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| Santa Claus giving flowers to school girls in Gaza City |
Santa Claus is giving flowers away to the Palestinian kids. |
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| Santa Claus giving flower to school children in Gaza City |
Santa Claus distributing flower which was not allowed outside by Israeli |
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| Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Hanyeh waving to people after Eid prayers in Gaza |
Palestinian who was injured during the last Israeli attack on the middle area is carrid into the hospital |
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| Palestinians carry the body of Hamas member Jomah Abu Hjayir during his funeral |
Reflection of Palestinian kids is seen during Eid Al Adha Day |
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| Palestinian Christians are waiting to cross from Gaza to Bethlehem to celebrate Christmas |
Palestinian Christian families are walking towards Erez crossing to go to Bethlehem in West Bank |
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| Palestinian child holding poster of her dad demanding to release him on Eid day |
Nehad Shanaa Reuters Camerman is seen after being injured by Israeli Forces while he was filming |
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| Mourners gathering around the body of Jomah Abu Hjayir during his funeral he was killed by Israeli Forces |
Injured boy during the Israeli attack is carried by his brother to the hospital |
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Hamas gunmen patrolling during an Israeli attack on the middle of Gaza Strip |
Fateful Christmas: Israeli-Manufactured Tragedies Prevail
Here in the Gaza Strip, isolated and besieged, bloodshed is rampant, Israeli attacks still taking place on a rapid and massive scale, yet strangely absent from the mainstream media, usurped by more important distractions. All over the Strip, Israeli helicopters and F-16s hover, dropping deadly gifts, with tanks rounding out the almost daily invasions which, by some estimates, have killed at least 40 Palestinians in the last four weeks alone.
In their latest attack on December 20, Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) killed at least eight Palestinians in the central Gaza Strip region of Burij and Maghazi refugee camps, leaving a further more than 30 injured. The incursion started early morning at dawn of Thursday by intensive hovering of helicopters and F16s. Inevitably, in a region where Hamas is the ruling party, some of those injured were Hamas members, while others were civilians, including children. At least four were seriously injured according to Mawyah Hassaneen, director of Emergency and Ambulance services in Gaza. This attack came on the second day of the four-day celebration of Eid al Adha, honoured by Palestinians as well as Muslims around the world.
Journalists and Medical Teams:
Among the seriously injured civilians, two cameramen, including one working for Reuters, were also among the wounded, when the Israeli forces fired upon the journalists. Hassaneen reported that Israeli forces prevented Palestinian ambulances from reaching the scene of the attack to retrieve more potential casualties. Israel called the incursions on the ravaged central Gaza Strip region, as well as the daily attacks all over the Strip, an assault on the “banks of targets,” referring to Hamas, the ruling party which led to the entire Gaza Strip being dubbed as a “hostile entity” since September.
According to Israeli sources, one Israeli soldier was also seriously wounded by a rocket-propelled grenade and two others slightly wounded during the clashes.
Meanwhile, Palestinian resistance factions continue to launch home-made Qassam rockets towards Israeli city of Sderot. Although its residents complain of the rocket fire at this city close to the Strip, Israeli Housing Minister Ze'ev Boim is encouraging Israelis to move to areas proximate to Gaza’s borders, offering free land to those who choose to build in areas as close as five kilometers to the Gaza border. According to Palestinian news sources, Boim has authorized the Israeli Land Administration (ILA) to construct fifty new developments in this region.
Islamic Jihad has pledged to continue launching home-made rockets in revenge for the killing of its Gazan general commander, assassinated last week in central Gaza by Israeli bombers, when at least two rockets hit a car he was traveling in. His death came immediately after those of 12 Palestinians, including two policemen, targeted throughout the Strip in the same period.
The assassinations continued Friday, with the killing of a 17-year old Palestinian resistance fighter who was shot and killed by Israeli Special Forces. Two more fighters were killed on Christmas Eve day, bodies torn apart by the missile which targeted them in al-Bureij refugee camp.
Not including medical cases and border-related deaths, this latest killing brings the death toll to over 20 within one week alone.
Border Injustices Know No Holidays:
In spite of the festive season, the massive suffering imposed due to Israeli border closures since June and an Israeli and international boycott of the destitute Gaza Strip continues with further deaths due to denial of medical care. Wednesday, a 15 year old girl succumbed to kidney failure after Israeli prohibited her transfer for dialysis. She is but one of over 30 medical victims of Israeli refusal to allow crucial medical care to over 900 critically ill and diseased patients who cannot receive the care or medical supplies they need within the strangled Strip.
The Real Peace Process:
Dismissed Palestinian Prime Minister, Ismail Hanyeh, has offered and asked for truce, with a cease of home-made rocket fire in return for a cessation of the on-going Israeli air, sea, and ground attacks. The cease-fire pledge, not the first, was –for not the first time –rejected by Olmert’s government. Instead, Israeli forces continue to launch rockets targeting leaders in Gaza, alongside near-daily ground invasions in Gaza. This is allegedly with the aim of halting the near-daily firing of the home-made rockets and mortars from Gaza towards military positions near the walled-off border and the Israeli city of Sderot.
In Olmert’s rejection of the peace offer, he stated that Israel would not hold talks with the Hamas until it recognizes Israel, something which Hamas has repeatedly offered in the past. Olmert did not, on the contrary, offer recognition of Palestinians and their rights to exist. Olmert also stated that “this war will continue, while making sure to avoid a humanitarian crisis that could harm civilians who are not at all involved in terrorism.” It is quite unclear whether he was referring to the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza which his government has created, or whether he was attempting to drum up further fear amongst Israelis in order to justify the long on-going attacks and raids on Gaza.
A Few Favourite Things:
Meanwhile, Palestinians Christians are supposed to celebrate Christmas in Gaza in less than 48 hours. But due to the siege, the deaths, the lack of security, it seems like Christmas has chosen the wrong time and place to be celebrated. Gazan civilians, already isolated in every imaginable way, are doomed to suffer further, severed from universal festivities.
While Christians all over the world are busy with last-minute preparations for celebrations –deliberating over gifts, planning family feasts, hanging decorations, caroling and spreading cheer, Gaza’s Christian community will pass the day in heightened fear, sorrows, and poverty, under the long-imposed siege and suffering enormously.
Aside from the very real tragedies of the daily deaths from Israeli warplanes and denial of medical care, there is the tragedy of material goods: there simply isn’t anything to buy, certainly no chocolates available. Not to forget that basic essential goods are scarce and highly inflated, the few items that trickle in costing triple or quadruple the normal price, an impossible option for Gazans who have seen unemployment skyrocket since Israel shut down Gaza’s borders.
Imagine the parents who would create joy for their children, longing to show them that life is beautiful. The magic, the special memories of secrets and baked goods that Christians around the world will enjoy are impossible aspirations. Gingerbread and candy canes are but crazy dreams. What kind of justice is there, when the people who would honor their religion are prevented from so-doing by Israel’s arbitrary and collectively punitive sanctions?
While television programs and classic films speak of the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future, Gazans try in vain to move beyond the graveyards of ghosts of loved-ones killed in the past, present, and certainly the future. For in Gaza, there are no silent nights, and the holy peace has long been forsaken, shattered with each new Israeli invasion and attack, with each tightening of the siege, and with the increasing fuel cuts. Oh, holy night, our stars are quickly dying. Unnoticed.
Dear Friends,
Please see Gaza's grim situations. It's getting much worse here in Gaza. I had a loss of a relative some days ago due to medicine shortages in Gaza and now number of people dying due to medical shortages is increasing. Please pass this article on and let the world know what's going on here! http://www.newstatesman.com/200712100003
The article was published at New Statesman, UK's leading magazine. If you have any questions or comments, please don't hesitate to contact me.
Peace and love from Palestine,
Mohammed
******************************
The grim reality in Gaza
Mohammed Omer
Published 10 December 2007
Mohammed Omer reports on shortages in Gaza from crucial medical supplies through children's winter clothing to fuel Traffic in the Gaza Strip slowed to a trickle last week, and this week medical centres have scaled back treatment in the medicines and sustenance-destitute Strip.
"Israel’s decision is a death penalty: our reserve of fuel is almost zero and it may very likely run out by the end of today," said Khaled Radi, Ministry of Health spokesman for the dismissed Hamas government. Radi spoke in reference to the 30 November Israeli Supreme Court decision to allow further fuel cutbacks, severe reductions which are crippling Gaza’s residents in all aspects of life. Prior to that ruling, as early as October Israel decided to begin limiting fuel, with Gaza soon after enduring serious cuts of over 50% of fuel needs, a dire statistic confirmed by the UN body OCHA.
At the Nahal Oz crossing, through which all fuel enters Gaza, the Palestinian petrol authority reported that Israel has delivered around only 190,000 litres of diesel a day since late October, falling short of the 350,000 litres needed by the Gaza Strip. This number plummeted on 29 November, with Israel delivering a scanty 60,000 litres, only marginally improving three days later, 2 December, with a delivery of 90,000 litres.
This week’s increased cutbacks resulted in a several day closure of Gaza’s petrol stations, owners striking in protest to the pittance of fuel allowed in–just one quarter of that normally received. Gaza’s Association for Fuel Station Owners commented: "Petrol firms considered the amount negligible and so, in protest over the Israeli blockade, refused to accept the paltry offering which does not come close to meeting the essential needs of Gaza’s civilians."
A Gaza taxi driver related his concern: "Cutting off fuel means cutting off our lives. We use it for everything, in the place of wood or coal. It’s tragic not only that Israel is imposing this siege on Gaza, but also that some Palestinians are supporting this cruel embargo, with the naïve idea of causing the people turn against Hamas in Gaza."
Shortages of fuel have greatly affected the public transportation system, leaving students from universities in Gaza City delayed for hours standing in wait for transportation back to Khan Younies and Rafah in the south.
Trickle Effect
The fuel cuts in turn impede water access: with diesel-run pumps unable to function, leaving over 77,000 without fresh drinking water, according to Gaza’s water utility. Oxfam International has warned that soon 225,000 Gazans could suffer from inadequate water supplies, raising concerns for public health. Ambulances and clinics suffer too, a fact reiterated by Khaled Radi, who related how fuel shortages have already brought some ambulances to a standstill: "This has affected the mobility of ambulances which are especially vital during on-going Israeli air strikes such as that of this morning."
He added that shortages further threatened to close essential clinics, which rely on back-up generators during the frequent electricity shortages in the Strip. Two first aid health centres have already been forced to suspend treatment during electricity cuts. Those that remain open suffer from want of medical supplies, with 91 of 416 essential medicines depleted, according to the WHO.
Even basic things are scarce. Residents are hard-pressed to find a piece of glass to repair a broken window, imperative in December’s cold weather, particularly in a time when electricity and gas are scarce-to-absent.
Eyad Yousef, a 31-year-old Palestinian teacher, has been waiting for cement, unavailable for the last many months, to enter Gaza. Concurrently, prices of building materials have skyrocketed, more than tripled in the worst cases. Yousef waits for any sort of building material, but he knows that will not find anything, as he has looked all over the picked-clean area. "I have a floor of my home to finish, but can’t do so yet as no sort of building materials are available in Gaza," he said. "I'm using pieces of nylon to cover my windows at home, but I can’t go on like this for long," he added, saying he hopes that the international community will put pressure on Israel to open borders and let vital products into Gaza.
Death Penalty
Yousef, at least, is luckier than the newly dead: since last month at least 31 medical patients have died in Gaza, a result of Israel’s lockdown on borders and preventing of medical access to Israeli, Egyptian and Jordanian hospitals, as well as West Bank hospitals.
Since Hamas took over power in June, this subsequent Israeli lockdown has made it virtually impossible for Palestinians to get out of Gaza. The situation then deteriorated with the closing of Karni crossing, Gaza’s only commercial crossing, only opened for the most basic food essentials. Coupled with Israel’s ground and air attacks, the situation for Palestinians worsened yet further still when Israel last October announced Gaza as a "hostile entity", further allowing Israel to justify its closed-borders policy to the international arena.
In the densely-populated region starved of medical supplies, and now facing the shutdown of clinics, Gazan citizens have been given a death sentence with Israel’s control over borders. Yahya Al Jamal 53, one case among hundreds of people, has cancer and is in serious need of medical care at well-equipped hospitals. For more than two months now he has been refused entry to Israel for treatment. His agonized father reported that his son will die in the coming days if he does not get the medication he needs, an outcome of Israel’s mass denial of the luxury of critical healthcare.
Insult upon injuries, cement – already scarce for building – is no longer available even for graves of the many recently dead.
Empty Stocks
Aid agencies like the World Food Program (WFP) reporting that food imports are only enough to meet 41 per cent of demand in the Gaza Strip.
As winter progresses, resilient citizens desperately seek to survive. In Rafah’s Saturday market, Umm Mohammed Zourub scours the stalls yet again: "I've been looking for new winter clothes for my children, but I haven't been able to find any because no materials are coming into Gaza with the closed borders," the 43 year old mother lamented.
Indeed, the cold weather has fallen quickly on an internationally-isolated and starved population. From the intense heat of summer months, where water was scarce and air conditioning a fantasy, Gazans now experience the bitter cold in the same homes unprepared for extremes, and the bitter realization that, once again, they have been left to the whims of imprisonment, Israeli air and ground attacks, and a staggering invisibility in the international realm.
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A wounded child is carried to Al Shifa hospital after a blast at the funeral of Khalil Al Msarai in Gaza |
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| A wounded Palestinian is carried to hospital after a blast at the funeral of Khalil Al Masara |
A wounded Palestinian is carried to hospital after a blast at the funeral of Khalil Al Masara in Gaza City |
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| Gaza City |
Hamas celebrate its anniversary in Gaza City |
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| Palestinians taking part at Hamas anniversary |
Palestinian holding flags on a tree in Gaza City during Hamas 20th anniversay |
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| Palestinian inspect destroyed vehicle after an Israeli airstrike in Gaza December 13 |
Palestinian mourners carry the body of Sulyman Yassin who was killed in a blast during a funeral in Gaza City |
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| Palestinian national forces taking part during a training close to the Egyptian border with Gaza Strip |
Palestinians taking part at Hamas anniversary in Gaza City |
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| Hamas supporters in Gaza shout slogans during anniversary organised by Hamas |
A wounded Palestinian man is carried to hospital after a blast at the funeral of Khalil Al Masara in Gaza |
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Palestinian inspect destroyed vehicle after an Israeli airstrike hit a taxi targetting passangers in Gaza City |
Assault Upon Grief: Funeral Attacked and Rafah Again Besieged
Four mourners were killed, and another forty were injured, due to an explosion which targeted mourners amid throngs of people at the funeral of a Fatah member killed by Israeli Forces in Gaza on Thursday. This was just some hours before Israeli’s large-scale attack on southern Gaza Strip’s Rafah refugee camp.
This has been bloody week in Gaza.
Dozens of Fatah supporters had come to pay their respects to Fatah member Nasser Khalil Al Masaara, killed on Thursday when an Israeli warplane fired a missile at the taxi in which he was traveling in the Al Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of northern Gaza City, also killing others traveling with him. One of the mourners attending the funeral reported that someone had fired a grenade into the crowd. Another recounted: “I was inside the loudspeaker car, a blue Volkswagen, with my right hand outside the window when suddenly an explosion rocked the car. I could see my fingers and flesh strewn all over the street.”
Hamas’ spokesman has denounced the incident and its Ministry of Interior is investigating it. Fatah, on the other hand, has accused Hamas of carrying out the bombing, while still others believe that the aim was to incite rioting in Palestinian streets and to consequently affect the plans for Hamas’ 20th anniversary celebrations.
The spokesman of Palestinian Police in Gaza, Islam Sahwan, stated: “The only initial information that we have is that a grenade exploded in one of the mourner’s hands.”
Rafah Again:
On Tuesday, an estimated 35 Israeli tanks and numerous bulldozers, with helicopters and F16s supporting from above, attacked Rafah refugee camp in what is said to be the largest operation in Gaza since June, killing 7 and injuring tens of civilians. Many others were arrested, and vast tracts of olive and orange trees were razed. The Israeli forces attacked and destroyed key infrastructure, additionally cutting off electricity. Access was cut off to the main streets, as well as to the road linking the south and north. The bodies of many of the injured were ripped apart, unrecognizable pieces of flesh strewn all over. Israel is using new kinds of rockets which burn the flesh and mince human targets into unidentifiable chunks.
Hamas’ Anniversary and the Right to Return:
Israel’s decision to reduce fuel supplies to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip is driving Palestinians to use a more affordable means of transport - donkeys and horses. And this was the way tens of thousands of people have managed to make it to the 20th anniversary of Hamas.
At Gaza's bustling donkey market east of Gaza City, donkeys and mules were fetching record-high prices because ordinary Palestinians can no longer afford, let alone find, working cars and the fuel to power them. After Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip in June, Israel tightened its military and economic cordon around the coastal territory, largely limiting imports to humanitarian supplies.
At the anniversary Ismail Haniyeh, Palestinian prime Minster of the dismissed Hamas government, said: “The message from you today is that Hamas and these masses will not yield before the sanctions.” Haniyeh spoke at the rally in Gaza City to a cheering audience who waved the green Islamic flags of Hamas. The crowd shouted in response: “We came to you, Haniyeh.”
Haniyeh lambasted the renewal of peace talks between Israel and Abbas’ administration at the Annapolis conference last month, warning they will not bring about a cessation of Israeli settlement construction on disputed land or yield any other Israeli concessions.
“As for the fruits of the other track, the track of negotiations, normalization and bargaining, all can see that the fruits are the consolidating of settlements, the continued injustice and oppression of the Palestinian people,” Haniyeh said. “They are bitter fruits.”
The Hamas leader warned Abbas against conceding on the Palestinian stance that refugees, and their descendants, who were forcibly made to flee during past wars and invasions by Israel be allowed to return to their homes. Their fate is a key sticking point in the talks that are meant to iron out a final peace agreement.
“There is no such thing as a just solution to the right of return,” Haniyeh said to the crowds. “It is the right of every refugee ... to return to the land.”
As Israel continues to ravage the Gaza Strip, destroying infrastructure, suffocating the economy, killing our citizens, and to partition the West Bank into numerous enclosed and cut-off enclaves, it is questionable what kind of land our refugees will return to.
Rafah is under terrible attack, many have been killed and injured-- A journalist was injured.
Listen also to this podcast: http://flashpoints.net/index.html#2007-12-05
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| A Palestinian kidney patient undergoes dialysis at the Shifa hospital in Gaza City |
Palestinian boy in Gaza |
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| Kids passing by wall drawings |
Mother of prsioner asking to release him today Monday |
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| Palestinaisn waiting at the Egyptian side of Rafah border |
Palestinian boy is waiting to get out of Gaza Strip |
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| Palestinian boys wait to fill empty bottles of water in the Gaza Strip |
Palestinian boy carrying his brother in a raining day in Gaza |
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| Palestinian man in Gaza beach |
Palestinian woman during funeral |
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| Palestinians carry the body of a Palestinian who was killed by Israeli Forces. |
Palestinian patient in hospital |
Bahjat Abu Daqqa, a 26 year old farmer and the latest victim of Israel’s on-going targeting of civilians, was fatally wounded by Israeli fire east of Khan Younies. Bahjat’s father, also a farmer, was wounded as they worked together on their farmland.
Medicine and Water Shortages:
Saturday marked the death of would-be medical transfer patient number 30, the 30th illness-related casualty of the Israeli closure over the Gaza Strip. Zuheir Hussein, 49, from Jabalia Refugee Camp, succumbed to cancer after being denied permission by Israel to exit Gaza for medical care. Most of the people who have died in the last month were not able to go to hospitals outside of Gaza for the medication they needed, as Israel is not permitting passage of Palestinians, not even for medical care. As such, Zuheir Hussein was trapped in a region deprived of medical supplies and adequate care, a direct result of the military occupation of Gaza. Since Israeli occupied Gaza with tanks, war planes and warships, 1.5 million people have been stranded, with no ability to move outside of the Strip, and little mobility within as a result of the fuel cuts imposed by Israel.
Fuel, A Memory:
All over the sanctioned Strip, petrol stations closed in protest for want of adequate rations –that offered by Israel meets but a quarter of resident’s basic needs. As a result, drinking water is affected, leaving more than 77,000 without water when fuel-operated wells shut down. In Gaza city, further wells experience regular shut downs for the same reasons.
Oxfam International has raised concerns for public health, warning that 225,000 Gazans could soon suffer from inadequate water supplies because of the fuel shortage.
If medicine and water are in shortage, can there be any hope that diseases will not run rife for Gazans? Many people in Gaza feel that the real aim, masked behind Israel’s mantra of ‘preventing the firing of home-made rockets,’ is to impose an even greater than before “collective punishment,” causing Palestinians in the Gaza Strip deprived of virtually every basic need to starve and fade away.
Two bald children lie waiting for medical treatment in Nasser Children’s hospital in Gaza City. But it is clear there will be no medication for them: both have cancer and need chemotherapy treatments in hospitals outside of Gaza. They lie, sharing one bed, their options either to live or to die. It is painfully certain they will not receive the medication they need. Their mother sits beside them, weeping, and says: “The world turns blind eyes on our suffering, as even if we do not exist here in Gaza. I want to tell the world, we are here, we are dying under this Israeli occupation. But although we will die, we will not concede our rights and our identity.”
Anyway, our rights have long since fallen from the hearts and minds of the international “peace-makers”.
