Foreign passport holders in Gaza decide to stay – “We will not leave”

2nd January 2009, Gaza:

Despite the exception that Israel is making or foreign passport holders to allow them to leave Gaza for safety, some of the foreigners have chosen to remain and share the fate of the rest of the Palestinian people.

Alberto Arce (Spain) has been accompanying ambulances and reporting from hospitals; “Israel does not want witnesses to the crimes that it is committing against the people of Gaza. International journalists and aid agencies are not here. If we leave who will testify to the war crimes we are seeing.

On the 28th December I looked into the dying eyes of sisters Lama and Haya Hamdan, four and twelves years old, killed an Israeli missile. The humanity I saw there was no different from our humanity. Are our lives worth more than theirs?” Alberto Arce – International Solidarity Movement.

South African-Palestinian Dr. Haidar Eid said; “I believe that this a historical moment. That this massacre in Gaza runs parallel to that of the 1960 Sharpeville Massacare that took place in South Africa which led to the initiation of the BDS Campaign against Apartheid. The Gaza massacre of 2009 will intensify the BDS campaign against Israeli apartheid. In Apartheid South Africa, the BDS campaign ultimately led to the release of Nelson Mandela being released from prison to later become the first black president of a democratic, muliti-racial, muliti-cultural state in South Africa. So, the BDS campaign against Israeli apartheid must result in a unitary state where all citizens will be treated as equals.” Dr Eid is a Professor of Social and Cultural Studies at Al Aqsa University, Gaza. He is also on the Steering committee of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel ( PACBI) and one of the founding members of the One Democratic State Group.

Natalie Abu Shakra (Lebanon) stated; “They did the same thing in Lebanon, but while in Lebanon some places were under heavy bombardment, some places were safe. In Gaza nowhere is safe. How can we lieace these peole behind, we will either live with them or die with them” – Natalie Abu Shakra – International Solidarity Movement

“With the Israeli ban on international journalists, the Gazan voice has been further muted. Communicating the reality on the ground with the external world is essential to highlight the illegality of Israel’s attacks. We recently started accompanying ambulances to document the attacks on medical personnel, which is a violation of the Geneva Convention. I have seen and felt the suffering of families and cannot leave them, all the civilians are vulnerable to Israel’s attacks. We intend to stay and continue exposing the nature of Israel’s attacks on the Gazan people. ” Jenny Linnel – International Solidarity Movement

“Israel not only decides who can leave Gaza, but also who can enter. I have seen the demolished houses, mosques, universities and have felt the impact of terrorizing missile attacks in civilian areas. I have seen the dead children and heard the screams of families trapped in their homes as Israel bombs 30 meters away. The Gazan people, all 1.5 million of them, are unable to escape these illegal attacks. Our lives are no more important than theirs and we will stay during their suffering in solidarity and to document what Israel is preventing foreign journalists from revealing.” Eva Bartlett – International Solidarity Movement

“Palestinians of Gaza have been isolated from the world by the Israeli imposed siege. Now we are being given the opportunity to leave, an unavailable option for the Gazan people. Staying here, in solidarity with Gazan families, is crucial during this horrific increase in Israeli violence. I have witnessed the effects of the siege, I have seen the ongoing violence towards the civilian population. We will continue to stand with the victims of Israel’s illegal policies.” Sharon Lock – International Solidarity Movement

“I believe I have a responsibility to be here in solidarity with the people of Gaza who are enduring crimes against humanity perpetrated by Israel. If the international community will not act to stop this physical, psychological and political war on the entire population of Gaza, then international observers, journalists and activists are needed here in Gaza. We must witness, document and stop wherever possible, the war crimes being committed by Israeli occupation forces against the people of Gaza. Israel doesn’t want witnesses to its’ crimes against humanity, but the people of Gaza do. They keep telling me, ‘Please, tell the world what is happening to us, we can’t believe what is happening to us. They fear the worst, everybody here is terrified and terrorized. I will not be leaving, it is the Israeli occupation forces that need to abide by international law’ and leave Palestine.” Ewa Jasiewicz – Free Gaza Movement

“The opening of the Eres Crossing should be used to transport international observers and medical supplies into Gaza, not out. We have seen firsthand the deaths caused by the siege and more recent bombings. I have lost many friends because of Israel’s illegal military actions. We stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people and will continue to document the atrocities. As international observers, we have the responsibility to ensure that the international community has access to the reality of Israel’s attacks on Gaza.” Vittorio Arrigoni – International Solidarity Movement

International Human Rights Activists have been accompanying ambulances in the Gaza Strip since the murder of medic Mohammed Abu Hassera and Doctor Ihab Al Mathoon by Israeli missiles on the 31st December. The international activists were at the Kamal Adwan hospital, Beit Hanoun, as Dr Mathoon died.

Human Rights Activists staying in Gaza:

Alberto Arce – Spain

Ewa Jasiewicz – Poland/Britain

Dr. Haider Eid – South Africa

Sharon Lock – Australia

Vittorio Arrigoni – Italy

Jenny Linnel – Britain

Natalie Abu Shakra – Lebanon

Eva Bartlett – Canada

Ramallah sees in the new year with candles for Gaza

Candle-lit demonstration in solidarity with Gaza – Ramallah, New Year 2009

Around 2000 people gathered in Al-Manara to see in the new year in solidarity with the besieged Palestinians under Israeli attack in Gaza.

Over 400 people in Gaza have now been killed in the Israeli massacre, one fifth of whom are women and children. Over 2000 have been injured with the rest of the 1.5 million people imprisoned in the Strip as Israel bombards them from the air and sea.

New Years Eve in Ramallah was a quiet time, with people’s thoughts with Gaza. There was some singing while large numbers held candles and Palestinian Flags in solidarity with Gaza.

The Palestinian people showed their unity by not raising any party flags – only black and Palestinian flags were held in the air over the masses.

Palestinians all over the West Bank continue to demonstrate in solidarity with Gaza. Daily demonstrations have been going on in Ramallah and will continue as Israel continues the attacks on Gaza.

Il Manifesto: The angel factories

By Vittorio Arrigoni

Translated from Il Manifesto

To view original article, published by Il Manifesto on the 30th December 2008, click here

Jabilia, Bet Hanun, Rafah, Gaza City are the legs of the journey in my personal map of hell. Whatever the press releases from the summit of the Israeli military may say, recited parrot-style all over Europe and the US via the disinformation experts, in the last few days I’ve been an eye witness to the bombing of mosques, schools, universities, hospitals, markets and many, many civilian buildings.

The medical director at Al Shifa hospital has confirmed he received calls from members of the IDF, the Israeli Army, ordering him to evacuate the hospital, or else face being showered by missiles. But they didn’t let the Army intimidate them.

I should be sleeping at the port (though we haven’t shut our eyes once in Gaza for at least 4 days), but it’s being constantly bombed at night. You no longer hear the sirens of ambulances in a mad chase, simply because there isn’t a living soul left at the port or its environs. Everyone is dead, and it feels like treading a cemetery in the aftermath of an earthquake.

The situation is really that of an unnatural catastrophe, a hate-fuelled and cynical upheaval catapulted onto the people of Gaza like molten lead, tearing human bodies apart. Contrarily to their predictions, it unites all Palestinians, brought together and turned into a sole entity. These are people who may not even have greeted one another until recently, on account of belonging to opposing factions.

When the bombs shower like rain down from the sky, from a height of ten thousand metres you can be sure they make no distinction between a hamas or fatah banner hanging from your window sill. They’re no less explosive even when you’re Italian. There’s no such thing as a surgically precise military operation. When the Air Force and the Navy start bombing, the only surgical operations are those tackled by the doctors, unhesitatingly amputating limbs reduced to a pulp, even though those same arms and legs may have been saved. There’s no time, you have to run, and the time used to treat a seriously injured limb may spell death for the next wounded patient in line awaiting a transfusion. At Al Shifa hospital 600 inpatients are in serious conditions, with only 29 breathing machines.

They’re short of everything, especially experienced staff. For this exact reason, tired as we were (not so much by the sleepless nights as by the apathy and compliance of Western governments, at all effects accomplices of Israel’s crimes), we decided that one of our Free Gaza Movement boats would leave the port of Larnaca, Cyprus last night, carrying three tons of medicine and medical staff. I waited for them in vain – they ought to have docked the boat at 8 AM this morning. Instead, they were intercepted by 11 Israeli war ships at 90 nautical miles from Gaza. They tried to sink them in full international waters. They rammed into them three times, producing an engine failure and a leak in the hull. By pure chance the crew and passengers are still alive, and have managed to dock the boat at a Lebanese port.

Feeling increasingly frustrated by the “civilised” world’s deafening silence, my friends will make a second attempt soon. They’ve in fact unloaded the medicine from our damaged boat, the Dignity, and filled another boat ready for departure, heading straight to Gaza.

We’re certain that the criminal will of Israel, in trampling all over human rights and international law, will never be as strong as our determination in the defense of human rights.

Many journalists interviewing me ask me about the humanitarian situation of Palestinians in Gaza, as if the problem amounted just to food, water, electricity and fuel shortages, rather than the matter being about who’s the actual cause of all this, by obstructing the borders, bombing the water plant or electric power stations.

There are endless queues at the few bakeries with their shutters still semi-open; they have 40 or 50 people scuffling to grab the last chunk of bread. One of the bakers, Ahmed, is a friend of mine, and he’s told me about his greatest fears of the last few days. He dreads the bakeries being mobbed more than the bombs. Brawls have already exploded in front of his shop. The police were around to keep public order until recently, especially in front of bakeries, but you won’t see a single uniformed policeman in all of Gaza now. Some are in hiding at the moment. The others are all buried under two metres of earth, including some of my friends.

Another massacre of children in Jabilia: two little brothers, were struck by an Israeli bomb while driving a donkey-drawn cart in the as-Sekka street in Jabalia.

Mohammad Rujailah, a partner in the ISM, took a photo which is more than just a still image: it’s a history, the revelation of the tragedy we’re intensely consumed by every minute, counting every hour while losing friends, brothers, relatives. Tanks, fighter planes, drones, Apache helicopters, the world’s largest and fiercest army attacking a people who use donkeys as their main means of transportation, just like in Jesus Christ’s time:

—here the picture—-

According to Al Mizan, a human rights monitoring centre, while I write 55 children are involved in bombings, 20 are being killed and 40 are being seriously injured.

Israel has turned the Palestinian hospitals and morgues into angel factories, not realising just how much hatred they are generating in Palestine and the rest of the world.

The angel factories are churning angels out at the rate of a non-stop production line tonight as well, I can tell from the rumbles of explosions I hear outside my window.

Those tiny dismembered and amputated bodies, those lives snuffed out before they could even blossom, will be a recurrent nightmare for the rest of my life. If I can still find the strength to talk about their end it’s only because I want to bring justice to those who no longer have a voice, those who’ve never had a hint of a voice, perhaps for the benefit of those who’ve never had any ears.

Stay human

Vittorio Arrigoni

Journal: Riding with ambulances from tonight

By Sharon in Gaza

To view Sharon’s blog please click here

Last night E and I accompanied Dr Halid on the dark walk from Al Shifa hospital (his day shift) to Al Quds hospital (his night shift); he didn’t expect to find a taxi to take us, as our destination had a lot of government buildings which had recieved many strikes.

His route attempted to avoid the main targets. “Let’s go this way to avoid the Jawizat,” Dr H said. “Where exactly was that?” E asked. “Oh well, let’s go past it so you can see it,” he offered, Arabic hospitality to guests immediately outweighing any concerns of being underneath a missile. The Jawizat was one of the police academies that were having a training day, and between 45-50 young men were killed there in the first ten minutes of attacks.

At Al Quds hospital we met the Red Crescent Ambulance folks, who have set up their operations room in a hospital office. Two doors away, they have a perfectly good Red Crescent Operations Centre, but it has an unexploded missile in it, so it is hard to tell how much longer it will remain perfectly good for. I get the impression that whoever might once have been the person to ring to defuse unexploded missiles probably is no longer alive after all the police station strikes. The building in between the hospital and the Red Crescent Operations Centre is a Social and Cultural Centre also funded by them, with an emergency section on the ground floor. This building has various pieces of it falling off. And all of this is a result of there being – last week, anyway – another police station, the Muqa’ii, just a little further along in this line of buildings. Now it is reduced to rubble, again in the initial air strikes on Saturday December 27th.

S from the hospital told us about some of the supermarket customers across the road from it, killed as a result. “A 17 year old patient of ours had his father visiting. The father had gone to the supermarket to buy some things for his son. He was killed. And there were children just let out from Zahwa School. I found two girls, aged 9 and 12. One died quickly of abdominal injuries. The other was missing part of her head and shoulder when I found her. ”

We are here to arrange for internationals to ride with Red Crescent Ambulances (along with government ambulances and any other relevant medical vehicles) throughout the Gaza strip. Everyone we have spoken to first reinforces how dangerous this work is, and then gratefully accepts; in the hope an international presence will protect the medical workers whom the Geneva Convention ought to be strong enough to protect, but isn’t. Two are dead in the last days. Israel seems to be following a two-strike pattern also – bombing a particular location, then hitting again during the attempt to rescue the trapped and injured.

After the details are sorted out, our new colleagues insist it is too dangerous to walk or drive back to our home, and provide us with tea, dinner, and a comfortable room to ourselves for the night Its windows are broken, but so are pretty much all the windows in Gaza city, including our apartment building after bombing today. And there are lots of blankets. E and I feel very taken care of, as we always do in Palestine. What feels like extremely close rocket strikes begin just after I get into bed, and the door is pushed out of its frame by the impact. The staff come to see if I am frightened, and to karate kick the door back into place.

But the same thing happens again s

Israeli soldiers abduct four Palestinians from Madama village, steal jewellery and money

On the second day of the Israeli massacres of Gaza, Dec. 29, several homes were invaded by the Israeli Army in the town of Madama, east of Nablus. Four men were arrested and homes were damaged in an invasion unusual in the number of arrestees taken from the town. None of the men has since been released, and none have been officially charged with a crime.

The town of Madama is located approximately 4 kilometers south of Nablus, and is subjected to almost nightly invasions – however the arrest of four men at once is a rare occurence. The town is surrounded on two sides by the aggressive Israeli settlements of Bracha and Yitzar.

At 1am on December 29, the Israeli Army invaded the town. They broke down the doors of the family of Na’im Mohammad Nassar immediately, arresting his 24-year-old son Kamal, who is currently studying in Nablus to become a nurse. Soldiers broke a window of the home, rounded up the family of nine, including a 3-month-old baby, and forced them to stay outside in the cold as the army searched the home. Soldiers grabbed the throat of Kamal’s 14-year-old brother and father, choking them as they threw them outside. The family reports still feeling afraid every evening. Kamal’s mother tried to speak with the soldiers, but was insulted and rebuffed. Soldiers shouted ‘Shut your mouth!’ to her upon being approached in any way. They said nothing about why Kamal was being taken. This same family lost a son two years ago who was very ill and who was held at Huwarra checkpoint for two hours as Israeli soldiers refused to allow him to pass through to the hospital. He died waiting to be let through.

At 1:30am, soldiers broke into the home of Omar Abd-Alkarem Nassar, and arrested his 20-year-old son Yasar. They also threatened to arrest his 13-year-old brother. 7 people were held outside of the home for 1.5 hours. When Omar Abd-Alkarem Nassar asked them “Why are you here?”, the soldiers answered “You have nothing – this is our land and we can come here whenever we want.”

The army invaded the home of the Jebir Ahman Massar family at 2am, and arrested 20-year-old Mohammad, who is also studying to be a nurse. The family was again kept outside in cold weather for 1.5 hours without toilet facilities and without being allowed to collect blankets for the children. One 2-year-old boy who was kept outside contracted a cold. Soldiers ransacked their house, dumping belongings on the floors of every room. Soldiers also asked the father, Jebir, for Mohammad’s mobile phone. When he refused to hand it over, they threatened to shoot him.

19-year-old Mohammad Zahirhseen Qut was also arrested – a student in psychology at Al-Quds Open University in Nablus. Neighbours and friends report that soldiers stole jewelery and 500 Jordanian dinars in cash from his home. Also, soldiers invaded the Yamen Cultural and Social Centre, a gathering place for youth in the community. They took the computer from the centre, as well as broke the lock on the door, and threw books and other educational materials onto the floor.

All these families are waiting for their sons to be returned and have heard nothing from them since they were taken by the Israeli military.