Tag: Gaza

European Union failing its obligations to protect human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory

28 January 2009 | Palestinian Centre for Human Rights

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ezbet Abed Rabbo area: Remnants of houses and soldiers’ presence

Eva Bartlett | In Gaza

January 28, 2009

Two of her boys worked to pull pieces of clothing, books, and anything reachable from under the toppled cupboard. Every item is sacred. She led me through her house, pointing out the many violations against their existence, every graffitied wall, each shattered window and glass and plate, slit flour bags –when the wheat is so precious –and the same revolting array of soldiers’ left-overs:spoiled packaged food, feces everywhere but the toilet, clothes used as toilet paper. The same stench.

“They broke everything, broke our lives. That was the boys room,” we continue through the wreckage. “Look, look here. See that?! Look at this!” This is to be the refrain as we step over destroyed belongings into destroyed rooms.

It isn’t only the destruction, defiling, vandalizing, waste… it’s also the interruption of life, a life already interrupted by the siege. She held out school books, torn, ruined, and asked how her children were supposed to study: when they have no books, no power, had to flee their home, are living in constant fear of another bombardment of missiles (from the world’s 4th most powerful and most abundantly-equipped military).

Some of the graffiti reads:

“We don’t hate Arabs, but will kill every Hamas.”

and

“IDF was here! We know you are here. We won’t kill you, you will live in fear and run all your lives!”

For people in families like hers, the surviving members, this psychological terror is real. For those who have been killed already, the “we won’t kill you,” is a lie. Ask the surviving fathers, mothers, siblings, children.

From the rooftop, we see neighbouring houses inflicted with the wrath of the Israeli military machine. And great swathes of land which once held homes and trees, now naked, stubbled with pillar fragments at painful angles, rubble, stumps, and tank tracks.

“Here, here, come look over here, over here.”

“That was all our land: clementines, lemons, olives…”

“That’s my brother’s house over there, its all broken…”

The drones were still overhead, the words too urgent, too many, too fast, too dizzying.

Down to ground zero and on to more newly wrecked houses and lives. Past a water pump which served at least 10 houses in the area, hit by missiles, ruined.

Passing more shells of houses, I meet Yasser abu Ali, co-owner of a paint and tools supply shop bombed to the ground by 2 F-16 missiles. Seventeen people were immediately dependent on the revenue from the business, not accounting for indirect dependents (suppliers, buyers). As abu Ali tells of he and his brothers’ $200,000 loss, it comes out that he is a cousin of Dr. Ezz-El-Din Abu El-Eish, the doctor whose 3 daughters and neice were killed by Israeli shelling on his house in Jabaliya. Everyone has their own story, and stories overlap, tragedies overlap and compound.

At Samir Abed Rabbo’s, the tour begins as with the others: everything is broken and upside down, there are Israeli soldiers’ leavings (food, playing cards, feces…) and graffiti: “Join the Israeli army today!” and other slogans from the patriotic invading and occupying forces.

The house is more holes than walls, from multiple tank shells to automatic gunfire shots from the tanks. Seeing so many intentionally & deviously-ruined houses dulls the concept of damage. But strangely some things stand out as odd or notable amidst the whole-scale destruction. Entrails of ceilings and support beams hang in threads. A chair sits gutted.

And there are the sniper holes. I look out the hole facing Salah el Din street, the Dawwar Zimmo crossroads, and I realize that it was from one of these very holes that Hassan would have been shot, thankfully not killed (unlike the 13 other emergency medical workers), thankfully we also weren’t shot dead. These sniper holes litter house walls in homes all over Jabaliya, Attatra, Zaitoun…Gaza.

The baby’s bedroom, not saved from the attacks. A wall of cheerful cartoons and cute baby posters contrasts the ugliness of the gaping shelling wounds, reminding that nothing is sacred to an army that will shoot children point-blank [i will tell of this in a later post].

The rotting donkey out back explains the stink, a stench different than that of the army’s usual odor.

Leaving Samir Abed Rabbo’s ruins, I see a newly-homeless family making tea over a fire, behind the rubble of their former home.

Saed Azzat Abed Rabbo stands under a missile hole in his bedroom ceiling, explaining that on the first day of the land invasion, he and family had been in the house when a missile struck it. They frantically evacuated to a school in Jabaliya, Feluja, and only learned of their house’s post-occupation demise upon returning after the Israeli soldiers left.

It is like the others: ravaged, left with soldiers’ waste and wine bottles–Hebrew writing on the label (wine isn’t available here anyway, so there’s no question who drank the wine) –rooftop water tank blown apart, and rooftop views affording more sights of neighbourhood destruction and of the lemon trees that once stood near Saed Abed Rabbo’s home.

I left Abed Rabbo that day, weaving amongst taxis, motorbikes, trucks, and carts packed with belongings, people who had no home to stay in, who’d only come to retrieve what they could from their former lives. I’d seen more than I felt I could internalize or reproduce for others, but knew I’d go back for more stories because I knew there are more. More than I can possibly hear or pass on.

Israeli gunboat sprays Palestinian fishing boat with bullets

27th January 2009, Gaza: On the morning of the 27th of January 2009, a Palestinian fishing boat left Gaza City port in one of the first attempts to work after the recent onslaught on Gaza, and the following ceasefire announced by Israel.

While fishing in Palestinian territorial waters, about 1 mile off the northern Gaza Strip shore, it was attacked by an Israeli gunboat. The fishing boat was sprayed with bullets of different types.

As it can be seen in the images taken by ISM volunteers, upon the return of the fishing boat to the Gaza port, Israeli soldiers were mostly targeting the wheelhouse. Fortunately the captain managed to survive, nobody was injured but the boat suffered serious damages.

At Al Wafa – Saja and Ceasefiring

Sharon Lock | Tales to Tell

Yesterday E and I went back to see Amer at his Zaytoun house. He told us his brother Abdullah is back home from the Egyptian hospital, and showed us his hospital records; his wounds (two shots to abdomen, one to arm), are healing ok. He was worried about Saja, his 6 year old, though, it seemed he thought the gunshot wound to her arm wasn’t healing properly, and he wasn’t sure if he could get an overworked doctor’s attention under current circumstances. E already had some links with doctors at Al Wafa hospital in Shayjaiee, where the Al Helou family are staying with Shireen’s sister’s family, so she called Dr Tariq and asked if he would see Saja the next day.

Amer has a lot of friends dropping by when he is at his Zaytoun house, they don’t want him to be alone.  One of the young men here lost his brother, as Amer lost Mohammed. Amer told us Mohammed’s wife is 4 months pregnant.

One of the friend made us a wonderful makluba dish for lunch, with virtually no facilities. E told us how she thought this was solely the name of this chicken and rice dish, and couldn’t understand what it meant when someone said his room was all maklubah. It actually just means “upside down.” Luckily while we ate, the wind was blowing the right way. When it’s blowing the wrong way, everyone still trying to live in a semi-rural area like this has to deal with the aroma of rotting chickens, cows, and sheep, killed or starved during the attacks.

Dr Tariq examining Saja's gunshot wound
Dr Tariq examining Saja's gunshot wound

Today E and I met Amer and Saja in the Shayjaiee market to go to Al Wafa Rehabilitation Hospital. Saja is a finely boned child with a solemn face, who kept close to her dad, even sitting as far forward on the taxi back seat as she could  in order to be near him in the front seat. When you remember she saw her grandad and baby sister killed, it’s not surprising. She was sucking a lollipop and wasn’t willing to open her mouth to say a word for some time. When we got back to her home later and she was with her relatives and her little brother Mohammed (her other brother Foad was at kindergarten) she relaxed and drew some pictures for us.

Dr Tariq is a kind man, but Saja (as you can see in the above photo) was suspicious, and she had reason, as the examination unavoidably had her crying in a lot of pain. The wound has healed on the outside, but there do seem to be some internal problems, and a further operation might be required.

I learnt in my early visits to Palestine not to admire anything that Palestinians have that they could physically give to you, because they will. I try to limit my compliments to things that are bolted down, and children. But I slipped up today… when Shireen arrived, E and I both commented on how much we like her clothes, and that we’d like her to show us where she finds them. She immediately went into the back of the house and came back with two of her shirts, one for us each, for which she would accept no refusal.

By the end of the visit, we’d also collected a commemorative Palestine sash from one of her friendly family members, and some High Energy Biscuits from the World Food Programme, which were apparently a Gift of Norway before they were a gift of Shireen. I felt that I wasn’t really keeping up my end of things with the halva I’d brought them, but it made Shireen smile, because Amer had yesterday joked that my bag had a supermarket in it, after I’d pulled out cashew nuts followed by maramaya (sage) for the tea, yesterday. (These things are, by the way, funded by you, my kind donators.)

We asked Amer about work, he said before the attacks he delivered bread in his van, but now he couldn’t do this job

Shelled Al Helou house and shelled delivery van
Shelled Al Helou house and shelled delivery van

anymore. You’ll see why in this picture of house and van.

E and I said that we would let folks who read our blogs know they can make donations to go towards medical treatment Saja might need, if they would like. She’ll be assessed on Thursday and then we’ll let you know, and we’ll try to sort out Paypal if we can. I *think* we can convince Amer and Shireen to accept this, after several battles over several days I managed to pay for our taxi today by saying “it’s not my money, but donations from people outside that I’m paying with”. (It’s actually a bit of both. I hope Amer doesn’t read that. He has a sneaky way of shaking hands with the driver and simultaneously passing shekels over when we’re not looking.)

While we were at Al Wafa, there was gunfire about every 5 minutes. Apparently the army constantly firing over the border is normal there. This is another hospital that was attacked – as you see. There were normally three patients in this room, but luckily they had evacuated this side of the building and moved everyone to the other side when the rocket went in one wall, through the room, and out the other. I believe there were other hits too.

While we were there, E took me to meet Abd, whose case she took up when she was in Egypt. He’s 18 now, and he was shot by a sniper in the March 2008 invasion. He had gone up on the house roof to find out why there was no water from their tank (that was also because of sniper shot it turned out.) He was shot in the spine, and it was a little while before his family realised he was missing. He was sent out to Egypt for treatment, and was in a pretty bad way when E met him, emaciated, with bed sores, cut off from his family, and having been shifted round 5 Egyptian hospitals.

The advice E was given was to try to arrange his removal back to Gaza, which surprised her because of the siege conditions, but then she learnt about the good quality long term care available at Al Wafa.

Al Wafa hospital
Al Wafa hospital

She was a key part of getting Abd home, and he is now greatly improved physically and has had some visits home. However the 3 solicitous doctors clustered round his bed were telling us that he is very dispirited.

It seems to have hit him he will never walk, and he is grieving for the life he won’t have. Al Wafa staff are doing their best to show him the life he can have. How many more young people there are like him after these last weeks, with so much lost. We wondered if we could ask E’s friend AK to visit Abd. AK lost both his legs, but he is a very strong, positive, and witty man.