Thursday, April 2, 2009
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
US made white phosphorus shells hit the UN compound
UNRWA SCHOOL IN BEIT LAHIA, GAZA , PALESTINE
click on image to enlarge Saturday, February 7, 2009
Gaza’s civilians, still unable to rebuild one year after Operation Cast Lead, ‘betrayed’ by international community
“It is not only Israel that has failed the people of Gaza with a blockade that punishes everybody living there for the acts of a few. World powers have also failed and even betrayed Gaza’s ordinary citizens”
Jeremy Hobbs - Oxfam International Executive Director
- Only 41 truckloads of construction materials allowed to enter since January;
- Homes, schools, hospitals and water networks cannot be rebuilt.
The international community has betrayed the people of Gaza by failing to back their words with effective action to secure the ending of the Israeli blockade which is preventing reconstruction and recovery, say a group of 16 leading humanitarian and human rights groups in a new reportreleased today ahead of the anniversary of the start of Israel’s military offensive in Gaza.
The Israeli authorities have allowed only 41 truckloads of all construction materials into Gaza since the end of the offensive in mid-January, warn the groups, which include Amnesty International, CAFOD, Christian Aid, Medical Aid for Palestinians, Mercy Corps and Oxfam International. The task of rebuilding and repairing thousands of homes alone will require thousands of truckloads of building materials, they add.
Little of the extensive damage the offensive caused to homes, civilian infrastructure, public services, farms and businesses has been repaired because the civilian population, and the UN and aid agencies who help them, are prohibited from importing materials like cement and glass in all but a handful of cases, says the report.
Jeremy Hobbs, Oxfam International Executive Director, said: “It is not only Israel that has failed the people of Gaza with a blockade that punishes everybody living there for the acts of a few. World powers have also failed and even betrayed Gaza’s ordinary citizens. They have wrung hands and issued statements, but have taken little meaningful action to attempt to change the damaging policy that prevents reconstruction, personal recovery and economic recuperation."
“Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups, too, must maintain their current de facto cessation of violence and permanently cease all indiscriminate firing of rockets into Israel from Gaza. And all the Palestinian factions also need to intensify their reconciliation dialogue to pave the way for a reunified Palestinian government able to effectively provide for the needs of its civilian population.”
The effect of the construction materials ban goes much wider, say the authors of the report. They say the blockade has also led to frequent power, gas and water shortages,seriously affecting daily life and public health. Parts of the Gaza electricity network were bombed during the conflict and require urgent repairs, which have still not been allowed to proceed almost one year after the conflict. This, combined with Israel continuing to restrict the supply of industrial fuel into Gaza, means that 90% of people in Gaza suffer power cuts of four to eight hours a day.
Power cuts also cause daily interruptions to water supply, as does the inability to repair water pipes, roof top water tanks and household connectors, because materials and spare parts are not deemed essential humanitarian supplies by Israel and so are prevented entry under the blockade. With the loss of pressure in the pipes, polluted water from the ground contaminates the supply. Together with chronic disrepair to the sewage system, poor water quality is a major concern for aid agencies in Gaza, with diarrhoea causing 12 % of young deaths.
The blockade, which began in June 2007 after Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip, has sharply increased poverty, helping make 8 out of 10 people dependent on some form of aid. Businesses and farms have been forced to close and lay off workers. An almost complete ban on exports has hit farmers hard, compounded by the offensive which wrecked 17% of farmland together with greenhouses and irrigation equipment, and left a further 30% unusable in no-go ‘buffer zones’ expanded by the Israeli military after the end of the offensive.
Amnesty International UK Director Kate Allen said: “The wretched reality endured by 1.5 million people in Gaza should appal anybody with an ounce of humanity. Sick, traumatised and impoverished people are being collectively punished by a cruel, illegal policy imposed by the Israeli authorities.
“Israel’s responsibility to protect its citizens does not give it the right to punish every man, woman and child of Gaza. All states are obliged under international law to intervene to put an end to this brutal blockade but their leaders are failing in this fundamental measure of their own humanity. All states must insist that the Israeli government end its blockadeand let the people of Gaza rebuild their shattered lives.”
The report argues that, while Israel has a duty to protect its citizens, the measures it takes must conform to international humanitarian and human rights law. By enforcing its blockade on Gaza, Israel is violating the prohibition on collective punishment in international humanitarian law, it says. In the report the groups call on Israel to end the blockade. But they also say, ‘the people of Gaza have been betrayed by the international community which can and must do far more to end this illegal and inhumane blockade’. They urge the EU, for example, to take immediate and concerted action to secure the lifting of the blockade of Gaza so that the close of Spain’s six-month presidency of the EU in June 2010 does not also mark the third anniversary of the blockade being imposed.
The report’s authors also call on European foreign ministers and the EU’s new High Representative for Foreign Affairs Catherine Ashton to visit Gaza to see for themselves the impact of the blockade on its people. Securing an immediate opening of the Gaza crossings for building materials to repair ruined homes and civilian infrastructure as winter sets in would be an important step towards an end to the blockade, say the organisations.
Janet Symes, Head of Middle East Region, Christian Aid said: “Expressions of disapproval over the blockade of Gaza by the international community are no longer enough. It is time to allow the people of Gaza to pick up the shattered pieces of their lives and rebuild. There must be no more excuses from the international community.”
source : http://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressrelease/2009-12-22/gaza-civilians-rebuild-one-year-operation-cast-lead
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Alarm Spreads Over Use of Lethal New Weapons
Alarm Spreads Over Use of Lethal New Weapons
By Erin Cunningham
January 22, 2009 -- GAZA CITY, Jan 22 (IPS) - Eighteen-year-old Mona Al-Ashkar says she did not immediately know the first explosion at the United Nations (UN) school in Beit Lahiya had blown her left leg off. There was smoke, then chaos, then the pain and disbelief set in once she realised it was gone - completely severed by the weapon that hit her.
Mona is one of the many patients among the 5,500 injured that have international and Palestinian doctors baffled by the type of weaponry used in the Israeli operation. High-profile human rights organisations like Amnesty International are accusing Israel of war crimes.
Mona's doctors at Gaza City's Al-Shifa hospital found no shrapnel in her leg, and it looked as though it had been "sliced right off with a knife."
"We are not sure exactly what type of weapon can manage to do that immediately and so cleanly," said Dr. Sobhi Skaik, consultant surgeon general at Al-Shifa hospital. "What is happening is frightening. It's possible the Israeli army was using Gaza to experiment militarily."
Both international organisations and human rights groups, including the UN, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, have condemned Israel's use of unconventional weapons in civilian areas of theGaza Strip.
Amnesty International's chief researcher for Israel and the Palestinian Territories, Donatella Rovera, told IPS in Beit Lahiya that Israel's use of white phosphorus and other "area weapons" on civilian populations amounted to war crimes.
"The kind of weapons used and the manner in which they were used indicates prima facie evidence of war crimes," she said.
Israel announced Wednesday it would be launching its own probe into reported use of white phosphorus, but has so far refused to comment further.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN's nuclear watchdog, said it would look into a claim made by the ambassadors of a number of Arab nations that Israel used depleted uranium in its recent attacks on Gaza.
Local doctors say a number of both widespread and unusual injuries may indicate that new types of weapons were used on the Gaza population during the war. Health officials are seeing wounds they have never seen before, or at least not on such a massive scale.
"There has been a significant loss of life here in Gaza for reasons that are unexplainable medically," said Dr. Skaik.
Mona's injury is characteristic of Dense Inert Metal Explosives (DIME). DIMEs are munitions that, packed with tungsten powder, produce an intense explosion at about the level of the knee, with signs of severe heat at the point of amputation.
"If you ask a patient how it happened, how their leg was removed, they won't know," Dr. Skaik said. "They'll say that a rocket or missile exploded and took only their lower limbs off."
Once in the body, tungsten is both difficult to detect and extremely carcinogenic, and can produce an aggressive form of cancer, according to both military experts.
Dr. Skaik says the Al-Shifa hospital alone has seen between 100 to 150 patients with this type of injury. Over 50 patients at Al-Shifa had two or more limbs severed, he says.
But because Gaza's hospitals are so poorly equipped, it has been nearly impossible so far to test properly for the substances and count accurately how many wounded Palestinians may have been hit with this weapon.
The Norwegian doctor Mads Gilbert who worked at Al-Shifa hospital during the siege confirmed to journalists that the injuries were aligned with those produced by DIME explosives.
Human rights groups say Israel used the weapon for the first time in Lebanon in 2006.
What is worrying health officials even more, however, is that some of the patients' organs are being ruptured with little or no sign of a shrapnel entry point.
This is something they have never seen before, they say, and also something they do not know how to treat.
"Normal shrapnel has a clear path, with both an entry and an exit point," said Dr. Mohamed Al-Ron, another surgeon at Al-Shifa hospital.
"But someone's entire abdomen will be ripped open, and only after searching will we find a miniscule hole in the skin. Then we will find small black dots all over the organ, but we don't know what they are."
It is an indication, he continued, that whatever is entering the body is exploding and doing the damage once it is inside. Multiple organs will fail, and will continue to fail even after surgery removes any shrapnel.
"We are consulting with international colleagues, and they are confirming that there is something unusual going on with these cases," said Dr. Skaik.
"We have seen plenty of nails, of metal shrapnel and foreign metallic parts, but there was never violence of this character or something that continued to damage even after the parts of the weapon were removed. What is being intentionally created is a population of handicapped people."
Some of the injuries, including multiple organ failure, mutilation and severed limbs, are so debilitating that Dr. Karim Hosni, an Egyptian doctor volunteering at the Al-Naser hospital in Khan Younis, says he wishes he could just end his patients' misery.
"Sometimes I wish my patients would just die," he said. "Their injuries are so horrifying, that I know they will now have to lead terrible and painful lives." (END/2009)
Copyright © 2009 IPS-Inter Press Service
By Erin Cunningham
January 22, 2009 -- GAZA CITY, Jan 22 (IPS) - Eighteen-year-old Mona Al-Ashkar says she did not immediately know the first explosion at the United Nations (UN) school in Beit Lahiya had blown her left leg off. There was smoke, then chaos, then the pain and disbelief set in once she realised it was gone - completely severed by the weapon that hit her.
Mona is one of the many patients among the 5,500 injured that have international and Palestinian doctors baffled by the type of weaponry used in the Israeli operation. High-profile human rights organisations like Amnesty International are accusing Israel of war crimes.
Mona's doctors at Gaza City's Al-Shifa hospital found no shrapnel in her leg, and it looked as though it had been "sliced right off with a knife."
"We are not sure exactly what type of weapon can manage to do that immediately and so cleanly," said Dr. Sobhi Skaik, consultant surgeon general at Al-Shifa hospital. "What is happening is frightening. It's possible the Israeli army was using Gaza to experiment militarily."
Both international organisations and human rights groups, including the UN, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, have condemned Israel's use of unconventional weapons in civilian areas of theGaza Strip.
Amnesty International's chief researcher for Israel and the Palestinian Territories, Donatella Rovera, told IPS in Beit Lahiya that Israel's use of white phosphorus and other "area weapons" on civilian populations amounted to war crimes.
"The kind of weapons used and the manner in which they were used indicates prima facie evidence of war crimes," she said.
Israel announced Wednesday it would be launching its own probe into reported use of white phosphorus, but has so far refused to comment further.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN's nuclear watchdog, said it would look into a claim made by the ambassadors of a number of Arab nations that Israel used depleted uranium in its recent attacks on Gaza.
Local doctors say a number of both widespread and unusual injuries may indicate that new types of weapons were used on the Gaza population during the war. Health officials are seeing wounds they have never seen before, or at least not on such a massive scale.
"There has been a significant loss of life here in Gaza for reasons that are unexplainable medically," said Dr. Skaik.
Mona's injury is characteristic of Dense Inert Metal Explosives (DIME). DIMEs are munitions that, packed with tungsten powder, produce an intense explosion at about the level of the knee, with signs of severe heat at the point of amputation.
"If you ask a patient how it happened, how their leg was removed, they won't know," Dr. Skaik said. "They'll say that a rocket or missile exploded and took only their lower limbs off."
Once in the body, tungsten is both difficult to detect and extremely carcinogenic, and can produce an aggressive form of cancer, according to both military experts.
Dr. Skaik says the Al-Shifa hospital alone has seen between 100 to 150 patients with this type of injury. Over 50 patients at Al-Shifa had two or more limbs severed, he says.
But because Gaza's hospitals are so poorly equipped, it has been nearly impossible so far to test properly for the substances and count accurately how many wounded Palestinians may have been hit with this weapon.
The Norwegian doctor Mads Gilbert who worked at Al-Shifa hospital during the siege confirmed to journalists that the injuries were aligned with those produced by DIME explosives.
Human rights groups say Israel used the weapon for the first time in Lebanon in 2006.
What is worrying health officials even more, however, is that some of the patients' organs are being ruptured with little or no sign of a shrapnel entry point.
This is something they have never seen before, they say, and also something they do not know how to treat.
"Normal shrapnel has a clear path, with both an entry and an exit point," said Dr. Mohamed Al-Ron, another surgeon at Al-Shifa hospital.
"But someone's entire abdomen will be ripped open, and only after searching will we find a miniscule hole in the skin. Then we will find small black dots all over the organ, but we don't know what they are."
It is an indication, he continued, that whatever is entering the body is exploding and doing the damage once it is inside. Multiple organs will fail, and will continue to fail even after surgery removes any shrapnel.
"We are consulting with international colleagues, and they are confirming that there is something unusual going on with these cases," said Dr. Skaik.
"We have seen plenty of nails, of metal shrapnel and foreign metallic parts, but there was never violence of this character or something that continued to damage even after the parts of the weapon were removed. What is being intentionally created is a population of handicapped people."
Some of the injuries, including multiple organ failure, mutilation and severed limbs, are so debilitating that Dr. Karim Hosni, an Egyptian doctor volunteering at the Al-Naser hospital in Khan Younis, says he wishes he could just end his patients' misery.
"Sometimes I wish my patients would just die," he said. "Their injuries are so horrifying, that I know they will now have to lead terrible and painful lives." (END/2009)
Copyright © 2009 IPS-Inter Press Service
Israelis resorting to Nazi tactics
KUALA LUMPUR: The Israelis have not learnt from their own experience at the hands of the Nazis and are using the same tactics of fear on the Palestinians, former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said yesterday.
"The Israelis have learnt a lot from the Nazis. They are using Nazi methods against the Palestinians. I thought they would sympathise with other people, having been oppressed and tortured by the Nazis... but no, now they want to do the same things to others," Dr Mahathir said after delivering the keynote address at the Forum for Palestine yesterday.
He said nothing could be done about Israel as its sphere of influence was wide and varied.
He also said the Jewish network controlled the media and ensured its perspective on the issue prevailed.
"No American president is free to act on Israel. Israel owns America. I said the last time that Israel rules the world by proxy," he said, alluding to the powerful Jewish lobby in the US.
Earlier in his address, Dr Mahathir said only justice based on historical facts would put an end to the Palestinian issue.
"Until then, the world will continue to see endless violence and war in the Middle East and Palestine."
He said the onus was now on the big powers that created Israel.
Dr Mahathir said war would not solve anything for the militarists as only justice through peaceful negotiation could resolve the Palestinian issue.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Brief History of Palestine
Palestinians consider 'Palestine' to be the area covered by what we now call Israel plus the Occupied Territories. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria and Jordan in the West, touches Saudi Arabia and Egypt in the South and the Mediterranean Sea in the east.
In 1917, the British promised a home land for the Jews through the Balfour Declaration in the land of Palestine where the people living there could trace their roots over many centuries. At this time, more than 90% of the population here were Arabs, Muslims and Christians.
The mass migration of Jews began in the 1920 and tension was inevitable. Britain then handed over the matter to the United Nations and in 1948 , the UN partioned the land to create the state of Israel giving Jews 55% of the land when tey made up only one-third of the population and owned only 6% of the total land area. The Palestinians were forced off their land even though they were the legal owners, and have never been allowed to return.
It was also in 1948, after a war with her Arab neighbours, that Israel seized another 22% of the land, expelled some 800,000 inhabitants and destroyed 531 villages. In 1967, after the 'Six Day War'Israel occupied Gaza and West Bank. In the same year, the United Nations Security Council passed resolution 242, declaring the occupation illegal and demanded Israel to withdraw and return the land to its rightful owners.
Israel ignored the demand and continues to ignore many other UN resolution since. This is because U.S has been vetoing all efforts to end the illegal occupation.
Life Under Occupation:
- You are denied permission to leave the country even you are seriously ill
- Your land is stolen from you and your homes are regularly demolished
- your towns are separated from each other by military checkpoints and separation walls
- You need a visa to move from town to town within your own homeland
- Your children are denied equal opportunities in education
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