Resident of Rafah refuses to leave home despite Israeli attacks

29th December 2008, Rafah, Gaza Strip:

A resident of Yibna camp is staying in his house despite the evacuation of the camp by the Red Crescent following expectations of intensified Israeli attacks on the area.

In Yibna Camp in Rafah, Ahmed Mansour has been forced to choose between his life and his home.

“I cannot leave my home. If I leave and they destroy it, what can I come back to? They have taken away any stability in my life, I will not give up my house. I know the Israeli’s will destroy homes close to the border, but I cannot leave.”

This night, the Red Crescent in Gaza is evacuating people from the neighborhoods in Rafah located along the border with Egypt. Mansour has ensured that every one of his family members is in another location, away from a probable incursion. He has decided to stay in his home tonight.

Since the deadly air strikes by the Israeli Air Force, Mansour’s family has been abandoning their homes at midnight to stay in other areas of Gaza. The twenty-two members of his family must find relatives and friends to stay with on a nightly basis, for fear of attacks in the Rafah area. They come back in the early morning, hoping that their houses are intact and that they can still return. The air strikes against Palestinians in Gaza are not restricted to one area, so every time they leave Rafah it is in hope that another area will be less dangerous.

He is one of the 1.5 million people that have no choice, but to make impossible decisions. Civilians are left with one option, to hope that their homes are not the targets of Israel’s military offensive.

Mansour is staying in his house, the last piece of his former life.

“Under the guise of humanitarian efforts, people are being informed that their homes are about to be destroyed. After an inhumane siege that left Gaza with little to lose, people are being asked to say goodbye to the last remains of their former lives. ” Fida Qishta, Palestinian resident of Rafah, International Solidarity Movement

“After days of coordinated bombings all over Gaza, the pretense of avoiding civilian casualties is nonsensical. The offensive bombing of sites in Gaza has already lead to over 300 deaths and 1,000 injuries. To pretend that Israel wants to avoid unnecessary deaths is to ignore the facts.” Jenny Linnel, British citizen, International Solidarity Movement

BNC: “Stop the massacre in Gaza – Boycott Israel now!”

Press release from the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC)

Occupied Ramallah, Palestine – 27 December 2008: Today, the Israeli occupation army committed a new massacre in Gaza, causing the death and injury of hundreds of Palestinian civilians, including a yet unknown number of school children who were headed home from school when the first Israeli military strikes started. This latest bloodbath, although far more ruthless than all its predecessors, is not Israel’s first. It culminates months of an Israeli siege of Gaza that should be widely condemned and prosecuted as an act of genocide against the 1.5 million Palestinians in the occupied coastal strip.

Israel seems intent to mark the end of its 60th year of existence the same way it has established itself – perpetrating massacres against the Palestinian people. In 1948, the majority of the indigenous Palestinian people were ethnically cleansed from their homes and land, partly through massacres like Deir Yassin; today, the Palestinians in Gaza, most of whom are refugees, do not even have the choice to seek refuge elsewhere. Incarcerated behind ghetto walls and brought to the brink of starvation by the siege, they are easy targets for Israel’s indiscriminate bombing.

Prof. Richard Falk, the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and international law expert at Princeton University, described Israel’s siege of Gaza last year, when it was still not comparable in its severity to the current situation, as follows:

“Is it an irresponsible overstatement to associate the treatment of Palestinians with this criminalized Nazi record of collective atrocity? I think not. The recent developments in Gaza are especially disturbing because they express so vividly a deliberate intention on the part of Israel and its allies to subject an entire human community to life-endangering conditions of utmost cruelty. The suggestion that this pattern of conduct is a holocaust-in-the-making represents a rather desperate appeal to the governments of the world and to international public opinion to act urgently to prevent these current genocidal tendencies from culminating in a collective tragedy.”

The most brutal episode of this “collective tragedy” is what we have seen today.

Israel’s war crimes and other grave violations of international law in Gaza as well as in the rest of the occupied Palestinian territory, including Jerusalem, could not have been perpetrated without the direct or indirect complicity of world governments, particularly the United States, the European Union, Egypt, and other Arab regimes.

While the US government has consistently sponsored, bankrolled and protected from international censure Israel’s apartheid and colonial policies against the indigenous people of Palestine, the EU was able in the past to advocate a semblance of respect for international law and universal human rights. That distinction effectively ended on December 9th, when the EU Council decided unanimously to reward Israel’s criminal disregard of international law by upgrading the EU-Israel Association Agreement. Israel clearly understood from this decision that the EU condones its actions against the Palestinians under its occupation. Palestinian civil society also got the message: the EU governments have become no less complicit in Israel’s war crimes than their US counterpart.

The large majority of world governments, particularly in the global south, share part of the blame, as well. By continuing business as usual with Israel, in trade agreements, arms deals, academic and cultural ties, diplomatic openings, they have provided the necessary background for the complicity of world powers and, consequentially, for Israel’s impunity. Furthermore, their inaction within the United Nations is inexcusable.

Father Miguel D’Escoto Brockman, President of the UN General Assembly prescribed in a recent address before the Assembly the only moral way forward for the world’s nations in dealing with Israel:

“More than twenty years ago we in the United Nations took the lead from civil society when we agreed that sanctions were required to provide a nonviolent means of pressuring South Africa to end its violations. Today, perhaps we in the United Nations should consider following the lead of a new generation of civil society, who are calling for a similar non-violent campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions to pressure Israel to end its violations.”

Now, more than ever, the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee, BNC, calls upon international civil society not just to protest and condemn in diverse forms Israel’s massacre in Gaza, but also to join and intensify the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel to end its impunity and to hold it accountable for its persistent violation of international law and Palestinian rights. Without sustained, effective pressure by people of conscience the world over, Israel will continue with its gradual, rolling acts of genocide against the Palestinians, burying any prospects for a just peace under the blood and rubble of Gaza, Nablus and Jerusalem.

* The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) includes: Council of National and Islamic Forces in Palestine; General Union of Palestinian Workers; Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions; Palestinian Non-Governmental Organizations’ Network (PNGO); Federation of Independent Trade Unions; Union of Palestinian Charitable Organizations; Global Palestine Right of Return Coalition; Occupied Palestine and Golan Heights Advocacy Initiative (OPGAI); General Union of Palestinian Women; Palestinian Farmers Union (PFU); Grassroots Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign (STW); Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI); National Committee to Commemorate the Nakba; Civic Coalition for the Defense of Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem (CCDPRJ); Coalition for Jerusalem; and Palestinian Economic Monitor.

Red Crescent evacuating neigbourhoods in Rafah

The Red Crescent in Gaza is evacuating people from the neighborhoods in Rafah located along the border with Egypt.

According to the international Human Rights Volunteers in Gaza, people are being mobilized to leave the area as urgently as possible.

“Under the guise of humanitarian efforts, people are being informed that their homes are about to be destroyed. After an inhumane siege that left Gaza with little to lose, people are being asked to say goodbye to the last remains of their former lives.” Fida Qishta, Palestinian resident of Rafah, International Solidarity Movement

After days of coordinated bombings all over Gaza, the pretense of avoiding civilian casualties is nonsensical. The offensive bombing of sites in Gaza has already lead to over 300 deaths and 1,000 injuries. To pretend that Israel wants to avoid unnecessary deaths is to ignore the facts.” Jenny Linnel, British citizen, International Solidarity Movement

Human Rights Activists working with the International Solidarity Movement and the Free Gaza Movement have been witnessing and working to document the Israeli attacks on Gaza.

Due to Israel’s policy of denying access to international media, human rights defenders and aid agencies to the Occupied Gaza Strip, many of these Human Rights Defenders arrived in Gaza with the Free Gaza Movement’s boats that have repeatedly broken the Israeli blockade of Gaza.

Free Gaza Movement: Dignity leaves for Gaza – Challenges world to “Stop this madness!”

To view the Free Gaza Movement website click here

Monday 29th December 2008

(Larnaca, Cyprus 29 December 2008) – There is a time when silence is complicity and inaction is unacceptable. On Saturday, December 27, Israel began Operation “Cast Lead,” a military onslaught against the civilian population of the Gaza Strip that has – so far – massacred more than three-hundred men, women, and children, and seriously injured over a thousand.

In response to Israeli butchery, the Free Gaza ship, the DIGNITY, will depart Larnaca Port at approximately 5pm (UTC), on Monday, December 29, bound for besieged Gaza. The ship is on an emergency mission carrying in physicians, human rights workers and over three tons of desperately needed medical supplies donated by the people of Cyprus. Coordinating with the Gaza Ministry of Health, the doctors will be immediately posted to overburdened hospitals and clinics upon their arrival.

We are not asking Israel for “permission” to go, and we will not stop until the DIGNITY lands in Gaza. We are answering urgent calls from hospitals and health care workers in Gaza by taking in three physicians who will stay and work in Gaza for several weeks. We will hold Israel responsible for the safety of our passengers and our cargo of emergency medicine.

Even before the present Israeli blitzkrieg, Karen Koning Abu Zayd, head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), asserted that, “Gaza is on the threshold of becoming the first territory to be intentionally reduced to a state of abject destitution, with the knowledge, acquiescence and – some would say – encouragement of the international community.”

Ewa Jasiewicz, a Free Gaza organizer living in Gaza, agreed with Abu Zayd, saying: “Where is the United Nations? Where is the Arab League? Where is the outrage against Israeli cruelty and Egyptian complicity? Every hospital in Gaza is already overwhelmed. Israel is committing war crimes here in Gaza, and words of condemnation are no longer enough. The world must act now to stop this madness.”

The Free Gaza Movement continues to do what the governments of the world will not do – take direct action to defend the health, lives, and dignity of 1.5 million Palestinians under siege in the Gaza Strip.

This catastrophe is still unfolding, and humanitarian needs in Gaza are quite literally devastating. The world can no longer stay silent as the Palestinian people are deliberately massacred, starved and humiliated. We have to create a new consciousness that turns the practice of human rights from rhetoric into reality. Palestinians have an inalienable right to live, and the undeniable right to a life with dignity.

The passengers on this Free Gaza emergency delegation include:

* International humanitarian and human rights workers from Cyprus, Australia, Ireland, Great Britain, Tunisia, and the United States.
* Doctors going to Gaza to volunteer in local hospitals, including Dr. Elena Theoharous, surgeon and Member of Parliament from Cyprus.
* Journalists going to Gaza to report on the massacre, including Al-Jazeera reporter Sami al-Haj, a former detainee at Guantanamo Bay.
* The Hon. Cynthia McKinney, former U.S. Congresswoman and Green Party presidential candidate.

For more information, please contact:
(Gaza) Ewa Jasiewicz, +972 598 700 497 / freelance@mailworks.org
(Cyprus) Lubna Masarwa +357 99 081 767 / lubnna@gmail.com
(U.S.) Greta Berlin, +1 310 422 7242 / iristulip@gmail.com

The Free Gaza Movement, a human rights group, sent two boats to Gaza in August 2008. These were the first international boats to land in the port in 41 years. Since August, four more voyages were successful, taking Parliamentarians, human rights workers, physicians, and other dignitaries to witness the effects of Israel’s draconian policies on the civilians of Gaza.

Israeli Navy pull in towards Gaza Port – Heavy Israeli shelling of Gaza reported

International volunteers eyewitness Israeli bombings in Gaza

2:30am 29th December 2008 –
Canadian Human Rights Activist Eva Bartlett has reported that the Israeli attacks into the Gaza Strip have escalated again, with the Israeli Navy shelling Gaza.

“The Israeli Navy have pulled in towards Gaza Port and are shelling the coastal area. The shelling is incredibly heavy.” Eva Bartlett – International Solidarity Movement

Earlier Eva Bartlett had reported from Al-Shifa intensive care unit in Gaza;

“Dr Khaled from Shifa hospital’s intensive care unit told me today around 10am that the majority of cases in the ICU are critical, with approximately 80% who will not survive. At that time, the 24 beds in the ICU were the fourth shift of critically injured, the former three having died from their injuries.”

Human rights defenders from Australia, Britain, Canada, Italy, Poland Spain and Lebanon are currently present in Gaza, and are witnessing the current Israeli attacks first hand.

Spanish citizen, Alberto Arce, said on Sunday evening that an international group would be accompanying fire-fighters in the Strip; “People are expecting more Israeli attacks. The fire-fighters here in Gaza have an impossible job dealing with the never-ending fires from Israeli air-strikes.”

Due to Israel’s policy of denying international media and aid agencies access to Gaza, they arrived in the coastal strip on the Free Gaza Movement’s boats. These voyages have broken the Israeli blockade five times now, and a sixth is due to depart from Cyprus on Monday.

The Free Gaza Movement boat “Dignity” will be leaving Monday afternoon on an emergency mission to Gaza, loaded with three or four tons of urgently needed medical supplies.

On board are four physicians, including Dr. Elena Theoharous, a surgeon and Member of Parliament in Cyprus. Also going are Cynthia McKinney, a former US Congresswoman and Green Party presidential candidate, and Sami al-Hajj, an Al Jazeera reporter and former detainee at Guantanamo Bay.