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| Body of Ayman al fayed who was killed by israeli F16s with his wife and children |
destruction caused by Israeli F16s in Buriej camp |
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| Palestinian relative lamenting over the death Ayman al Fayed in the Buriej refugee camp |
The body of a boy who was killed during F16s radios on Gaza as his father was the target |
Many Die With Targeted Leader
GAZA CITY - Human remains mix with debris following the latest Israeli assault Friday on Bureij Camp in Gaza Strip. Early reports listed nine dead and more than 50 injured.
A targeted leader was killed, but many others were killed too.
"It's very hard for us to rescue, or even locate bodies beneath the building," said a medical relief worker from the local Bureij hospital.
Israel has not confirmed responsibility for the missile attack by F-16 aircraft.
"This is a barbaric crime," said Dr. Hassan Khalaf, head of the local al-Shifa hospital. "They bombed residential areas where people were sleeping in their houses."
The attack apparently targeted the house of a top leader of the al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad party. The leader, Ayman al-Fayed, 42, was reported killed, along with two of his children and his wife. Other victims were from the Bureij camp.
Palestinian sources said seven houses were destroyed, and about 100 others damaged. According to hospital sources, many of the casualties were children under the age of 12, and included a baby only a few months old.
Fire and ambulance crews continued to fight several fires that erupted after the bombing.
In military language, the loss of civilian lives was "collateral damage". And not for the first time.
In the assassination of Hamas leader Dr. Nabil Abu Salmiya in July 2006, the Israeli air strike killed his wife and eight other family members, and injured many others, including neighbours.
"The Israeli occupation have lost their compasses," said Islamic Jihad spokesman Abu Ahmed. "Shelling a house in the middle of a residential district, inevitably killing and injuring children and women...this is evidence of their failings."
Abu Ahmed said Israel will pay a high price for the attack.
"This is an Israeli-made earthquake," said a Gaza resident. "Palestinian resistance fighters should fire home-made rockets, so Israelis suffer and feel what we are suffering as a result of their rockets."
Anguished Bureij Camp residents gathered outside the local hospital, calling for justice. "It is a war crime to bomb an entire neighbourhood to kill just one person," said resident Abu Fuad.
The Israeli air strike came only hours after the visit to Gaza by John Holmes, UN Under-Secretary-General for humanitarian affairs. Holmes urged a re-opening of Gaza's borders to relieve the suffering of 1.5 million civilians.
Holmes is the highest UN official to visit Gaza since Hamas took control of the area Jun. 14 last year. Following that the Israeli blockade was further tightened.
Holmes told reporters in Gaza City that the long-imposed blockade "makes for a grim human and humanitarian situation here in Gaza, which means that people are not able to live with the basic dignity to which they are entitled. I have been shocked by the grim and miserable things I have seen and heard about during the day."
Just days before the attack, Israel's interior minister Meir Sheetrit told cabinet members that their forces could pick a neighbourhood in Gaza, give the inhabitants 24 hours to leave, and "wipe it out", according to the BBC.
But in this attack there was no warning, as the Israeli military targeted the leader.
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| Ayman Okal feeding his cows by flower planted in his farm in Rafah |
Camels eating carnation flowers in Rafah |
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| where the flowers are going |
Valentine flowers to where |
No Lovers Got These Flowers
RAFAH, Gaza Strip, (IPS) - After generations of occupation, Valentine's Day has meant little in the Gaza Strip. But the flowers that lovers presented in Europe have.
Majed Hadaeid, 43, knows that better than most, as he watches livestock make a meal of the flowers he had hoped to export to Europe.
"I have 130 dunams (32 acres)," he says. "All carnations, in 30 different colours, and varieties yielding 16-17 million blossoms per year."
In all, about 480 dunams of plantation produce on average 60 million flowers a year in Gaza between mid-November and mid-May. The seasonal export brings five million dollars in revenue, and means 4,000 jobs.
Hadaeid's nursery is one of the largest. Farmers like him usually sell to the European floral exchange in the Netherlands for distribution. Valentine's Day on Feb. 14 brings the largest sales.
This year, it did not.
Once Israel closed the border crossings, it also ended access to markets outside of Gaza. Israel requires all of Gaza's produce to go through Israel first.
Gaza is permitted to export 75 million flowers to the EU duty free. "This year we managed to export only five million flowers to the Netherlands," says Mahmoud Khlaiel, chairman of the Flowers Producers Benevolent Association in Gaza.
Hadaeid has had to lay off all 200 of his workers. Now his millions of blossoms serve as feed for goats, donkeys, camels and sheep. He says Israel's collective punishment will cost him more than a million dollars this season.
Hadaeid, one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the area, has now taken to day labour to feed his 13 children, aged six months to 20 years. The land on which he grows his flowers is on lease, and he risks losing his entire business. The profits he would normally use to pay for fertilizer, seeds, back wages and supplies are simply not there.
In Gaza, people unable to pay their debts often end up in debtor's prison, as in feudal era Europe. Hadaeid's future appears precarious. "I am not with Hamas or Fatah," he said. "I didn't vote for any party. Israel is to blame for this collective punishment for us all."
As with Hadaeid, so with others. Ayman Okal, a veteran of the industry for 14 years, stands feeding red carnations to a goat at a nearby nursery. "Every season I produce 8-9 million carnations for Christmas and Mothers Day," he says. "But Valentine's is the biggest." Except of course, this year.
Okal says the blockade has cost him around 600,000 dollars. He too has laid off his entire staff, and faces a dark future with six children to feed and a debt to pay off. Fortunately for him, he owns his land.
Producers have been asked to sign papers at the borders saying the flowers are not being exported "because Palestinian producers have decided not to continue shipping."
"This is not true," says Khlaiel. "Israel returns the flowers to Gaza after they are destroyed waiting at the crossings. It costs each grower four dollars to send each bouquet's pots, in addition to the cost of the flowers. Once destroyed through the delays, the grower still must pay the costs."
Flowers from Gaza are marketed in Europe under the brand name Coral. With Valentine's Day past, Mothers Day (May 11) is the last opportunity for growers to recoup a portion of their costs, regain their businesses -- and feed their families.
Farmers are appealing to the EU and to the Netherlands to pressure Israel to open the crossings.
For the World, Gaza Is Reality TV
GAZA CITY (IPS) - "We are being starved, killed, tortured, and besieged -- and all this while the world just watches," says Abu Wael at the funeral of the latest group of Gazans killed by Israeli forces.
The death toll is mounting, even if much of the media is taking little note of killings on the Gaza side.
Gaza's health ministry spokesman Khaled Radi said that in just one 24-hour period last week, 17 Palestinians were killed and many more injured. The dead include seven policemen who were targeted in southern Gaza's Khan Younis police station while praying at dawn. Four of the Palestinians were killed in Jabalyia refugee camp in the north of the Strip.
An Israeli air strike near al-Tuffah, north of Gaza City, killed two and wounded four, three of them seriously. In yet another attack, a teacher was killed, and three students wounded, when an Israeli tank shell hit an agriculture high school in the northern town of Beit Hanoun.
This mounting death toll came some hours after Hamas claimed responsibility for the bombing in a mall in Dimona in southern Israel which killed one Israeli and injured five. Two Palestinians died carrying out the bombing.
Dimona city lies in the Negev, about 10 kilometres from Israel's top-secret nuclear reactor. The attack was the first Hamas bombing in three years.
"There are no choices, no options for our people, but to resist the occupation and defend ourselves by all possible means," the Hamas spokesman in Gaza said.
"If this enforced starvation of one and a half million people was happening to Americans, would they accept it?" said Abu Wael.
But the increasing militant attacks on Israelis is leading to an escalation of the conflict. Earlier this week Israeli forces entered Gaza City, bringing new clashes with Palestinians. Injuries were reported on both sides.
In one Palestinian rocket attack, two Israeli brothers were reported injured, drawing warning of further Israeli attacks.
Meanwhile, Israel continues its strangling siege of Gaza. This latest stage of Israel's two-year embargo on Gaza began in late October after Israel declared the Strip a "hostile entity" and cut fuel supplies to Gaza.
Israel says its measures are aimed at stopping militants firing rockets into Israel. It has also pledged not to allow humanitarian disaster in the territory where nearly 80 percent the population depends on humanitarian aid.
But international aid organisations say Israel is expected to further reduce the amount of electricity it supplies to Gaza over the next two weeks.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the Israeli measures are affecting civilians not involved in anti-Israeli violence, and having a grave impact on essential infrastructure like hospitals, water-pumping stations and sewage treatment facilities.
"Israel views restricting fuel and electricity to Gaza as a way to pressure Palestinian armed groups to stop their rocket and suicide attacks," HRW Middle East director Joe Stork said in the statement. "But the cuts are seriously affecting civilians who have nothing to do with these armed groups, and that violates a fundamental principle of the laws of war."
In light of worsening crisis, the ministry of health in Gaza has launched an appeal to all concerned parties to crack down on Israel. "Cutting off electricity and fuel means we will not be able to operate our generators in the hospitals," said spokesman Khaled Radi.
"It means that life-saving machines and babies wards will stop functioning. It affects almost every hospital procedure, including keeping vaccinations refrigerated. This is a catastrophe, which threatens the lives of more than 1,500 patients in hospitals all over the Gaza Strip.
"We appeal to World Health Organisation, the International Red Cross, and to all international organisations and governments around the world to save the lives of our children."
For most people, this is only further programming on television.
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| In the morgue |
More killed |
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Another bloody 24 hours
Israeli warplanes have targeted a police station, killing at least 7 policemen and many others were injured, some are in critical conditions. Hamas armed wing Al Qassam brigades has taken the responsibility on Monday's bombing in Israel, where 3 Israelis were killed and others were injured. it's believed to be the first bomb in Israel since 2004, where two Palestinians from Hebron blow up themselves.
Seven policemen were killed in an air strike in southern part of Gaza, Khan Younies and two others were shot near the Egyptian border.
Palestinian Ministry of Interior in Gaza said that the seven policemen were holding afternoon prayers at a police station when the missile struck.
" The policemen were praying when different airplanes missiles hit them as they were praying" said a policeman who survived his injury.
Gaza is still in grim situations at the moment, as Israeli warplanes are still hovering over Gaza Strip.
Khaled Radi spokesman of Ministry of Health in Gaza has strongly criticized the rockets used in the Israeli air strike, saying :"Israel is using internationally prohibited weapons"
The spokesman of Hamas Sami Abu Zuhri said in an interview "Hamas has never announced that it has stopped or will stop any form of resistance, including martyrdom operations," adding "The Palestinian people have the right to use all means to defend themselves."
Since Israel and the Palestinians formally returned to the negotiating table in November more than 160 Palestinians were killed in Gaza, other hundreds were injured.
Egypt closed the border between Gaza and Egypt by building the Egyptian as Egyptian Border Guards have started to control movement on the border by not letting people into the Egyptian side.
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| Boy carrying ladder to jump into the Egyptian side |
Crossing to Egypt through the wall as Egyptians are receiving customers |
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| Egyptian border security guards start controling the border with Egypt today |
Nearly 750 hundred thousand Gazans cross to Egypt to buy essentital food and fuel |
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| Palestinian boy carrying cooking gas tanks to fill in from Egypt. |
Palestinian boy running on the bombed wall between Gaza and Egypt |
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| Palestinian boy seen through wired bars in the borderline between Egypt and Gaza |
Palestinian national forces close patrolling along the borderline with Egypt |
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| People are crossing to the Egyptian side to get their food and basic needs |
People jumping on the iron wall |
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| Rafah Crossing Border |
The iron wall is down in Gaza |
The following article was also published in http://www.ipsnews.org/news.asp?idnews=41052
MIDEAST: Garlic For My Mother
RAFAH, Gaza Strip, - Fourteen-year-old Ahmed Salah is not sure when he can give his mother a surprise like that again.
"Where have you been?" his mother said to him after he disappeared from home the first time when the Gazan border with Egypt was breached late last month. What he brought back said just where. "See what I got you. Garlic, washing powder...and there is smoked fish!"
The mother is thrilled to see her son back safe, and to see what he brought. The garlic made her particularly happy.
"I heard my mother say there is no garlic left at home, so I decided to bring her some," Ahmed told IPS. "There's a lot in Egypt. Egyptians received us very well, offering tea and biscuits, even though this was right after militants blew open a long stretch of the Wall," Ahmed says of his three-day visit.
Ahmed is among the hundreds of thousands who ventured into al-Arish in Egypt in search of all that has not been available within Gaza Strip -- walled in, and under sanctions. But now it does not seem that they can cross over so easily again.
On Sunday Egypt blocked remaining gaps in the border barricade, ending 12 days of free movement. Egyptian troops were allowing Palestinians back into Gaza, but not letting any more come in. Egyptian officials declared in Cairo that they would "never" allow the border to be breached again.
On Jan. 23 unknown men set off at least 17 explosives to breach the steel and concrete wall that divides Gaza from Egypt at the border crossing Rafah. The blasts came after at least two weeks of preparation for the blasts, in which electric cutting equipment was used to bring down several hundred metres of the steel section of the wall.
Hamas, the Palestinian political party that was elected in Gaza, has denied responsibility for the breach. It says the breach was the inevitable consequence of starving and caging in 1.5 million people for months on end. Hamas does not recognise Israel. This, and the launching of crude rockets into Israeli territory from Gaza, have led Israel to cut off essential supplies to Gaza.
An estimated 350,000 people from all over Gaza crossed into Egypt the very first day. Until then Gazans had endured a siege of nearly 18 months, and a total lockdown since September 2007. Now they have a short lease of stock to live on.
They returned with food, medicines, milk, cheese, livestock, and fuel, as well as cigarettes, shoes, furniture, mattresses, cement, natural gas, car parts, and even back-up generators. Caged in for two years, people have been jubilant. The crossing brought a level of happiness absent during the impoverished Eid celebrations in December.
But Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is believed to have been pressured by the U.S. to close the border. In northern Sinai, loudspeakers had been announcing for some time that borders would be shut. The Egyptian police gave notice by using water cannons and firing warning shots in the air to force back crowds of people desperate to get through for more basic necessities.
Already, people in Gaza are nostalgic about the freedom they found briefly to cross over into Egypt. "I drank a whole bottle of Coca Cola alone, and I ate Egyptian fish," a youth told his friends. "No shooting, no Israeli attacks. I saw people sitting on the beach peacefully."
And yet, most people do not want to leave Gaza for good. "Gaza is my hometown, and I would never leave it for anything," says an elderly man, who had crossed over only to visit his little grandchildren he had never seen before.
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