charred bodies were found among burning phosphorus particles.

One area of concern is the phosphorus seems to be in a special stabilizing agent. This results in the phosphorus being more stable and not completely burning out. Residues still cover the fields, playground and compounds. They ignite when picked up by curious kids, or produce fumes when farmers return to water their fields. One returning farming family on watering their field met with clouds of fumes producing epistaxis. Thus the phosphorus residues probably treated with a stabilizer also act as anti-personnel weapons against children and make the return to normal life difficult without certain hazards.

Surgeons from hospitals are also reporting cases where after primary laparotomy for relatively small wounds with minimal contamination find on second look laparotomy increasing areas of tissue necrosis at about 3 days. Patients then become gravely ill and by about 10 days those patients needing a third relook encounter massive liver necrosis. This may or may not be accompanied by generalized bleeding , kidney failure and heart failure and death. Although acidosis, liver necrosis and sudden cardiac arrest due to hypocalcemia are known to be a complication of white phosphorus it is not possible to attribute these complications as being due to phosphorus alone.

There is real urgency to analyze and identify the real nature of this modified phosphorus as to its long term effect on the people of Gaza. There is also urgency in collecting and disposing of the phosphorus residues littering the entire Gaza Strip. As they give off toxic fumes when coming into contact with water, once the rain falls the whole area would be polluted with acid phosphorus fumes. Children should be warned not to handle and play with these phosphorus residues.

Heavy Bombs
The use of DIME (dense inert material explosives) were evident, though it is unsure whether depleted uranium were used in the south. In the civilian areas, surviving patients were found to have limbs truncated by DIME, since the stumps apart from being characteristically cut off in guillotine fashion also fail to bleed. Bomb casing and shrapnel are extremely heavy.

Fuel Air Explosives
Bunker busters and implosion bombs have been used . There are buildings especially the 8 storey Science and Technology Building of the Islamic University of Gaza which had been reduced to a pile of rubble no higher than 5-6 feet.

Silent Bombs
People in Gaza described a silent bomb which is extremely destructive. The bomb arrives as a silent projectile at most with a whistling sound and creates a large area where all objects and living things are vaporized with minimal trace. We are unable to fit this into conventional weapons but the possibility of new particle weapons being tested should be suspected.

Executions
Survivors describe Israeli tanks arriving in front of homes asking residents to come out. Children, old people and women would come forward and as they were lined up they were just fired on and killed. Families have lost tens of their members through such executions. The deliberate targeting of unarmed children and women is well documented by human right groups in the Gaza Strip over the past month.
Targeting of ambulances
Thirteen ambulances had been fired upon killing drivers and first aid personnel in the process of rescue and evacuation of the wounded.

Cluster bombs
The first patients wounded by cluster were brought into Abu Yusef Najjar Hospital. Since more than 50% of the tunnels have been destroyed, Gaza has lost part of her lifeline. These tunnels contrary to popular belief are not for weapons, though small light weapons could have been smuggled through them. However they are the main stay of food and fuel for Gaza. Palestinians are beginning to tunnel again. However it became clear that cluster bombs were dropped on to the Rafah border and the first was accidentally set of by tunneling. Five burns patients were brought in after setting off a booby trap kind of device.

Death toll
As of 25 January 2009, the death toll was estimated at 1,350 with the numbers increasing daily. This is due to the severely wounded continuing to die in hospitals. 60% of those killed were children.

Severe injuries
The severely injured numbered 5,450, with 40% being children. These are mainly large burns and polytrauma patients. Single limb fractures and walking wounded are not included in these figures.

Through our conversations with doctors and nurses the word holocaust and catastrophe were repeatedly used. The medical staff all bear the psychological trauma of the past month living though the situation and dealing with mass casualties which swamped their casualties and operating rooms. Many patients died in the Accident and Emergency Department while awaiting treatment. In a district hospital, the orthopaedic surgeon carried out 13 external fixations in less than a day.

It is estimated that of the severely injured, 1,600 will suffer permanently disabilities. These include amputations, spinal cord injuries, head injuries, large burns with crippling contractures.

Special factors
The death and injury toll is especially high in this recent assault due to several factors:

No escape: As Gaza is sealed by Israeli troops, no one can escape the bombardment and the land invasion. There is simply no escape. Even within the Gaza Strip itself, movement from north to south is impossible as Israeli tanks had cut the northern half of Gaza from the south. Compare this with the situation in Lebanon 1982 and 2006, when it was possible for people to escape from an area of heavy bombardment to an area of relative calm - there was no such is option for Gaza.
Gaza is very densely populated. It is eerie to see that the bombs used by Israel have been precision bombs. They have a hundred percent hit rate on buildings which are crowded with people. Examples are the central market, police stations. Schools, the UN compounds used as a safety shelter from bombardment, mosques (40 of them destroyed), and the homes of families who thought they were safe as there were no combatants in them and high rise flats where a single implosion bomb would destroy multiple families. This pattern of consistent targeting of civilians makes one suspect that the military targets are but collateral damage, while civilians are the primary targets.
The quantity and quality of the ammunition being used as described above.
Gaza’s lack of defense against the modern weapons of Israel. She has no tanks, no planes, no anti-aircraft missiles against the invading army. We experienced that first hand in a minor clash of Israeli tank shells versus Palestinian AK47 return fire. The forces were simply unmatched.
Absence of well constructed bomb shelters for civilians. Unfortunately these will also be no match for bunker busters possessed by the Israeli Army.
Conclusion
Taking the above points into consideration, the next assault on Gaza would be just as disastrous. The people of Gaza are extremely vulnerable and defenseless in the event of another attack. If the International Community is serious about preventing such a large scale of deaths and injuries in the future, it will have to develop a some sort of defense force for Gaza. Otherwise, many more vulnerable civilans will continue to die.

Dr Ghassan Abu Sittah and Dr Swee Ang

Gaza hospital bears heavy strain

2009-02-03T16:59:00.001+11:00

Gaza hospital bears heavy strain

By Aleem Maqbool
BBC News, Gaza City

Twenty-year-old Yahya Abu Saif lies in his hospital bed looking wide-eyed, gaunt and scared.

He was lucky to survive an Israeli air strike. But, like so many others in Gaza, his life was transformed in an instant.

He lost his right leg in the explosion. The left side of his body is paralysed.

"I had just left the mosque near my home and was going home after prayers," he says, with a little difficulty.

"They dropped a bomb on the mosque and I was thrown in the air, but I don't remember what happened after that.

"My family told me 15 people were killed and 20 people injured, including me."

Yahya says he used to go to university and wanted to be a teacher one day.

"Now I will have a life of hospitals. I know I will just need medical care forever."

As we left the room, we found Yahya's elder brother outside, wiping away tears.

Doctor's dilemma

Al-Wafa Hospital, to which Yahya has been admitted, is the only one in Gaza which specialises in treating amputees.

At a time when hundreds more people need its care, the hospital itself was shelled and damaged in the fighting.

"It was a miserable time for us and the patients," says Dr Tariq Dardas.

"From midnight on 16 January until 9am, there was constant shelling. We called the Red Cross and civilian defence to help us leave, but nobody would come to this area under those circumstances.

"All the staff members were scared but, of course, we could not leave our patients.

"Many of them had spinal injuries or were paraplegic. It was so difficult for us to move them all to the other side of the building, but thank God we did. One elderly patient sustained head injuries, but it could have been much worse."

'Big impact'

Dr Dardas shows us parts of the building he says were hit by tank shells.

"Ninety percent of the windows have been broken, some rooms have been totally destroyed. About one-third of our new building has been destroyed. It has had a big impact on what we can do," he says.

"We estimate several hundred people have lost limbs and are in need of rehabilitation here. We feel shy to tell patients that they can't come here; they have a right to come, but we have no choice."

The health system in Gaza is under tremendous strain. Not just because of the thousands of injured following the Israeli offensive, but also because of the physical damage done to medical facilities like Al-Wafa.

There also continue to be the difficulties of bringing supplies into Gaza while the crossings into the territory are tightly controlled.

To ease the pressure, scores of patients were allowed through Gaza's border with Egypt for short-term treatment abroad. But most will soon return.

Al-Wafa Hospital is one of the few places in Gaza which could provide them with specialist psychiatric assistance to come to terms with their new realities.

Right now, Al-Wafa itself is appealing for help.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/7866159.stm

AID Director letter from Gaza 29-1-09

2009-02-03T09:16:00.000+11:00

A Letter to Gaza
CARE country director sees devastation firsthand

http://www.care.org/newsroom/articles/2009/01/gaza-aid-witness-letter-20090130.asp?s_subsrc=170960090000&s_src=default

Martha Myers is the country director for CARE in the West Bank and Gaza. CARE has 18 staff living and working in Gaza. They continued to distribute emergency aid throughout the fighting. Myers was the first non-Gazan from CARE to access Gaza since the conflict began. The following is her message to CARE staff in the West Bank and Gaza.

January 29, 2009

Dear All,

As most of you know, I finally got to go to Gaza on Tuesday — and immediately got stuck there. The borders were closed due to the fighting that broke out, so I got to spend overnight in Shejaiya. I was glad to be there.

It is hard to say anything about Gaza. Either you just feel the words stuck someplace in the middle of your chest, unable to come out, or you feel like you are murmuring platitudes — hackneyed phrases. None of these words stuck in my chest are nice words. Grief, sorrow, pain, suffering, devastation, destruction, malice, cruelty.

War is simply brutal. It can't be prettied up, no matter how many laurels of civilization you attempt to lay around its throat.

Beit Hanoun

I was sad. On the left in the fields as you walk from Erez to Khamsa there had been two or three farmhouses. I had often wondered at their aspect of peace and quiet there in the midst of crops and grasses right under the miasma of Erez. They aren't there anymore. Heaps of rubble. Where are the boys I used to see trotting their donkeys up the lane towards home? Where are the women I used to see working in the fields?
Everything is full of bullet holes. Not little bullet holes. Bullet holes that you could easily put a tennis ball through. It is clear that areas, buildings, shops, were just sprayed with bullets. I wonder, what do you do and how do you feel as those lines of bullets come punching through the walls of your living room and your bedroom? Everywhere I go, people make sounds imitating the different kinds of munitions. Recounting the near misses and coloring the stories with onomatopoeic embellishments seems to help.

Hollowed-out people

The buildings are shocking — the shattered parliament building, the minarets blown off mosques, the mosques themselves, the children's play parks — all shocking. But what arrested me was the people. On one hand the stalwart Gazans, out in the streets, going to school, sitting in front of open shops, walking with briefcases, carrying shopping bags — it all looked so deceptively normal in a sense. But when you look closely, as I studied faces, people looked hollow with fatigue, shock, stress, and fear. Many looked almost catatonic.
And then the CARE staff. Can I be personal here? Hamdallah, you were the first person I saw in the office and although you looked as neat and handsome as ever, your polite smile never reached your eyes. I saw that tight control, and the shuttered eyes, again and again during that day in so many people, including Najwan, Eid and Rizek. Mamduh, you looked familiar since I have seen you in pictures almost every single day, but the fatigue has chiseled down to the bones of your face. Again, a look I saw echoed again and again everywhere I went.

Mohammed Elwan, I was humbled by the depth of your concern, sorrow and care for Mohammed Samouni (editor's note: Mohammed Samouni, who worked for CARE's Fresh Food distribution project, was killed in an attack on January 5) and your determination that his widow not be lost in the shuffle. Although you are thin and sad, what did you want to talk about? You wanted to talk about how we can help potato farmers stand up again. You give definition to the word selfless.

Jawad, how do you do it? Your face is lined with care and yet you still make us laugh with your ironic humor.

Naema, you are so strong and you radiate firmness, control, and resolution — but I have wanted to cry ever since we talked about you losing your best friend. Your best friend and your house. We can help you with your house — but to have an old friend that you talked to on the phone one minute and who was gone the next — how does one assimilate that?

Ola, we know you are still frightened, but you should know that you are surrounded by friends.

You all are the best of Gaza and you embody it.

Izbet Abedrabbo

I have to say that it was Izbet Abedrabbo that stopped me in my tracks. Look around you and there are heaps of concrete that used to be homes, contorted cars, uprooted trees and ground that has been roiled into an impassible sea of mud by the tanks going back and forth.
No single thing has been left intact or standing. No blade of grass or tree. Everything stinks of sewage and rot. Sitting in front of the contorted heaps of concrete and steel are entire families, some warming their hands at fires. Just sitting and waiting. Of course, what else could they do? What else would they do? In Gaza there is no cement, steel, glass, glue, wood, pipes, paint wires. So even were one lucky enough to be able to purchase materials to start putting things together again, there is nothing to do that with. Most aren't lucky anyway.

So they sit and wait.

I try to imagine how it feels to sit in front of your vaporized home in the middle of a choppy sea of mud. It is too painful to bring this in close and in focus, so I take the cowardly route and don't allow my imagination to run away with me.

Golden Curtains

And then there were the gold curtains. I know, curtains are expensive and you need to chose them carefully or they will take over your whole life. These were nice curtains and I am sure that someone chose them very carefully — an investment meant to last a lifetime - and then hung and cared for them with pride. Somehow, the house had collapsed into a shattered heap and the curtains had flown out the window and were draped, neat, clean, perfectly pressed over the front of the rubble.
Would the owner come and try to extract the curtains from the pinch of concrete and steel? And then what would she do with them? If it were me I would sit with them bundled in my arms and smell them — inhaling the smell of home and the smell of my lost world. The curtains bothered me too because something private and interior was just splayed there on the street — a violation of regard for the home as private, protected space.

Leaving Gaza

At the Erez border crossing, feeling guilty and heart-sick as I always do — why can I just walk out of here and others can't? What stupid accident of birth confers this unbelievable privilege on me? I ended up in line behind a dozen or more journalists. Things were going very slowly because of all their cameras and gear. For them, the story is over and they are moving on to the next flash point. This is their job, and I respect them enormously and appreciate the role they play. Nonetheless, it made me feel angry and disillusioned to see this symbol of diverted attention. It isn't over. In fact, it is only just beginning in Gaza.
Yes, it is just beginning, but Gaza is not abandoned and you, Ghazazwa, are not abandoned. We will walk down this path together.

With affection and regard,
Martha

Gaza damage satellite image Nth Gaza

2009-02-03T09:07:00.000+11:00

LINK:
http://unosat.web.cern.ch/unosat/freeproducts/Gaza/Crisis2008/UNOSAT_GazaCity_WV_Damage_Overview_19Jan09_Highres.pdf

The lemon trees and noisy chickens must have been hiding Hamas rockets.

2009-02-02T19:59:00.000+11:00

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Those who seek justice do so in vainSome nations – and some leaders – are beyond the reach of the law

Monday, 2 February 2009

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So that's that then, is it? Gaza is done and dusted? Very satisfying, I'm sure, for the Israeli leadership and their devoted allies at the BBC. But not so fast. For the one and a half million traumatised and wounded souls in that small strip, unendurable agony goes on. The very earth they stand on burns and cracks. And I am not here indulging a writer's tendency to hyperbole or neat metaphor.

Up to 60 per cent of the best farmland in Gaza has been systematically destroyed, livestock too. Christine van Nieuwenhuyse, a director at the World Food Programme, says this deliberately blighted land "may not be exploitable again". The lemon trees and noisy chickens must have been hiding Hamas rockets. Israel is also keeping some of the remaining arable land beyond the reach of the Palestinians who own it by making it into a buffer zone. Almost all the infrastructure has been flattened too. The resulting perpetual humiliation and dependency, one assumes, is part of Israel's strategic plan.
President Obama has sent forth George Mitchell, a skilled and respected negotiator, to start dialogues that could eventually lead to a durable settlement. We must hope he can achieve the impossible. But even if he does, that alone cannot ensure the kind of peace that all the people in that region sorely need and surely deserve.

There is too much unfinished business, too much reckoning left over. Peace without equality and credible scrutiny is itself a violation of human rights, an affirmation that some nations are beyond the reach of the law. Mitchell would not have been able to achieve peace in Northern Ireland if Britain had, with impunity, bombed the Catholic areas and slaughtered civilians. Israel is today a ruthless nuclear state, with arsenals of artillery, missiles, chemical and biological weaponry. It respects no international laws and conventions (originally set up to stop Jewish persecution) and does what it pleases.

But why pick only on Israel? Western nations, including Britain, supply some of the killing machines used on children in Gaza. The US and UK have never been hauled through any independent judiciary to explain their lies spun to justify the war on Iraq, or the cluster bombs dropped on civilians, the massacres in Fallujah, the million dead and many more who are born deformed.

We may at long last learn about what happened in the run-up to the war in Blair's cabinet meetings. Many of the ministers who colluded – Hoon, Straw – or acquiesced have gone on to further great success. As have several "ethnic minority" MPs and Peers always happy to oblige. Blair has enriched himself faster than any recent British PM I know of – an indication of how low is his sense of public morality and of those who pay him for his services. All is forgiven and forgotten. He is even our most trusted Man in the Middle East – who must have known about Israel's plans in Gaza and did F all.

Henry Kissinger is in the same happy position. Instead of being tried for actively supporting Pinochet, bombing Cambodia etc etc, he became a sought after statesman, rich and famous enough to stroke the fair arms of Princess Diana. How shocked he was when, a few years ago, Jeremy Paxman interrogated him on Start the Week on his unethical foreign policies. (Paxo's finest hour in my view) and Kissinger walked out of the studio. Such men do not expect to answer such questions. They are above all that. Watch this space and George Bush Jnr will be raking in loot and obsequies. That is what power gets you – immunity and pleasures untold.

We are still basking in Obama's radiance and are heartened that he so soon announced the closure of Guantanamo Bay concentration camp. But again that cannot be the final word on the crimes committed there. The men evoked by the new American president would understand why. Thomas Jefferson's words at his own inauguration speak up clearly from the grave: "Equal and exact justice to all men ...freedom of the person under the protection of the habeas corpus and trail by juries impartially selected – these principles form the bright constellation that has gone before us".

Martin Luther King also warned: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice around the world." The west too often fails these truly noble ideals. What happens to those who established the camp and its methods? To the torturers and prison guards? Binyam Mohammed, a British resident is said to be close to death and may well leave in a coffin. But apparently nobody is responsible.

Only Third World and ex-Communist bastards ever get to face international condemnation and trials. If the Sri Lankan government carries on shelling Tamil civilians, it will be ( rightly) censured and held responsible by the UN and other bodies. Not so-called "leading nations" when they ignore binding conventions. Sure, a few unfortunate soldiers or policemen are forced through weak, domestic investigations to prove that rule of law is respected. They are merely sacrificial goats. People of real of power or influence in the west or Israel, or Russia, now China and India, know they will never be dragged off to The Hague.

Corrupt individuals with the kind of money that makes western politicians salivate are always safe and clean. Accountability will not come knocking at their doors. The freemasons making torture equipment and arms thrive, protected in perpetuity by official secrecy. Individuals in those hidden crypts will never stand in the dock. Peace without fairness and due process is worthless. Even in South Africa, where Mandela virtuously put reconciliation before justice, furious urban blacks still feel that the settlement on that basis was profoundly unjust because whites who cruelly administered Apartheid policies got away with it.

Millions around the world, the young in particular, will not accept that double international standards are as immutable as laws of nature. They are now connected up, sharing rage and frustration. The beneficiaries are Mugabe (a hero for many), Bin Laden, Hamas, suicide terrorist cells, violent nihilists and real anti-Semites. And so there will be no peace. The great anti-slavery judge William Mansfield said in 1768: "Fiat justitia, ruat coelum" – Let justice be done, though the skies may fall. If the powerful don't understand that, they deserve the contempt increasingly heaped on them.

y.alibhai-brown@independent.co.uk

Media failure to report Israeli atrocities

2009-02-02T18:59:00.000+11:00

Media failed to examine realities of Gaza occupationBy Munira Syeda
Posted: 02/01/2009 11:16:06 PM PST

http://www.dailybreeze.com/opinions/ci_11605677
Any objective report card on the American media coverage of Israel's war on Gaza would have a grade of "C" at best.

For the most part, the mainstream media reported on the conflict as a "tit for tat" between two equal opponents, with the blame resting squarely on the Palestinian side. The Israeli government's narrative was accepted as fact, even as Israel barred journalists from the battlefield.

Woefully missing were context and in-depth analyses of the invasion, a lack of willingness to ask tough questions and corroborate information. The media also seemed to ignore the fact that Israel turned Gaza, a region twice the size of Washington, D.C., crowded with 1.5 million people, into the largest open-air prison in the world.
After Israel's pullout, leading Israeli newspaper Haaretz's journalist Gideon Levy was blunt:

"The conclusion is that Israel is a violent and dangerous country, devoid of all restraints and blatantly ignoring the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council, while not giving a hoot about international law. The investigations are on their way.

"Graver still is the damage this will visit upon our moral spine. It will come from difficult questions about what the (Israeli Defense Forces) did in Gaza, which will occur despite the blurring effect of recruited media."

The most courageous piece of reporting from mainstream media was by CBS' "60 Minutes" - a month after the Dec. 27 invasion. Correspondent

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Bob Simon reported on a West Bank fragmented by 600 checkpoints, the expansion of illegal Jewish-only settlements in the occupied territories and the apartheid in place:
"Israel is building what it calls a security wall between the West Bank and Israel. The Palestinians are furious because it appropriates 8percent of the West Bank. Not only that, it weaves its way through Palestinian farms, separating farmers from their land. They have to wait at gates for soldiers to let them in. Settlers get a lot more water than Palestinians, which is why settlements are green and Arab areas are not."

Another rare example of courageous reporting came at the start of Gaza invasion.

CNN Anchor Rick Sanchez investigated and proved, contrary to popular notions, that Israel bombed a tunnel on Nov. 4, and thus was the first party to break the cease-fire.

At the end of Israel's invasion, more than 1,300 Palestinians, including hundreds of women and children, had been killed. More than 5,400 were injured. The Red Cross reported "shocking" scenes of children left by their mothers' corpses and said: "The Israeli military failed to meet its obligation under international humanitarian law to care for and evacuate the wounded."

Amnesty International said Israel committed war crimes, such as using white phosphorus in residential areas. And Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights group, reported on Israel's chief military rabbi, who distributed pamphlets to soldiers urging them to show "no mercy" in Gaza.

Why is scrutiny of Israel's atrocities largely missing from the American press?

If I were still a journalist, here are some questions I would ask. These are the questions being posed in the European, Arab and Israeli press.

Why did the Bush administration refuse to push for a cease-fire or the evacuation of American citizens in Gaza?

Why did Israel have a ban on journalists in Gaza? Did Israel have something to hide, and if so, what?

Why is Israel getting away with the use of wildly disproportionate force against Palestinian civilians?

Is military force a solution to a problem that is inherently a problem of occupation and systematic dehumanization of a people?

Now, I do not believe American journalists are biased. However, I do believe that most journalists, when covering the Middle East conflict or doing any international reporting, are not motivated to dig for information that pushes the boundaries of debate. They passively regurgitate the Israeli and the U.S. administration lines in their 30-second broadcast or 12-inch print pieces, without providing context.

The true nature of a regional conflict can't be understood in the absence of context.

Journalists also lack necessary institutional support. The industry is undergoing a fundamental change, making coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict challenging. Slumping ad revenues have hit newspapers hard, shrinking their presence and giving way to digital reporting and citizen journalism.

Another barrier to candid reporting on Israel's assault on Palestinian civilians - the threat of accusations of anti-Semitism.

Hard as it may be, journalists must do what is right.

Veteran political journalist Helen Thomas said: "We in the press have a special role since there is no other institution in our society. I do believe that our democracy can endure and prevail only if the American people are informed."

Munira Syeda is communications coordinator for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Greater Los Angeles Area, in Anaheim. She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, Graduate School of Journalism and worked for several newspapers before joining CAIR.

EU fails Gaza: human rights for civilians not supported

2009-02-02T17:22:00.000+11:00

European Union failing its obligations to protect human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory
Source: Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR)

Date: 28 Jan 2009
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/JBRN-7NQKDS?OpenDocument

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) demands that European Union (EU) immediately take action in order to protect human rights in the OccupiedPalestinianTerritory. The EU is currently failing in its obligations to effectively intervene in order to protect the lives of civilians in the OccupiedPalestinianTerritory(OPT), especially civilians in the Gaza Strip, whose human rights are being massively violated by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF). PCHR is dismayed by recent statements made by, and actions taken by, EU states regarding human rights violations in the OPT.

Since launching its widespread military offensive against the population of the Gaza Strip on 27 December, 2008, the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) have killed 1,285 Palestinians in Gaza, and injured at least 4,336 others. Thousands of bereaved and traumatized survivors are now also homeless, as IOF have completely destroyed at least 2,400 homes across the Gaza Strip. Ongoing PCHR investigations indicate that 82.6% of the total IOF victims were civilians, including at least 280 children.

Despite the overwhelming number of Palestinian civilians killed by the IOF during its offensive in the Gaza Strip, the 27 EU member states abstained from a United Nations Human Rights Council resolution on 12 January, 2009, which condemned the IOF military offensive in the Gaza Strip because of IOF "massive violations of the human rights of the Palestinian people." A week later, on 20 January, the Czech Foreign Minister and President-in-Office of the EU Council, Karl Schwarzenberg, claimed that the EU presidency, which is currently held by the CzechRepublic, "should not act as a judge" of IOF violations of humanitarian law during its offensive in Gaza. "I have never seen a war were humanitarian law was completely respected" added Schwarzenberg.

On 26 January, Louis Michel, the EU Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, visited the Gaza Strip, where he claimed that Hamas bore "overwhelming responsibility" for the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip.

The EU abstentions from the UN Human Rights Council resolution, and these statements issued by senior EU officials, highlight that the 27 EU member states are blatantly failing in their obligations as High Contracting Parties to the (1949) Fourth Geneva Convention to protect the lives of Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip. The shameful silence of the entire international community, including the EU member states, illustrates its utter failure to hold Israelaccountable for its masse violations of human rights across the OPT and especially in the Gaza Strip. According to the principles of international law, Israelmust be held responsible for its actions.

In light of the scale of the 22 day IOF military offensive in the Gaza Strip, PCHR demands that the international community, including all EU member states, act immediately in order to protect the lives and property of all Palestinians, especially the 1.5 million civilians who continue to be imprisoned under siege inside the Gaza Strip.

The Centre reiterates that the root of the continuing violence in the OPT is the continuing IOF belligerent military occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem. International silence in the face of IOF human rights violations across the OPT, including the deliberate targeting of civilians and their property, is encouraging Israel to continue to use excessive lethal force against civilians, including the widespread use of bombs believed to contain white phosphorous, and to act with utter impunity.

The Centre demands that the international community, including the 27 EU member states, hold Israelto account for its masse violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, and forcefully and effectively demand that Israelbegin to respect international human rights and humanitarian law. PCHR also demands that the EU does not upgrade its political and economic relationship with Israelvis a vis the EU-Israel Association Agreement. The Agreement is conditional on Israel's respect for human rights. Rewarding Israelwith an upgrade on the basis of "shared values' whilst Israelblatantly continues to systematically violate Palestinian human rights in the OPT will only further encourage Israelto act as though it is completely above the law.

The EU has a vital role to play regarding Israel's accountability, and the 27 member states must all meet their obligations regarding independent investigations into the crimes that PCHR believes have been committed against the civilians of the Gaza Strip. All Palestinians in the Gaza Strip deserve justice, and the EU member states must finally make a stand for the respect of law, and the protection of civilian lives.

Public Document

For more information please call:

PCHR office in Gaza, Gaza Strip, on +972 8 2824776 - 2825893
PCHR, 29 Omer El Mukhtar St., El Remal, PO Box 1328 Gaza, Gaza Strip. E-mail: pchr@pchrgaza.org, Webpage http://www.pchrgaza.org

Video: Researching allegations of war crimes in Israel and Gaza

2009-02-02T12:50:00.000+11:00

30 January 2009
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/video-and-audio/video-researching-allegations-war-crimes-israel-and-gaza-2009013

go to link for video - excellent

Following the outbreak of the recent conflict in Gaza and southern Israel on 27 December 2008 and then Israel's ground invasion of Gaza on 3 January 2009, Amnesty International delegates travelled to the region on 8 January. There, they began to research allegations of war crimes and others serious violations of international law by Israel, Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups.

An initial fact-finding team spent a week in southern Israel. A second team was unable to enter Gaza via the border crossing with Israel because of restrictions imposed by the Israeli authorities. They crossed into Gaza from Egypt on 17 January, the eve of the coming into effect of unilateral ceasefires by Israel and Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups.

A third team travelled to southern Israel on 26 January. This video is about the preliminary findings of the fact-finding team in Gaza.

Read More
For further details on Amnesty International's work on violations committed by both sides, please see other material on our webpage focusing on the conflict in Gaza and southern Israel.

BLOCKADE IMPACT-Human Rights Lawyer Steve Kamlish QC

2009-02-02T10:50:00.001+11:00

Notes on Gaza by Human Rights Lawyer Steve Kamlish QC
markmcdonald Sun Feb 01, 2009 at 05:24:45 PM GMT Facebook

I was in Gaza earlier this week as a member of a human rights mission focused on gathering evidence of war crimes followed by preparing cases for court in a number of jurisdictions. This involved our delegation visiting several sites of massacre and mass destruction in company with a military expert and listening to the eye witness accounts of the carnage wreaked upon the Palestinian people by the Israeli Defence Forces.

Several of you will clearly know a good deal about what has been going on in Gaza both recently and prior to the latest attack by Israel. Forgive me if some of what I say seems obvious or trite but there are certain things that merit repetition.

--------------------

Firstly, the current onslaught must be understood in the context of the wider history of the Palestinian Territory. As many of you know, over 75 % of the over 1.5 million people living in Gaza are refugees from 1948 and 1967, many of them refugees twice over. A huge number have now been internally displaced once again. Gaza has been occupied since 1967, and has remained so despite the withdrawal of Israeli troops and settlers in 2005. Since that withdrawal, Gaza has effectively been blockaded to varying degrees, amounting to a strangulation of the territory since Hamas came into power in 2007. The citizens of Gaza have been living in a de facto prison in which they have been deprived of basic amenities, of access to clean water, food aid, work and of any hope. They cannot get out, and for months before their long-planned onslaught, few were allowed in to help them.

Here are just some aspects of the way the blockade impacted on the people of Gaza, even before the current attacks.

1. Palestinians were and remain trapped in Gaza. Scores of chronically ill Palestinians have died, due to Israel’s refusal to allow them to travel to Israel, the West Bank or Egypt for treatment. Students with scholarships to study abroad have been denied exit permits. Families were separated, those on the outside unable to get in and those in Gaza unable to leave.

2. 90 percent of Gazan industry had collapsed as a direct result of the blockade, from the construction industry to the fishing industry to the export and agricultural industry. Prior to the bombing, 70 percent of Gazans were unemployed:

• No construction materials have been allowed into Gaza for several years. Thousands of building projects were unfinished and uninhabitable, including the half-finished wing of a hospital in Gaza City and many large apartment blocks intended as housing for the worst off. The two remaining cement factories in Gaza were attacked and destroyed 3 weeks ago.

• The blockade has devastated agriculture in the territory. The export industry on which a significant proportion of the population was dependent is now non-existent. Israel has also put a stop to imports of farming tools, equipment and fertilisers etc, crippling in the process Gaza’s ability to produce food even for its own citizens. Instead Gaza is now forced to buy surplus (and often low grade) meat, chicken and fruit from Israel’s own producers as a consequence of preventing people from producing their own.

• Israel also imposes tight restrictions on fishing, illegal under signed agreements and international law, effectively decimating the industry and depriving 40,000 people of their livelihoods and depriving the population of access to food not-dependent on border openings. Even when permitted, fishing is limited to 300 meters from the coast in waters grossly contaminated by the untreated sewage being pumped into the sea, due to lack of electricity and Israel’s refusal to allow vital spare parts for the sewerage system into Gaza. Fishermen are regularly shot and wounded or killed, and their boats damaged beyond repair, even when within the 300 meter line.

• Israel controls all the water, gas, electricity and fuel coming into Gaza. Even prior to bombing and destroying water mains across the strip, it had deliberately run down the infrastructure and reduced the supply to well below the needs of the population. Damaged water mains and insufficient electricity for the waste treatment plants mean that the mains water is undrinkable. The sewers are breeding grounds for death and disease.

• The Gaza economy has been further decimated by appropriation by Israel all the customs duty on imported goods. To this day the Israelis take for themselves the hundreds of millions of dollars of import tax due to the Palestinian Authority.

This is the background against which rockets have been fired from Gaza into Israel. It is important to note, however, that in the five month ceasefire that preceded the December 27 onslaught, Hamas did not fire a single rocket from Gaza into the West Bank, as acknowledged by the Israeli administration. However, rather than ameliorating the blockade during that time, as agreed under the ceasefire provisions, the restrictions on the strip intensified.

In the context of the above, has the Israeli response to the renewed rocket attacks that followed the killing of six Hamas members by the Israeli Army been lawful, necessary or proportionate?

1. The Israeli Army has destroyed with mortar, artillery and tank shelling much of what remained of Gaza’s already devastated agricultural production and food industry. They specifically targeted chicken, cattle and sheep farms. In one large area two of my colleagues on the human rights mission saw hundreds of dead cows with their heads and limbs blown off lying in fields. All the farmhouses in the surrounding area had been bombed and then bulldozed. The families are now forced to live in the open with the stench of death permanently in their nostrils. Some said that relatives of theirs are still buried beneath the rubble because there is no way currently of getting the bodies out. I saw a chicken factory that had been razed to the ground, leaving the buildings flattened and the dead animals in piles in their cages or strewn on the ground. I also saw orchards of orange and lemon trees and seas of poly-tunnels that had been shelled out of existence. This level of destruction and the use of the untargeted weaponry that caused it, some in built up areas, undoubtedly amounts to a war crime, as confirmed by the military expert in our delegation.

2. The Israeli Army has systematically used inaccurate and highly destructive weapons in Gaza City, one of the most densely populated areas in the world. They have deliberately targeted blocks of flats and multi-occupation houses, killing over 1,000 civilians and wounded thousands of others. One man told us his story. He went to the mosque for morning prayers leaving his wife and four children in bed in the fourth floor of their apartment block. His two brothers and their families lived on the same block. On his way back from the mosque mortars and bombs began to fall. He ran home to find the entire block had become a pile of rubble. Of his family only one child and one of his brothers survived. 22 others were killed. I climbed to a high point of the rubble and watched the man standing and staring silently into the crater that had destroyed his entire existence.

3. Despite its denials, it is now clear that the Israeli Army has used white phosphorous in contravention of the laws of war. The use of phosphorus is only lawful under international rules of engagement when used as a smokescreen cover in open areas for combatants who are caught in the open and are under fire. However, the evidence on the ground makes clear that the Israeli Army systematically and unlawfully fired phosphorus shells directly over and into populated urban areas. We visited the site of a family devastated by the illegal use of phosphorous. The man we spoke to told us how his wife and three children were asleep in a bedroom of their house. A phosphorous shell came through the roof of the house exploding in the room where the family was sleeping. On impact the mother and children were engulfed in toxic flames smoke and fumes. They died an unimaginable death in that room. I stood in it and saw the traces of white phosphorus on the walls in the otherwise completely blackened room. A woman came into the room and held up a piece of child’s clothing covered in phosphorus burns. The man next to me then showed us a picture of the body of a 10-month old child who had been in the room during the attack. The heat had been so intense that it had burned the baby’s legs off. The child’s uncle just stared at the ground for a while before he went on to tell us what happened next.

As in many sites of death and injury, the Israelis were not allowing ambulances or doctors into the area even when there were many injured people in need of urgent medical attention. In this case a man who had a tractor offered to take some of the injured to hospital in his trailer. As men, women and children were being placed on the trailer IDF troops came up the street and first shot the tractor driver dead. They then shot and killed two people who were tending to the wounded in the trailer. The remaining wounded were left there to die.

4. Zaytoun. The district of Zaytoun covers a large area on the edge of Gaza City. Yesterday the Times reported that Israeli soldiers were being quoted as saying they had been ordered to “fire on everything that moves” in Zaytoun. That is all too evident from the situation on the ground. The Israeli Army clearly did indeed attempt to kill everyone and everything in the area. There can be no other explanation for what we all saw. From the border with Israel to the sea, not a single house has escaped unscathed. There are flattened buildings as far as the eye can see.

This is the story of the Al Samouni family told by several eye witnesses. The Al Samouni family area contained about 15 houses, each surrounded by a plot of land which was used as a smallholding for subsistence farming chickens, goats and small industry. On 5th January a brigade of tanks surrounded the area. A large number of soldiers ordered people out of one house in particular, shouting at them from outside. The woman who told us this story said that her husband had been the first one out, and was holding their baby as he went. The soldiers told him to put his hands in the air and he protested that he was holding his baby. They screamed at him to obey them. His hands went up and the baby fell to the ground. Within seconds the soldiers had fired at least 30 bullets into his head and body. They stepped over him and entered the house. A soldier than fired automatic rounds into the walls above the heads of several people who were sitting or lying on the floor. They were not hit but were told to leave and go into a neighbouring building. They then ordered other people in other houses to leave and go into the same neighbouring building. Over sixty people, including a large number of children, were gathered in the house without food or water.. After two days, a number of men decided to leave the building to try to get food and water, but quickly retreated on seeing the Israeli soldiers still in close proximity. Some five minutes later, the building was shelled, killing a large number of the family members gathered in the house, including women and children, and wounding many others. Approximately 20 of the survivors left, raising white flags and carrying the bodies of four of the dead. Despite being shot at, they continued to walk and to try to contact medical services to come and save them and those remaining in the house. The Red Crescent was only permitted access to the house a number of days later, where they found starving children next to the bodies of their dead parents. When they returned a short while later to collect further casualties, the building into which the people had been herded was now a pile of rubble. In total, 29 members of the Al Samouni family were slaughtered, including over 10 children and seven women, many of whom lay dead beneath the rubble. This time the Red Crescent were refused access to the site when they tried to enter. Our military expert was present when many of the bodies were eventually pulled out of the rubble. He confirmed that none of them were in any kind of combat uniform and that none appeared to be militants.

Prior to the massacre the IDF took over the first house as a command post. I went inside and saw that it was a highly strategic location from which a large area could be monitored and operations controlled. They had blasted holes for their machine guns in each of the upstairs rooms. The military expert told us that it looked as if most of the buildings had been destroyed by anti-tank mines and then finished off by bulldozers. People have set up small tents on the rubble of their houses, but aid has yet to reach them. A child told us that every child in the settlement is now either an orphan or has lost at least one parent. The woman whose husband was shot at near point blank range also lost both her mother and father.

Inside their command post the Israelis have scrawled graffiti on some walls which says things like ‘1 Arab down, 999,999 to go’, alongside Stars of David, slogans such as ‘make war not peace’ and a chilling drawing of a tombstone on which it is written Arabs 1948-2008. When they exited the house they started fires in the remaining rooms and left human shit in many of the rooms.

5. The use of flechette missiles. These are projectiles the size of 4-inch nails with four tail fins. They work by being jettisoned sideways from a missile before it hits a target. Each missile contains 80,000 flechettes. On impact these lethal items tend to bend rather than go straight into their target so when they hit people the wound is over a wider area. On the 6th January a family were holding a wake for an ambulance worker killed as he tried to access the victims of an Israeli attack. Traditional mourning tents had been erected and a large number of people were milling around in a wide residential street with a couple of shops in it and houses on both sides. As the local population were paying their respects to the mourning family a missile was launched at low level from the Israeli border about 800 meters away. It was aimed directly at the crowded street. Its forward trajectory ejected its flechettes over its range of about 100m and 150m either side. A large number of people in the crowd were hit. Many were injured, including the teenager who gave us this account, who was hit by three flechettes, one of which was still embedded in his leg. Given the extent and nature of injuries in Gaza, he is still not considered a high enough priority for it to be removed. He showed us his brother’s X-rays, which showed a flechette embedded in his right lung. He is still ill in hospital. A number of others were killed, including a pregnant mother and two young members of this young man’s family. I saw several flechettes still buried in the walls of the houses. Photographs of the deceased victims show dozens of flechettes deeply embedded in their faces and bodies.

The objective of the 22-day attack seems to have been to kill, destroy and disable as much of the population and infrastructure of Gaza as was possible. The Israeli Army targeted the essential services and institutions with astonishing accuracy, leaving the buildings on either side untouched in most cases. Over 60 mosques in Gaza were hit. Some are still standing, some reduced to rubble. Nearly every Palestinian Authority ministry was destroyed, including the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of the Interior. This means that all records in Gaza have been destroyed, all records of births and deaths, all records of entitlements and finances. The territory has been reduced to chaos. All 13 police stations in Gaza City were destroyed in one 3-minute strike. The policy cadet school was struck during a graduation parade. Some 40 teenage cadets were killed. We saw their hats and boots, riddled with shrapnel and bullet holes, lying strewn over the parade ground. Shell after shell rained down on those participating in and watching the parade, as they attempted to flee, as demonstrated by the craters in the ground, the last one striking just by the gate.

Every aspect of Gazan society was hit, including money changers, ambulance stations, hospitals, schools. I saw a number of the 40+ schools that had been attacked by missiles, including two schools - one of them the American school, whose students were some of the elite of the youth of Gaza – which had been razed to the ground. Over 50 UN installations were also hit, including two schools where children were beheaded by the force of the blasts, and of course, the UNWRA compound warehouse which had contained a significant quantity of medical supplies for those injured in the attacks.

These are only a fraction of the atrocities the Palestinian population has endured at the hands of the Israelis.

Nowhere in Gaza was safe during the bombings. There was nowhere to go. Every adult in Gaza contemplated not only their own death but that of their children, and made the decision about where and when they should die. Many uprooted their families from one area to another in a vain attempt to find safe haven. Others remained at home as the bombs rained down, preferring to die where they lived, rather than face the prospect of being shot as they fled. Although children were some of the greatest casualties of the war, adults have had to face up to their total and utter impotence and their inability to protect their children and those they love. The long term impact will be huge. As a start, Gaza needs an army of psychiatrists.

There is a dire need for aid in Gaza. Unfortunately and despite claims by Israel and its friends the aid is coming in far too slowly at all crossing points. The Israeli Army, again despite the claims to the contrary, is actually attacking authorised supply lines. On Tuesday night, still during the ceasefire, missiles whistled over the flat I was staying in followed by dull thuds in the distance. The next morning the TV news media reported missile attacks on supply lines. Shelling is also continuing from gunboats off the Gazan shore, unreported in the media. Egypt is refusing to allow food in. Many of the areas of Gaza most affected by the attacks have yet to be accessed by humanitarian aid.

Please forgive the roughness of this diatribe, I am writing on the plane on the way back from Cairo. Please give generously to Interpal, UNWRA and any other relevant aid providers. If you have time the Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights welcome all who are willing or able to assist in whatever way they can. Membership forms can be downloaded from www.lphr.org.uk. .

A useful assessment overall maybe

2009-02-02T10:26:00.000+11:00

Rebuilding Gaza Could Be the Most Difficult Reconstruction Project in the World
By Patrick Cockburn, Independent UK
Posted on January 20, 2009, Printed on February 1, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/121162/

The rebuilding of Gaza after the Israeli bombardment already faces unique problems and is likely to be the most difficult reconstruction project in the world. This is because of the sheer scale of the devastation, the economic siege of the Palestinian enclave by Israel and Egypt, and the attempt to exclude Hamas, the elected rulers of Gaza, from any role in the rebuilding.

The difficulties are all the greater because of the destruction of much of the tunnel system linking Gaza to Egypt. Israeli and European leaders talk of the tunnel system -- by one estimate there are 1,100 of them -- as if it was exclusively devoted to supplying weapons and ammunition to Hamas. In reality, "the tunnel economy" has been the way in which food, fuel and everything else has reached Gaza since Israel and Egypt sealed off the Strip 18 months ago, when Hamas drove out the rival Palestinian faction Fatah in 2007. Military supplies were always a very small part of Gaza's imports through the tunnels.

"Everything from Viagra to diesel entered Gaza through the tunnels," said one source. At one point before the Israeli attack, the price of petrol went down in Gaza because a pipeline had been threaded through one of the tunnels, all of which are privately dug and owned. Cooking-gas bottles are in short supply because they previously came in through tunnels that are now closed.

"I know middle-class families in Gaza cutting up their furniture to build fires so they can cook their food," said an aid official yesterday. Spare parts are desperately needed for generators.

The Palestinian tunnels and the Israeli-Egyptian border closure were two issues at the center of the war and their future is still unresolved.

Until Gaza has continual access to the outside world, any real reconstruction will be impossible. A senior EU official said no aid would be spent rebuilding buildings and infrastructure while Hamas remained in control.

Israel says that it will have withdrawn all its troops from the Gaza Strip by the time Barack Obama is inaugurated today. A first priority for the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) will be to bring in foodstuffs and medicines and rebuild its supply system stretching from the Israeli port of Ashdod to the Gaza Strip. Then it will try to restore the electricity, water and sewage systems wrecked by Israeli bombs and shells. Amnesty International yesterday accused Israel of war crimes, saying its use of white phosphorus munitions in densely populated areas of Gaza was indiscriminate and illegal.

UNRWA will probably carry out the preliminary assessment of damage and initial repairs because Israel, Egypt, the U.S. and the Europeans are boycotting Hamas, although UNRWA is nervous of acting as a substitute government of Gaza. One Palestinian estimate suggests that the cost of rebuilding will be $1.4bn (£970m). Saudi Arabia has already pledged $1bn but promises on aid are seldom kept in full.

Rebuilding will take place in a 139-square-mile enclave that is packed with 1.5 million Palestinians, of whom 70 percent are from refugee families expelled from Israel during the creation of the state. More than a million are already receiving UN food supplies.

The initial assessment is that 20,000 homes lived in by 120,000 people have been somewhat damaged and can be patched up so they are habitable again. The 4,000 homes that have been destroyed cannot be rebuilt because Israel is refusing to let construction materials cross the border into Gaza.

Israel, the U.S. and their European allies are eager to prevent Hamas taking charge of reconstruction because this might add to its political standing among Palestinians. They recall that after the Israeli attack on Lebanon in 2006, many Lebanese at first blamed Hizbollah for provoking the assault. But Hizbollah took charge of rebuilding and Iran reportedly gave $14,000 to every family which had lost its home, money that was channelled to grateful recipients through Hizbollah.

The major potential donors for Gaza will try to get aid distributed through the Palestinian Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas. But he is, if anything, more discredited in the eyes of Palestinians and the Arab world as an Israeli and American stooge than he was before war in Gaza. Hamas, which won the heavily-monitored Palestinian election of 2006, will not want to dilute its power but there will be international pressure on Palestinians to form a government that is acceptable to donors.

If Gaza is to be restored even to the miserable condition it was in before December 27th, then the economic siege has to be lifted. But Israeli leaders like the Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, and the Defense Minister, Ehud Barak have claimed success in the war. If the blockade is raised, then Hamas will say it won the war -- and the election of Benjamin Netanyahu as the next Prime Minister of Israel in the election on February 10th will become even more certain.

So were there any winners or losers?

What was Hamas's aim? Rocket attacks intended to force Israel to end blockade that has trapped 1.5m Palestinians inside Gaza Strip since Hamas takeover. Hamas also seeking recognition by West

What happened? Security arrangements are to be imposed on Hamas and no ceasefire agreement has been signed with the Islamists

Did they succeed? No.

What was Israel's aim? Gaza offensive launched to "teach Hamas a lesson". Some Israeli politicians called for overthrow of Hamas, while contenders in next month's election sought improved ratings

What happened? The majority of the estimated 20,000 Hamas fighters escaped with their lives. Hamas rockets were still being fired at the end of Israeli offensive when Israel declared unilateral ceasefire

Did they succeed? No.

What was Egypt's aim? To secure end to offensive through ceasefire agreement leading to truce, border security, reopening of crossings, Israeli troop withdrawal and Palestinian reconciliation

What happened? U.S. negotiated separate deal with Israel on arms smuggling. Hamas set its own truce conditions and refused reconciliation with Fatah. Egyptian mediation deepened split between moderate Arab states and others

Did they succeed? No.

What was the EU's aim? To profit from power vacuum in U.S. and play lead negotiating role. To map out road to peace and promise support for Palestinian leadership afterwards

What happened? Plethora of negotiators undermined EU credibility as didthe incompetence of Czech EU presidency

Did they succeed? No.

© 2009 Independent UK All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/121162/

Children of Gaza: stories of those who died and the trauma for those who survived

2009-02-02T07:17:00.000+11:00

Children of Gaza: stories of those who died and the trauma for those who survived
> Rory McCarthy reports from Gaza City on the individual stories of some victims and the physical and psychological toll on an estimated 350,000 youngsters> Friday January 23 2009
> guardian.co.uk

Graham graham spotted this on the guardian.co.uk site and thought you should see it.
>
> To see this story with its related links on the guardian.co.uk site, go to http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/23/gaza-children-killed-israel
>
> Children of Gaza: stories of those who died and the trauma for those who survived
> Rory McCarthy reports from Gaza City on the individual stories of some victims and the physical and psychological toll on an estimated 350,000 youngsters
> Friday January 23 2009
> guardian.co.uk
>
>
> Amira Qirm lay on a hospital bed today with her right leg in plaster, and held together by a line of steel pins dug deep into her skin. For several days after her operation Amira, 15, was unable to speak, and even now talks only in a low whisper.
>
> In her past are bitter memories: watching her father die in the street outside their home, then hearing another shell land and kill her brother Ala'a, 14, and her sister Ismat, 16, and then the three days that she spent alone, injured and semi-conscious, trying to stay alive in a neighbour's abandoned house before she could be rescued last Sunday.
>
> Ahead of her, she has a long recovery. First there is an imminent flight to France for the best possible medical treatment, many more operations and then months of rehabilitation and psychiatric care.
>
> Only now, after most of the dead have been buried, is the first properly researched reckoning of the toll emerging. What already stands out is the striking cost borne by the children of Gaza, who make up more than half of the 1.5 million people living in this overcrowded strip of land.
>
> The Palestinian death toll after three weeks of Israel's war was 1,285, according to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, or 1,268, according to the al-Mezan Human Rights Centre. Among those dead were at least 280 children.
>
> The impact will be felt by many more for years to come. Among the more than 4,000 people injured more than a quarter were children, some left with severe disabilities. The Gaza Community Health Programme estimates that half Gaza's children ? around 350,000 ? will develop some form of post-traumatic stress disorder.
>
> Amira Qirm, who lived in Tel al-Hawa, the scene of some of the heaviest fighting in Gaza City, is among the few in line to receive medical treatment abroad.
>
> Already she has a dream to fulfil once she returns to Gaza. "I want to be a lawyer," she said today , "and to stand in court facing the Israelis for what they have done."
>
> Most of the other children will have to make do with treatment in Gaza. Last week some psychologists were walking through the ruins of a house in Atatra, talking to a boy from the Abu Halima family who had lost his father, three brothers and an infant sister in a horrific fire after an Israeli phosphorus shell hit the house.
>
> "The problem is they are not feeling safe even in their own homes, on the streets, in the mosques," said Ehassan Afifi, the psychologist. "This boy is seeing what happened as if it is an endless movie. The physically affected can be operated on, sometimes cured. But these mental problems may lead to problems for the rest of their lives."
>
> Israel has consistently rejected international criticism that its forces used excessive and indiscriminate firepower.
>
> Asked about the criticisms, the prime minister, Ehud Olmert, said in an interview yesterday in the Israeli paper Ma'ariv that the mental health of the children of southern Israel had suffered in recent years. He added: "So now there is talk about Israel's cruelty. When you win, you automatically hurt more than you've been hurt. And we didn't want to lose this campaign. What did you want, for hundreds of our soldiers to die? That, after all, was the alternative."
>
> On the Israeli side 13 died in this conflict, three of them civilians. In total in the past eight years, 20 people in Israel have died from rocket and mortar attacks launched by militants in Gaza.
>
> Halting this rocket fire was Israel's primary goal and for the last few days, at least, it has achieved its aim.
>
> But Eyad al-Sarraj, a prominent psychiatrist who leads the Gaza community health programme, said that years of violence in Gaza had only fostered radicalism among its young people, who have seen their fathers humiliated and now left defenceless.
>
> His organisation is training 1,000 ?people to spread out across Gaza to offer help with grief and mourning and to pass serious cases on to professional therapists.
>
> Already there were reports, he said, of children bed-wetting, stuttering, falling mute, having trouble sleeping, becoming violent or restless and losing their appetites.
>
> The difference between this war and the uprisings, like the first intifada of the late 1980s, was that whereas there was once a frontline, with tanks near the border, now the bombing and artillery reached deep inside Gaza's urban areas and into the homes of ordinary families. "Yes, we have developed a coping strategy but we are still frightened of the Israelis doing this again and again," said al-Sarraj.
>
> "The devastation is a reminder of what the Israelis will do. You need to give children a protective environment and give a chance to the fathers to regain their status as protectors and providers by giving them jobs and homes to live in ? This is a massive, man-made disaster and we have to tackle the results."
>
> Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited 2009
>
> If you have any questions about this email, please contact the guardian.co.uk user help desk: userhelp@guardian.co.uk.
> Guardian News & Media has moved. Our new address is:

International Tribunal to Save Israel and Palestinians

2009-02-02T07:11:00.000+11:00

International Tribunalhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/daoud-kuttab/international-tribunal-to_b_159285.html to Save Israel and Palestinians

By Ilan Ziv and Daoud Kuttab

For over twenty years we have worked together documenting the struggle between our peoples with the goal of saving our humanity, with the belief in the sanctity of life and the power of the rule of law. If we have learned anything in our years of work on the ground in Palestine, Israel and around the world, it is that our two peoples are incapable of solving our conflict by ourselves. We have also come to the strong belief that the US acting in a biased fashion has failed to be the impartial and honest broker it has claimed it will be. Instead we truly believe that there is an international body, yet to be established, that can save Israel, the Palestinians and indeed the region from this process of self destruction which has been spiraling out of control.

In 2001 in the height of the Second Intifada and in midst of the Palestinian suicide bombing campaign, and Israeli incursions, we published a joint article calling for an international war tribunal. In this article we concluded that Israelis and Palestinians are locked in a deadly embrace from which neither side can extricate itself. Neither society, we argued, is capable of producing the forces of change that could alter this deadly course. Both societies ,we wrote, are locked in their own concept of victimhood and self justification, while extremists on both sides are feeding off each other. Each convulsion of violence narrows further the space for dialogue and compromise, marginalizing internal opposition.

This was not an academic observation. It grew out of our own experience. For years we collaborated on a Palestinian/Israeli self documentation project where cameras were given to ordinary Palestinians and Israelis from all walks of life to record the impact of momentous political events on their lives. In "Palestinian Diaries," cameras were given to young Palestinians to record their experience of the first Intifada. We expanded the project after the signing of the Oslo accords to include six Israelis as well. We called it at the time "Peace Diaries." Yet while politicians spoke about peace, the material that came from villages, refugee camps and settlements showed the brewing of a new war.

Although our ways parted for some time, we have both been involved in focusing on issues of war crimes and the use of international instruments to hold people and governments accountable. Ilan has documented war crimes in the former Yugoslavia and Daoud contributed to and produced two editions of the Arabic version of the multi language book "Crimes of War-What the Public Should Know." Our work convinced us that only the creation of a special tribunal like those which were established during the war in the former Yugoslavia and after the massacre in Rwanda , will create an international body with a moral authority to hold a mirror in front of both societies. Only such a tribunal could sift through partisan rhetoric and claims of victimhood. The importance of such a court will be far more than enforcing international law. As in the Balkan, we believe, it will help to contain the conflict and force political changes.

In 2001 we never imagined the war in Gaza eight years later with its frightening human toll of hundreds of children and women dead or wounded. Hamas is accused of firing rockets into Israeli civilian locations but who could have imagined the response: as many as 200,000 internal refugees (estimated by human rights groups), the massive destruction of infrastructure and homes, the disproportional use of force and the attacks on UN facilities (even while the secretary general was meeting with Israeli officials).

This time there is a growing chorus calling for an international investigation into whether both sides committed war crimes and crimes against humanity. Though we whole heartedly support those calls, we know that the impact of such investigations in the past has been limited. Israel is not a signatory to the International Criminal Court in the Hague (neither is Hamas), therefore any attempt to bring the case to the Hague is bound to fail. The only choice, we believe, is the establishment of a special tribunal based on the legal precedents created in the conflict in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. There are many obstacles to the establishment of such a court by the Security Council. However according to Prof. Richard Falk, the UN rapporteur on the human rights in the Palestinian territories, the court can be established by the General Assembly as well.

We believe that the cause of such a tribunal should be adopted by the hundreds of non governmental organizations recognized by the United Nations. They could put pressure on the members states to adopt such a resolution. At stake are not only the crimes committed yesterday but the future disasters that will be born out of the ruins of Gaza. As we peer into the abyss, we believe that the establishment of a War Crime Tribunal needs to be supported both by Israel's friends as well as by supporters of Palestine. It is the only international mechanism that can save Israel from itself and save the Palestinians and the region from a looming catastrophe.

Daoud Kuttab is a Palestinian journalist who lives in Jerusalem and Amman. Ilan Ziv is an Israeli documentary filmmaker living in New York City and director of Tamouz Media

Healing Gaza's Wounds

2009-02-02T07:09:00.000+11:00

Healing Gaza's Wounds

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-zogby/healing-gazas-wounds_b_162676.html

Viewing the aftermath of the assault on Gaza, and listening to some of the commentary coming from Israel, the Arab world and from Israel's supporters here in the U.S., can be disturbing on many levels. Most troubling is the failure of the apologists for both sides to even consider the human and social dimensions of the profound tragedy that just occurred. What flows from this is their inability to understand the war's long-term consequences.

Because, in fact, Palestinians are fully human and, therefore, mourn their dead, feel their wounds and hold their hurts to their hearts as deeply as the rest of us, the impact of this calamity requires attention. It cannot be passed over, objectified or reduced to faceless numbers, or dismissed with the stroke of an apologist's pen.

There are over 1,300 dead, more than 5,000 injured and thousands more (e.g., pregnant women, cancer patients, etc) who suffered irreparable harm because they could not receive the hospital care they needed during this conflict. In addition, thousands of homes were destroyed, affecting the lives and fortunes of hundreds of thousands. Because of Gaza's strong family ties and its population density, no one in that impoverished strip was untouched - either by personal loss, or by the pain resulting from this assault.

Societies are like human organisms: when part of the body is traumatized, the pain radiates throughout, affecting all its parts. Not only Palestinians in Gaza but worldwide, and to a remarkable degree Arabs, in general, were affected by the shock of this war. That is so, because Palestine and the dispossession of its people has long been an open wound among Arabs, reminding them of their loss of control of their history, their vulnerability, and their inability to secure legitimate rights in the face of Western betrayal. So it is that the pain in Gaza has taken a toll, which will not only last for generations there, but has also radiated outward.

In the war's aftermath, therefore, it is important that attention be paid not only to Gaza's physical wounds and its immediate humanitarian needs, but to the psychic wounds of the survivors. These will not heal of their own accord. Left untended, they will fester, resulting in aberrant behaviors with long-term social and political consequences.

Though extreme in its intensity and impact, it is important to remember that this latest assault was but one in a long trail of traumas to affect Palestinians: from the shock of colonial displacement in the 1930s and 1940s; the dismemberment and dispossession of 1948; the occupation and further dislocations resulting from the 1967 and 1973 wars; and the assault on the PLO in 1982, as well as the crippling violence of two intifadas - all have taken an immense human toll, with raging consequences on Palestinian society and beyond. How else to explain the deformities of extremist religious ideologies that have developed across the region and their attendant "cult of death?"

Prolonged oppression and systematic violence affect societies, and individuals within them. Ignoring the trauma and the wounds of war solves nothing. Pretending there are no victims and no problems to address can be fatal.

So, pardon me, if I am horrified by Israel and its supporter's indecent efforts to absolve Israel of "paternity" in this tragedy - to dismiss the war's excesses and to diminish its impact, or to reduce all of this to a justifiable "lesson to be taught." In this, they forget that the lesson learned is not always the one taught. And pardon, as well, my disgust with Hamas and its supporters, who seek to portray this horror as a victory for "the resistance." Their bizarre bravado is itself a psychic aberration and response to oppression. Their rhetoric, their behavior, and their insensitivity to the suffering all around, are just plain wrong.

I am pleased that President Obama has addressed, with compassion, the victims in Gaza, and recognized the need to address the future hopes of Palestinians. I am distressed, however, that now, more than one week after the onslaught has ended, more dramatic and immediate action has not been taken. Attention must be paid to the survivors and their needs.

In this context, a letter sent this week by sixty-four members of Congress to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, strikes an important and welcome tone. It must be considered. Calling for "immediate action by the U.S. to address this crisis," the letter notes the "dire circumstances" and "desperate conditions" in Gaza, and warns of "a dramatic increase in individuals suffering from psychic trauma."

As these members know, this is no time for wasted political debate, apologetics or finger-pointing. It is too late to save those who perished, and those who will forever be marred by this war. But is not too late to address this war's other wounds, by providing the immediate care that is needed. Our response should have been, and still could be, as rapid and substantial as were our post-Tsunami and post-earthquake efforts. The needs are as great, and the consequences are, as well. As the pain from Gaza radiated outward, so, too, will salve on Gaza's wounds help heal far-reaching injuries.

Palestinian Territories
Israel
Viewing the aftermath of the assault on Gaza, and listening to some of the commentary coming from Israel, the Arab world and from Israel's supporters here in the U.S., can be disturbing on many level...
Viewing the aftermath of the assault on Gaza, and listening to some of the commentary coming from Israel, the Arab world and from Israel's supporters here in the U.S., can be disturbing on many level...

How Israel's Propaganda Machine Works

2009-02-02T07:05:00.000+11:00

FROM James Zogby - excellent stuff.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-zogby/how-israels-propaganda-ma_b_156767.html?view=screen
As in past Mideast conflicts, both the media story line and political commentary here in the U.S. has closely followed Israel's talking points on the war. This has been an essential component in Israel's early success and in its ability to prolong fighting without U.S. pushback. Because it recognizes the importance of the propaganda war, Israel fights on this front as vigorously and disproportionately as it engages on the battlefield.

Here's how they have done it:

1) Define the terms of debate, and you win the debate. Early on, the Israelis work to define the context, the starting point, and the story line that will shape understanding of the war. In this instance, for example, they succeeded by constant repetition, in establishing the notion that the starting point of the conflict was December 19th, the end of the six-month ceasefire (which Israel described as "unilaterally ended by Hamas"). In doing so, they ignored, of course, their own early November violations, and their failure to honor their commitment in the ceasefire to open Gaza's borders. They also ignored their having reduced Gaza into a dependency, a process which began long before and continued after their withdrawal in 2005. Because they know that most Americans do not closely follow the conflict and are inclined to believe, as the line goes, "what they hear over and over again," this tactic of preemptive definition and repetition succeeds.

2) Recognize that stereotypes work. Because, for generations, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been defined with positive cultural images of Israel and negative stereotypes of Palestinians, Israel's propagandists have an advantage here that is easy to exploit. Because the story has long been seen as "Israeli humanity confronting the Palestinian problem," media coverage of any conflict begins with how "the problem" is affecting the Israeli people. As Golda Meir once put it, "We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children, but we can never forgive them for making us kill their children." And so, it was not surprising that, despite the disproportionate suffering of the Palestinians, media coverage attempted to "balance" the story, giving an extensive treatment, with photos, of anguished and fearful Israelis and the impact the war was having on them. Early on, when media treatment mattered most, Palestinians were reduced, as always, to mere numbers or objectified as "collateral damage."

3) Anticipate and count on your opponent's blunders. Hamas' stupidity played into Israel's strategy. From the outset, Israel could count on the fact that Hamas would launch rockets and issue the kind of threats that Israel could then parley into sympathy in the West. Knowing that these would most certainly come, and could be exploited, was an advantage in their propaganda war.

4) Be everywhere, and say the same thing -- and make sure your opponents remain as invisible as possible. Israel begins each war with a host of English-speaking spokespersons (many born in the West) available at any time for every media outlet (it's no accident, for example, that Israel has an "Arab" Consul General in Atlanta - that's where CNN is). The work of their propaganda operation, which spreads multiple spokespersons in venues across the United States with consistent talking points, guarantees success. At the same time, they are able to deny media access to Gaza, only allowing the Western reporters to operate near the war zone under IDF supervision, guaranteeing Israel the opportunity to shape every aspect of the story while removing the possibility of independent verification of the horror unfolding in Gaza.

5) Give no ground. Since half of the story will be determined by what political leaders say and do, the political apparatus in Washington is also pressed into service, ensuring that White House and Congressional leadership will "toe the line." Statements issued by Congress, therefore, reflect the talking points and, together, the Israeli spokespersons, the political commentators, and the Congressional statements serve as echoes of one another.

6) Deny, deny, deny. When events and reality break through, contradicting the Israeli-established narrative, creating stories that run counter to the imposed story line, the propaganda machine works overtime to deny, deny, deny (saying quite boldly, "Who do you believe, me or your lying eyes?"), and/or concoct a counter-narrative that shifts the blame ("We didn't do it, they made us"). In this instance, that means asserting that the death of Palestinian civilians is always the fault of someone else, or that reporters or their opponents are staging the photos of grief (as if to say, "Arabs don't really grieve like we do").

7) The last refuge.... When all else fails, point to a few examples of outrageous anti-Semitism, generalize them, suggesting that that is what motivates critics. It stings, and may be over-used, but it can silence or put critics on the defensive.

Gaza desperately short of food after Israel destroys farmland

2009-02-02T06:59:00.000+11:00

To see this story with its related links on the guardian.co.uk site, go to http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/01/gaza-food-crisis Gaza desperately short of food after Israel destroys farmlandOfficials warn of 'destruction of all means of life' after the three-week conflict leaves agriculture in the region in ruinsPeter Beaumont in GazaSunday February 1 2009The Observer Gaza's 1.5 million people are facing a food crisis as a result of the destruction of great areas of farmland during the Israeli invasion. According to the World Food Programme, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation and Palestinian officials, between 35% and 60% of the agriculture industry has been wrecked by the three-week Israeli attack, which followed two years of economic siege. Christine van Nieuwenhuyse, the World Food Programme's country director, said: "We are hearing that 60% of the land in the north - where the farming was most intensive - may not be exploitable again. It looks to me like a disaster. It is not just farmland, but poultry as well. "When we have given a food ration in Gaza, it was never a full ration but to complement the diet. Now it is going to be almost impossible for Gaza to produce the food it needs for the next six to eight months, assuming that the agriculture can be rehabilitated. We will give people a full ration." The FAO estimates that 13,000 families who depend directly on herding, farming and fishing have suffered significant damage. "Before the blockade and the attack," said Ahmad Sourani, director of the Agricultural Development Association of Gaza, which runs programmes with charities such as Britain's Christian Aid, "Gaza produced half of its own food. Now that has declined by 25%. In addition, a quarter of the population depends on agriculture for income. What we have seen in large areas of farmland is the destruction of all means of life. "We have seen a creeping process of farmers being forced out of the buffer zone around Gaza's border. Before 2000 we could approach and farm within 50m of the fence. After Israel's evacuation of the settlements in 2005, the Israeli army imposed a buffer of 300m. Although it is elastic, now there are areas, depending on the situation, where farmers cannot reach their farms in safety within an area of over a kilometre. It is indirect confiscation by fear. My fear is that, if it remains, it will become de facto. Bear in mind that 30% of Gaza's most productive land is within that buffer zone." The wholesale destruction of farms, greenhouses, dairy parlours, livestock, chicken coops and orchards has damaged food production, which was already hit by the blockade. Buildings heavily damaged during Israel's Operation Cast Lead included much of its agricultural infrastructure. The Ministry of Agriculture was targeted, the agriculture faculty at al-Azhar university in Beit Hanoun largely destroyed, and the offices of the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees in Zaitoun - which provides cheap food for the poor - ransacked and vandalised by soldiers who left abusive graffiti. Although international and local officials are still gathering figures, they believe that scores, perhaps hundreds, of wells and water sources have been damaged and several hundred greenhouses have been levelled, as well as severe damage inflicted on 60,000-75,000 dunums of Gaza's 175,000 dunums (44,000 acres) of farmable land. As well as the physical damage done by Israeli bulldozers, bombing and shelling, land has been contaminated by munitions, including white phosphorous, burst sewerage pipes, animal carcasses and even asbestos used in roofing. In many places, the damage is extreme. In Jabal al-Rayas, once a thriving farming community, every building has been knocked down, and even the cattle killed and left to lie rotting in the fields. In al-Atatra, Ahmad Hassan, 65, the overseer of an orchard that once had hundreds of lemon and orange trees, surveyed an area flattened by bulldozers. "This was the well," he said, showing a pile of bulldozed concrete. "We can clear the ground in two weeks. Then what? The well is gone. The pump has been destroyed. And where will the trees come from to replant the land?" Van Nieuwenhuyse said: "Already, the price of meat has tripled since the Israeli operation began. What is more worrying is the situation over vegetables. Protein we can help with, but before this there were already deficiencies in the diet. Now they will have to rely on Israel." It was a view echoed by Hassan Abu Etah, the deputy agriculture minister in Gaza. "It has all been hugely damaged. And it affects all of Gaza, not simply the farmers. We produced some of what we needed. It makes you wonder whether they wanted to change Gaza from production to consumption." In the heavily damaged village of Khuza'a, near Khan Younis, Salam Najar surveyed the no-go zone that extends from the last houses in the village to the border fence where Israeli farmland begins. "Most of the families here have farmed that side. Now no one feels safe to go there. They have destroyed it all." Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited 2009 If you have any questions about this email, please contact the guardian.co.uk user help desk: userhelp@guardian.co.uk.Guardian News & Media has moved. Our new address is: Kings Place90 York WayLondon N1 9GUTel: 020-3353 2000