Chris Hedges condemns Israeli Gaza Massacre

Chris Hedges, author, spoke at a Revolution Books Town Hall Meeting at Ethical Culture Society January 13, 2009 condemning Israel and US complicity in Israel's murderous destruction of Gaza

Fear and trauma in Gaza's schools

By Alex Dziadosz in Gaza


Counselors and teachers are addressing the trauma and fears of students in Gaza [GALLO/GETTY]

As students filed into the courtyard of Asma elementary school in Gaza City for the first time since the Israeli offensive began, they were greeted by a bleak reminder of the violence that left more than 1,300 Palestinians dead and thousands injured.
A hole punched by an Israeli rocket scarred the courtyard latrine and blood soiled the wall beside it.

Asma is one of over 600 schools in Gaza - most of which reopened on January 24 - that is today facing a large number of post-war operational challenges.
Educators across the Gaza Strip are now considering whether to reschedule exams which were abandoned when Israel began bombing the territory on December 27.
Teachers are also faced with the task of teaching in rooms which had served as shelters for dozens of refugees.
Addressing the trauma

On their first day back to class, most children meandered in the courtyard, eating bread and cheese provided by the school and playing with their friends. Inside the classrooms, debris left by the scores of refugees housed there until a few days ago still covered the floors – a box of tomatoes, empty bottles and, in some rooms, the shattered remnants of boards and chairs used for firewood in the absence of gas and electricity.
Many teachers say that a normal curriculum cannot be administered until students have been treated for trauma from the deaths of their classmates and family members.
"In the morning when I was working among the students, some of them were very frightened," said Amirah Hamdan, a teacher at Asma who handles the morning attendance call.
"They thought that the war would start again because they were in the school."
Other teachers and administrators say they will take the next few days to help the school's nearly 900 students put the war behind them and return to their studies, but the first day made it clear that this will take time.
Students at the Asma school were mostly glad to return, though many were still shaken by the violence of the past few weeks.

Nour Abdel All, 10, says she lost two of her seven brothers during the war and is worried that she will lose more.
When she is old enough to work, she says, she would like to teach human rights, an attitude inspired by the loss of her brothers.
The bombing terrified her and she is still scared - particularly of the Israeli fighter jets.
"I pray that God will one day burn them all," she says
School exams
Suha Dawoud, a supervisor at Asma, says her daughter was one of many students who had been taking her annual exams when the Israeli attacks began.
"They [the students] are not in a state of mind in which they can concentrate and focus," says Dawoud.
"Even the most disciplined student would not be able to cope with examinations after the horrible scenes they have watched either on TV or on the ground."
However, many students had been performing poorly at school even before Israel launched the war on Gaza on December 27.
The Israeli blockade has stifled the local economy forcing many students to reportedly abandoned their studies and seek employment.
Turning to education



Several schools in Gaza were damaged in the Israeli attacks [AFP]
Many Palestinians see education as one of the few paths available to them to leave the territories in search of better lives.
In recent decades, the West Bank and Gaza Strip have posted better high school enrolment rates than Lebanon and higher literacy rates than Egypt and Yemen.

The Palestinian territories and diaspora have produced many influential academics, such as Edward Said, Rashid Khalidi and Mahmoud Darwish.
"Our goal is to keep the wheel of education going, because education is what our children have. It is their actual wealth," says Dawoud.
"We do not have resources here in Gaza. We do not have raw materials or industry. We have nothing other than education itself."
Educators like Dawoud are also up against the prevailing atmosphere of occupation and violence.
Graffiti depicting armed and masked men cover the walls, the faces of fallen "martyrs" glare down from lamppost signs, and digital gunfire sputters from internet cafes as rows of children sit enthralled by military-themed video games.
Even in Dawoud's classes, the air of violence is there.
As a kind of therapy, she often gives children papers and pencils and asks them to draw what they are feeling.
"You might be shocked," she says.
"Blood, destruction, people killing each other; guns are in their paintings and drawings."
Angry students
At the Palestine Secondary School for Boys, a government-run school for some 700 students in Gaza City, administrators have decided to cancel exams altogether.
They had been scheduled for December 29 – two days after the Israeli assault began.
El-Khalily, the school's manager, told Al Jazeera that on their first day back, teachers did not hold regular class session but instead chose to help students cope with what they had seen and heard during the war.
Two students from the school were killed during the war and another five were wounded.
Teachers at the school are worried that student anger could lead to violence and failing grades in the days ahead.
"Maybe a teacher is explaining a lesson and the student is in another mental place," says Nour El-Deen, an English teacher.
"His body is with the teacher, yes, but his mind is out. He is thinking of destruction, demolition."

Source: Al Jazeera

http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/crisisingaza/2009/01/200912553199345.html

Israel accused of war crimes ahead of Ban's visit

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

Tuesday 20 January 2009

As the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is set to visit both southern Israel and the devastated Gaza strip, human rights NGO Amnesty International said it was "undeniable" that Israel used illegal white phosphorous bombs.

AFP - Tension eased in Gaza early on Tuesday as a fragile ceasefire entered its third day, with residents struggling to absorb the devastation caused by Israel's deadly 22-day assault on the territory.

As dawn approached, there were no reports of shooting, rockets or any other unrest by either side for the first time since Israel launched its massive assault on December 27.

Israel declared a unilateral ceasefire on Sunday and begun pulling back from Gaza City while Hamas and other militant groups kept to a week-long truce.

As some kind of normalcy began to return to the battered enclave, UN chief Ban Ki-moon was to make his first visit to witness first hand the extent of the destruction which left more than 1,300 people dead.

It would also be the first visit by a foreign leader to the impoverished territory since Hamas violently seized power there in June 2007, ousting forces loyal to moderate Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.

The secretary general was also to visit the southern Israeli town of Sderot, five kilometres (three miles) from the Gaza border, which has taken the brunt of the rocket fire since 2001.

Some stores raised their metal shutters as Hamas police reappeared on the streets to direct traffic and people dug through the rubble to recover what they could -- clothes, a television, books, tins of food.

Najette Manah, three small children in tow, clutched a box of rice that she found amid the debris of what used to be her home.

"We don't have homes any more. I don't have anything any more," she said.

Statistics released by the Palestinian bureau of statistics showed some 4,100 homes were totally destroyed and 17,000 others damaged in the three-week war.

Despite the devastation, Hamas' armed wing called the war a "divine victory" and vowed to rearm, warning Israel it would face more rocket attacks if it did not withdraw all its forces by next Sunday.

Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades' spokesman Abu Obeida said Hamas lost only 48 fighters, although Israel said it killed more than 500. He also claimed Israel lost "at least 80 soldiers". The army listed 10 killed.

Groups linked to the secular Fatah movement reported 37 combatants killed, Islamic Jihad 34, the Popular Resistance Committees 17 and the leftist Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine 13.

Gaza medics said more than 1,300 Palestinians, nearly a third of them children, were killed in the war.

"Our arsenal of rockets has not been affected and we continued to fire them during the war without interruption. We are still able to launch them," Abu Obeida said, adding that efforts to halt arms smuggling into Gaza would also fail.

"Let them do what they want. Bringing in weapons for the resistance and making them is our mission and we know full well how to acquire weapons."

Israel meanwhile again came under fire for using excessive force, with Amnesty International saying it was "undeniable" that Israel had used white phosphorus in crowded civilian areas, contrary to international law.

"We saw streets and alleyways littered with evidence of the use of white phosphorus, including still burning wedges," said Christopher Cobb-Smith, a weapons expert touring Gaza as part of a four-person fact-finding team.

White phosphorus can be used as a smokescreen on an open battlefield but is banned in densely populated areas. Israel has said all the weapons it used in the war are allowed under international law.

At an Arab summit in Kuwait, beleaguered Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas made a renewed appeal for national unity between Hamas and Fatah.

"What is needed and necessary now is that all Palestinians should meet to reach an agreement," Abbas said, calling for the formation of a national unity government to organise fresh presidential and parliamentary elections.

In Qatar last Friday, Hamas for the first time attended a regional summit as a representative of the Palestinians, a political coup that raised fears among Abbas's supporters that the internal rift may be hardening.

At a parallel meeting of the Arab League in Kuwait, Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah called for "practical steps to stabilise the ceasefire" while Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz announced a billion dollars to rebuild the battered territory.

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

My comment:

Israel used the white phosphorus during its terrorist attack on Gaza as they are using the firwork during christmas festival

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

UN chief arrives in war-torn Gaza Strip

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

Tuesday 20 January 2009

http://www.france24.com/en/20090120-un-chief-ban-ki-moon-arrives-gaza-strip-conflict-israel

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon arrived in the devastated Gaza Strip Tuesday, in the first visit by an international leader to the coastal strip following Israel's deadly 22-day offensive.

AFP - UN chief Ban Ki-moon paid a first visit to the war-battered Gaza Strip on Tuesday where Israeli troops remain deployed on the third day of a ceasefire.

Hours before the inauguration of US president-elect Barack Obama, the army said a total troop pullout from Gaza was not under discussion.

"For the moment, no one is talking about the total withdrawal of troops," said army spokeswoman Avital Liebovich.

However the ceasefire appeared to be holding.

But Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian farmer in the north of the strip on Tuesday, doctors said.

An Israeli army spokesman said she could not confirm the report that the man had been killed near the town of Jabailya by shots fired by troops close to Gaza's border with Israel.

And two Palestinian children died in Gaza City when an Israeli shell they had been playing with exploded, doctors said.

Israel launched its massive assault on December 27 and started to pull out gradually from the territory on Sunday as Hamas and other militant groups pledged a week-long ceasefire.

With an air of normalcy returning, Ban entered the strip mid-morning to witness the extent of the destruction which killed more than 1,300 people, including some 400 children, and wounded at least 5,300 others.

It was the first visit by a foreign leader to the impoverished territory since Hamas, an Islamist group boycotted by the West as a terror outfit, violently seized power in June 2007, ousting forces loyal to moderate Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.

The secretary general was to tour a UN-run school hit by an Israeli bombardment, Palestinian sources said.

Following his visit to Gaza, the UN chief was due to visit the southern Israeli town of Sderot, five kilometres (three miles) from the Gaza border, that has taken the brunt of Palestinian rocket fire since 2000.

Gazans say the tide of global hope that has surged with Obama's election victory has not washed over the Gaza Strip.

"Obama won't bring my husband back to life," said Leila Khalil. "He was martyred and left me with six children to feed on my own. And Obama won't repair our house that was damaged in the (air) raids."

For Khalil, Obama, who was to be inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States later om Tuesday, will not alter the historically pro-Israel US policy on the Middle East.

"No one cares about us," she said. "If we can't even count on Arab presidents, what can we hope for from an American president when they've always supported Israel?"

The Palestinian bureau of statistics reported 4,100 homes totally destroyed and 17,000 others damaged in Israel's deadliest ever assault on Gaza.

Despite the devastation, Hamas called the war a "divine victory" and vowed to rearm, warning Israel it would face more rocket attacks if it did not withdraw all forces by Sunday.

In Kuwait, an Arab summit was concluded on Tuesday with aid pledges to help rebuild the Gaza Strip, but without a specific fund or political unity on the Gaza war.

Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah called for "practical steps to stabilise the ceasefire," while Saudi King Abdullah pledged one billion dollars to rebuild the battered territory.

Abbas, the beleaguered Palestinian president, made a renewed appeal on Monday for national unity between Hamas and his secular Fatah.

The rebuilding of Gaza looks set to become another battleground with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warning that Israel did not want Hamas to take control of reconstruction.

"Israel believes that the reconstruction process must be led by international organisations in cooperation with the UN, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority," he told visiting Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini.

His foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, also warned that Israel will not open Gaza's border crossings without progress on the fate of an Israeli soldier who has been held hostage in the enclave for nearly three years.

Hamas has demanded that Israel open the coastal strip's borders and the European Union, along with key nations in Europe, have also urged Israel to open the crossings to help secure a lasting ceasefire.

Israel considers Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement that is pledged to the destruction of the Jewish state, a terror organisation.
----------------------------------------------------

UN chief wants full investigation into school bombings

Tuesday 20 January 2009
http://www.france24.com/en/20090120-un-ban-ki-moon-gaza-israel-palestinian-territories-school-bombings

AFP - UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday called for those responsible for the bombing of UN-run buildings and schools in Gaza to be held accountable following Israel's 22-day war on Hamas.

"It is an outrageous and totally unacceptable attack on the United Nations," Ban said, speaking outside the still-smouldering main UN compound in Gaza City that was bombed during the war.

"There must be a full investigation, a full explanation to make sure it never happens again. There should be accountability through a proper judiciary system," he said.

Ban, describing the scenes in post-war Gaza "heartbreaking," became the first world leader to visit the enclave since Israel halted the deadliest offensive it has ever launched on the Palestinian territory, which has been ruled by the Islamist Hamas movement since June 2007.

The UN compound where he spoke was hit by Israeli shells on January 15, setting a warehouse alight, burning tonnes of badly needed food aid and sending a massive column of black smoke into the air above Gaza City for hours.

Another four UN buildings -- schools where Gazans were sheltering from the fighting -- were struck by Israel in the course of the fighting. More than 40 people were killed in one such attack, according to medics and UN officials.

"I'm just appalled. I'm not able to decribe how I'm feeling, having seen this site of the bombing of the United Nations compound. Everyone is now smelling, this morning, still, it is still burning," Ban said.

"I have protested many times and today I am protesting again in the strongest terms and condemning it. I have asked for a full investigation and to make those responsible people accountable."

Ban went on to accuse Israel of using "excessive force" in the conflict, but he also condemned Palestinian rocket fire on southern Israel, calling it "completely unacceptable."

Israel has said it made very effort to prevent the deaths of civilians and said it was fired upon from inside or near each of the UN sites in question, a charge often disputed by UN workers.

After touring the scenes of devastation left by the three-week-long campaign in which Israel pummelled the territory with air strikes and tanks shells and destroyed thousands of houses, Ban said he had seen "heart-breaking scenes."

The UN chief said a "massive international effort" would be required to resolve the Middle East conflict and create a Palestinian state living in peace with Israel, saying he was "more determined than ever to see this achieved."

More than 1,300 Palestinians were killed in the offensive, nearly a third of them children, according to Palestinian medics. Ten Israeli soldiers and three civilians were killed over the same period.

UK: MP makes Israeli troops Nazi link

BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/manchester/7834487.stm Sir Gerald Kaufman is standing by his comments A prominent Jewish MP has compared the actions of Israeli troops with Nazis who forced his family to flee Poland. Sir Gerald Kaufman, MP for Gorton in Manchester, drew the parallel during a Commons debate on the Gaza conflict. Some members of the Jewish community - including his fellow MPs - have questioned the comments. Louise Ellman MP, of the Labour Friends of Israel group, said the "dreadful" war in Gaza was not comparable to German actions in World War II. Sir Gerald, who was brought up as an orthodox Jew and Zionist, told MPs: "My grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town .. a German soldier shot her dead in her bed. "My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza." We had an IRA bomb in Manchester which destroyed much of the centre - we didn't send troops over to Belfast to murder 1,000 Catholics Sir Gerald Kaufman "The present Israeli government ruthlessly and cynically exploit the continuing guilt from gentiles over the slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust as justification for their murder of Palestinians." Palestinian deaths in the Gaza Strip have passed 1,000, medical sources in Gaza say, but Israel has continued to resist international calls for a ceasefire. The Israeli government says the action is necessary to prevent Hamas rocket attacks into southern Israel. Labour MP Louise Ellman said: "The Nazis were about rounding up and exterminating people because of their origins. "What we're witnessing in Gaza is a dreadful war and the Israelis are trying to stop Hamas continuing to launch rockets from Gaza, targeting and killing and murdering Israeli citizens." But speaking to the BBC on Friday, Sir Gerald said he was standing by his comments. "We had an IRA bomb in Manchester which destroyed much of the centre - we didn't send troops over to Belfast to murder 1,000 Catholics." Sir Gerald said he had been a long-term supporter of Israel and has personally known many of its prime ministers. But he added: "I am not going to stand by and keep silent when the Israeli troops - with a dreadful government sending them there - kill large numbers of innocent people with no useful result at the end of it all." --------------------------------

Israel calls a halt to its assault on Gaza

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

Actually Israeli did not finish its aggression completely till the time I am doing this post.

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

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/17/israel-halts-gaza-assault

Israel called a halt to its bombardment of Gaza last night after winning American and European pledges of support to shut down the Hamas weapons supply pipeline.

The Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, in effect declared Hamas was broken, saying that its power is diminishing. "The conditions have been created that our aims, as declared, were attained fully, and beyond," he said in a televised address. "The campaign has proven Israel's power and strengthened its deterrence."

But Hamas said it would keep fighting for as long as Israeli troops remained in Gaza. "A unilateral ceasefire does not mean ending the aggression and ending the siege," a spokesman said. "These constitute acts of war, so this will not mean an end to resistance."

Israel's security cabinet backed Olmert's proposal for what he called a unilateral ceasefire, effective from midnight last night, that would end three weeks of bombardment by air, sea and land that has claimed the lives of about 1,200 Palestinians, a third of them children and young people.

Olmert declared that the operation had achieved its primary goals of curbing Hamas rocket fire into Israel - although it has failed to stop it completely, with 20 missiles fired into Israel on Friday alone - and securing Egypt's border with Gaza to end weapons smuggling into the Palestinian enclave.

Israeli defence officials said the invading forces would remain inside Gaza for several more days before beginning their pullout. Hamas said it would keep attacking as long as thousands of Israeli soldiers and tanks continued to occupy swaths of the Palestinian enclave.

Of Hamas, Olmert said: "If they continue shooting, we will act to protect our citizens." He said Hamas had been "badly hit" by the assault on Gaza, and described it as a proxy of Iran.

Olmert also addressed Gazans, saying that Israel does not hate them but launched the assault in order to protect Israeli children. "We feel the pain of every Palestinian child," he said. "Any shout of pain." Britain's foreign secretary, David Miliband, last night welcomed the ceasefire, saying it would be a "huge relief" and adding that too many lives had already been lost. He also called on Hamas to put an end to rocket attacks against Israeli civilians. The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, said on Saturday he was relieved that Israel had called an end to hostilities. "This should be the first step leading to the full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza," he said.

Egypt has called a summit of world leaders in Sharm al-Sheikh today to discuss Gaza's future. It was reported that Gordon Brown would attend, along with the French and German leaders, the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and the UN secretary general. But Olmert is not expected to be there.

The killing continued in the hours before the meeting, with the United Nations refugee agency for Palestinians calling for a war crimes investigation after Israeli forces killed two children when they shelled a school being used as a refugee centre in northern Gaza.

Israel's decision to halt the assault came after an agreement with the US for American intelligence and equipment to help prevent Hamas smuggling weapons into Gaza through tunnels.

Europe has also offered assistance in monitoring weapons shipments from countries such as Iran. With that deal in place, it appears that Israel decided it did not need to make the concessions demanded by Hamas for a ceasefire, particularly the lifting of the economic blockade of Gaza.

Britain has offered naval resources to help stop weapons being smuggled into Gaza, Brown said. The prime minister said he was also prepared to help ensure proper protection and monitoring of crossings into the enclave.

But last night Egypt's foreign minister dismissed a US-Israeli agreement aimed at cutting off weapons smuggling into the Gaza Strip, raising questions about how effective it would be in preventing arms from reaching Hamas. The US and Israel can "do what they wish with regard to the sea or any other country in Africa, but when it comes to Egyptian land, we are not bound by anything except the safety and national security of the Egyptian people", Ahmed Aboul Gheit told reporters.

The Israeli ceasefire also came after the exiled head of Hamas's political wing, Khaled Meshaal, told Arab leaders that the Islamist movement would not accept any ceasefire which did not provide for a full Israeli pullout and the opening of Gaza's borders. The unilateral move is also apparently intended to end the fighting before Barack Obama is sworn in as US president this week.

Ahead of the security cabinet meeting, Israel kept up its bombardment, killing two boys sheltering at a UN school and severing their mother's legs. At least five people died in other parts of the Gaza Strip. Yesterday the UN called for a war crimes investigation, saying that it had provided GPS co-ordinates and other details of the school to the Israeli military to protect civilians sheltering there.

"When you have a direct hit of a UN school, you have to have an investigation," said the UN spokesman, Christopher Gunness.

A demonstration in London against Israeli attacks on Gaza ended in violence last night after protesters looted and damaged shops. Scotland Yard said it was investigating the damage.

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

Nowhere to Run to, Nowhere to Hide The UN in Israel's Crosshairs

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

By RANNIE AMIRI

History will record Israel’s onslaught in Gaza as noteworthy not only for the wide destruction of institutions of state and civil society, but for the deliberate targeting of the United Nations and the refugees it aided and sheltered. And it certainly would not be the first time Israel has done so.

On Jan. 15, in its most brazen act yet, the Israel Defense Force (IDF) shelled the Gaza headquarters of the United Nations Relief and Words Agency (UNRWA), the primary body responsible for feeding and assisting Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip and beyond. At the time of the attack, the compound housed more than 700 civilians seeking shelter from the war and its warehouses stored thousands of pounds of critical, and desperately needed, food and humanitarian supplies.

Even more sinister was the weapon employed: White Phosphorus (WP).

WP is known to cause severe, deep, and difficult to treat burns when it comes in contact with skin. Despite denials by the IDF, there is evidence of its use in Gaza and reports detailing significant burn injuries to civilians as a result. Its use as a weapon is a flagrant violation of international law and the UN’s Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons.

WP bombs and shells are classified as incendiary devices and the structures they hit continue burn for long periods since the fires they cause are not extinguished by conventional means (water, fire extinguishers, etc).

As food, fuel and other supplies went up in flames at the headquarters—a location well-known to the Israelis who were given its precise GPS coordinates—UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness aptly remarked, “What more stark symbolism do you need?”

Indeed, the sordid history and pattern of Israel’s intentional targeting of UN compounds and schools in Lebanon and Gaza is ripe with symbolism, as is the usual flurry of contradictory excuses, apologies and justifications that predictably follow.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak deemed this most recent attack a “grave mistake” while Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said it was justified because missiles were allegedly launched there.

This very same sequence of events has been played out time and time again: a UN facility targeting refugees Israel helped create is shelled, a subsequent apology, excuse, and justification issued (usually that it was being used by ‘militants’), then little to no evidence substantiating the attack presented.

The following all share in this tragic history; where the innocent were massacred, and the assumption that the humanitarian auspices of the UN could protect non-combatants from Israeli shelling, shattered.

Qana, 1996

The year was 1996 and Israel was only six weeks away from upcoming elections (sound familiar?). Prime Minister Shimon Peres was expecting a stiff challenge from Likud’s Benjamin Netanyahu. At the time, Israel was occupying southern Lebanon. Along with its proxy militia, the South Lebanese Army, they continued to fruitlessly battle Hezbollah despite their repeated failure to eradicate the group’s resistance. What Israel really needed to do, and has done prior to all its military adventures, was provoke the enemy enough to elicit a significant response. That response would then be used as pretext for initiating an all-out assault.

It came on March 30 when an Israeli gunship fired on two men, both civilians, working on a water tower in Yater, Lebanon, killing both. Hezbollah retaliated by firing missiles into northern Israel. Then, when a teenager died after a roadside bomb exploded in the village of Barashit and Hezbollah again responded with rockets, Peres had what he needed. Under the pretense of stopping the attacks and protecting the country’s northern border, “Operation Grapes of Wrath” was launched on April 11.

It didn’t take long before Israel committed its first wartime atrocity. On April 18, a UN compound in the southern Lebanese village of Qana, where more than 800 civilians had sought refuge, was shelled. One hundred and six civilians were massacred.

Peres said, “We did not know that several hundred people were concentrated in that camp. It came to us as a bitter surprise.” The military claimed it was due to “incorrect targeting based on erroneous data.” That was hard to believe, however, considering they had long been made aware of the compound’s location. In fact, a UNIFIL soldier filmed a drone and helicopters flying above the facility at the time of the attack. Tired allegations that Hezbollah fighters were using civilians as ‘human shields’ also fell flat.

A UN investigation concluded that: “The pattern of impacts is inconsistent with a normal overshooting of the declared target (the mortar site) … as suggested by the Israeli forces; during the shelling, there was a perceptible shift in the weight of fire from the mortar site to the United Nations compound”; and it was “unlikely that the shelling of the United Nations compound was the result of gross technical and/or procedural errors.”

The investigation conducted by Amnesty International succinctly stated: “The IDF intentionally attacked the UN compound … The IDF have failed to substantiate their claim that the attack was a mistake.”

The shifting explanations and excuses the Israelis had offered were solely for appeasing the international community. They knew their real message had been delivered.

Jabaliya, 2009

The assault on Gaza, dubbed “Operation Cast Lead” is almost into itsfourth week. It was on Jan. 6, though, that the single largest loss of life since the beginning of the campaign occurred. Not surprisingly, it was another UN facility that was targeted. This time it was the Al-Fakhura girls school located in the Jabaliya refugee camp north of Gaza City. Two-hundred eighty families had taken refuge there, numbering 1,674 people. Most came from the town of Beit Lahiya to the north after being ordered to evacuate by the IDF.

Despite the school flying the distinctive UN flag and its location by GPS coordinates known, Israeli tank shells struck the school, spraying shrapnel inside and outside the building. Forty-six people were killed (including 20 children) and 55 wounded. Paramedics and eyewitnesses reported seeing “limbs and meat” in the street afterward.

As with Qana, the same justifications for the attack—conducted “according to procedures”—were put forth by the Israelis and just as quickly refuted.

It was alleged that Hamas fighters were operating out of the school. John Ging, director of the UNRWA in Gaza vehemently denied this, saying all people taking shelter there had been thoroughly vetted and there were “…no military people inside the school; it is fully controlled.”

The Israelis then decided to release footage of the purported “militant gunfire” coming from the school. But not only did the footage date back to 2007, it was of a different school, in a different city! (and not run by the UN).

It was ultimately acknowledged that no shooting came from there. According to Gunness:

“In briefings senior officers conducted for foreign diplomats, they admitted the shelling to which IDF forces in Jabaliya were responding did not originate from the school” (Haaretz, 11 Jan 2009).

Many different and often contradictory stories have since been issued by the Israelis. As before, the underlining message had been effectively delivered.

Other UN schools – Al-Shouka, Asma

Al-Shouka school in Rafah and Asma primary school in Gaza City were also bombed by the Israelis in “Operation Cast Lead”. At Asma, three cousins were killed among the 400 people housed there who had fled fighting to the north.

So what were the Qana and Jabaliya massacres and the deliberate attack on Gaza’s UN headquarters meant to illustrate?

It is that not only sympathizers, but any civilian located in remote proximity to Israel’s enemies will be targeted. In addition, retribution will not only be exacted against the UN in general for the countless resolutions it has levied against Israel, but against the UNRWA specifically for the body’s assistance and advocacy on behalf of Palestinians. All are extensions of the doctrine of collective punishment, but with a particularly ominous message for civilians:

There is nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. There is not an institution or organization on earth that will be able to protect you from us.

Rannie Amiri is an independent commentator on the Arab and Islamic worlds. He may be reached at: rbamiri at yahoo dot com.

http://www.counterpunch.org/amiri01162009.html

===========================

Gaza survivors' four days without water

Friday, 9 January 2009

Gaza survivors' four days without water

The ICRC has accused the Israeli army of failing to evacuate and care for the wounded

By Rushdie Aboualaf BBC News, Gaza City

Sameh, aged three, and Ahmad, 18 months, cry all the time.

As she sits on the bed in al-Quds hospital in Gaza City, their mother Fatima al-Shamouny, 36, tries to comfort them.

But as she tells their - and her own - story, she sobs too.

The boys were found on Wednesday, with their dead father and unconscious mother nearby, four days after the emergency services said they began trying to reach the neighbourhood.

They were among 30 people Palestinian Red Crescent workers said they evacuated from Zeitoun, a south-eastern suburb of Gaza City, on Wednesday.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said the paramedics found "shocking" scenes of wounded people huddled together in houses among dead bodies, weak after having had no food or water for several days.

In one home, the agency said, four small children were found sitting close to their dead mothers, "too weak to stand on their own".

It is not clear if Sameh and Ahmad were in that particular house - it may be that the unconscious Fatima was initially thought to be dead - but she says she and her toddlers were among those who had a long wait for help.

Survivors' accounts

The ICRC has accused the Israeli military of failing to live up to its obligations under international law to facilitate the evacuation or to care for the wounded.

The agency said it had been requesting safe passage for its ambulances to access the neighbourhood since 3 January, but only received permission to do so from the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) four days later.

The details of exactly what happened at the Shamouny family compound are still sketchy.

Survivors have told the BBC that 26 of the extended family's 65 members died in Israeli military operations.

We spent days without food, without water - the wounded were bleeding for four days Wael Faris al-Shamouny

Their accounts of shelling, and then ground troops surrounding their homes, cannot be independently verified.

Fatima, who was wounded in the chest, says two of her sons, her husband, her aunt, her uncle and her brother-in-law were all killed.

"One of my sons crawled to our neighbour's house - he was injured - and he called some of the local radio stations to ask for help. But the help arrived late. Everybody had died," she said.

"On the third day, I passed out. I don't know what happened until I found myself here in the hospital," she said.

Wael Faris al-Shamouny, 39, another member of the extended family, smoked and sipped black coffee as he sat on the floor in the hospital corridor.

He says he lost five sons and his wife, and believes some of the dead may have survived if given medical treatment earlier.

"We tried to help them, but we didn't have first aid things in our house. We spent days without food, without water - the wounded were bleeding for four days," he said.

"The ambulances came and they saved who they saved. There are still pieces of my wife, my sons and my cousins' bodies in the house."

ICRC criticism

The ICRC said the wounded had to be transported about a kilometre on a hand-pulled donkey cart because large earth walls erected by the Israeli army had made it impossible to bring ambulances into the neighbourhood.

The minimum is to treat these [injured] people, to feed these people, give them water, and keep them in a safe place Katarina Ritz ICRC's head of mission in Jerusalem

Katarina Ritz, the ICRC's head of mission in Jerusalem, said experienced Palestinian emergency workers wept at the scenes they were confronted with.

She said Israeli troops were within about 100m of the houses in question, and that the ICRC believes the soldiers "must have been aware" of the presence of the wounded people, because of repeated requests from aid agencies for access.

Under international law, she said, even if there are security concerns meaning the injured cannot be evacuated, "the minimum is to treat these people, to feed these people, give them water, and keep them in a safe place".

The Israeli military said it was investigating the case. It said it is "engaged in a battle with the Hamas terrorist organisation that has deliberately used Palestinian civilians as human shields".

And it stressed it works in "close co-operation with international aid organisations during the fighting, so that civilians can be provided with assistance".

'Difficult' co-operation

Earlier in the week, an ICRC spokeswoman told the BBC attempts to co-ordinate safe passage for ambulances were so slow that people were dying as they waited.

Not all ambulance drivers in Gaza have been waiting for co-ordination with the Israeli military, and health officials in Gaza say 10 paramedics have been killed trying to rescue the wounded since the Israeli operation began.

Israeli Defence Ministry Spokesman Peter Lerner said that co-ordinating the movements of ambulances has been "extremely difficult because of heavy gunfire".

He said that even during the three-hour lull Israel declared to allow humanitarian operations, Hamas militants continued to shoot at Israeli forces.

Outside the hospital, as Fatima Shamouny told her story, dozens of people gathered as Thursday's ICRC-led convoy of ambulances prepared to leave.

They came with addresses where they believed injured people were trapped.

One man's hands shook so much with fear that he had to ask for help writing the directions down.

Finally, the convoy received clearance, and drove away.

It was headed back to Zeitoun, where the ICRC said there were reports of more injured people stranded, and another area in northern Gaza, which ICRC workers had not even reached yet.