Aid still not reaching Gaza five days after ceasefire.
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- Written by Mercy Corps Mercy Corps
- Published: 22 January 2009 22 January 2009
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This message from Mercy Corps:
The ceasefire has not yet resulted in greater access for humanitarian supplies or aid workers into Gaza,
according to our staff there.
And estimates of what it will cost to repair Gaza's infrastructure range up to $2 billion.
Up to 200 still missing under Gaza's rubble
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- Written by Erin Cunningham, The Electronic Intifada Erin Cunningham, The Electronic Intifada
- Published: 21 January 2009 21 January 2009
- Hits: 3171 3171
"There were no Hamas fighters here," said Zohair al-Raay, a neighbor of the al-Daa family. "Where are the weapons? Where are the missiles? The al-Daa family had nothing to do with that."
Eyad al-Daa, father of 32, was found clutching three small children in the stairwell.
As the ceasefire continues to hold, the sheer scale of the destruction in the Gaza Strip is finally emerging. The deadly, three-week assault by Israel has been devastating.
Generations of families are vanished, and entire villages now destroyed. Many of the dead are still buried beneath the rubble, their neighbors and relatives left with no way to retrieve them.
In one of the most harrowing incidents, 35 members of the Samuni family were killed in al-Zeitoun by an F-16. The surviving members dug the bodies out on Sunday, the first day of the ceasefire.
At least 5,000 houses have been destroyed and 20,000 buildings damaged throughout the strip, according to local officials. The Gaza Strip is just 40 kilometers long and 10 kilometers wide.
Twenty mosques and 16 ministry offices were destroyed, with at least 200 million dollars worth of damage to local infrastructure. The face of the al-Quds Hospital is scorched from tank fire, and Gaza City is still without power.
On Tuesday, in the northern Gaza City neighborhood of al-Attatra, almost entirely demolished and laced with tank treads, the body of a 94-year-old woman was pulled from the wreckage by her son. The Israeli army shot and killed her, he says, before they brought the house down, again with an F-16.
"What did she have to do with rockets being fired into Israel?" he asked. The family had been looking for her for days.
Such stories are commonplace in Gaza since Israel unleashed its deadly war on the territory on 27 December.
More than 1,300 Palestinians have been killed in the past three weeks, a third of them children, according to both Gaza health officials and the United Nations. Some 5,500 people have been injured.
According to the civil defense force in Gaza, which has been tasked with helping pull bodies from the debris, there are still up to 200 persons missing in the northern areas of Gaza. They are presumed dead.
"This is the worst violence we have seen since the Nakba," says 75-year-old Ibrahim Mohamed Hindi of al-Zeitoun, using the Arabic word for "catastrophe" to refer to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and the creation of Israel in 1948.
What is also alarming is the apparent vicious nature of the destruction, locals are saying.
Khamis Mohamed al-Atar and several other members of his family were forcibly removed from their home in al-Attatra and taken to a prison in the Negev for 15 days while Israeli soldiers occupied the house, which sits on a hill overlooking Gaza City, the strip's major population center.
"One soldier brought me outside and another came out and asked the first one where the rest of my family was," Mohamed al-Atar said. "Then he suggested to the soldier that they bring us all outside, line us up against the wall and shoot us. He said they didn't care which houses had people in them. I thought they were going to kill us all."
When Mohamed al-Atar returned, he found the body of his son left rotting among the family's now decimated orange groves. He had been shot.
The inside of their house was smeared with graffiti in Hebrew. The Star of David, an icon of both the Jewish faith and the Israeli state, was spray-painted on the hallways. The toilets had been blasted with grenades, and the floor was blanketed with Israeli food wrappers and bullet shells.
In a farming area near Beit Hanoun cows lie dead across an entire field, some ripped open by shrapnel and others simply crushed by tanks. The corpses of donkeys, horses, goats and chickens line the streets.
"This is my family's livelihood," said Youssef, 18, of his farm's slaughtered animals. "And now it's gone. Who would take the time to kill cows in this war?"
In the same area, residents found a type of weapon that sends a throng of nails as far as the size of a football field in each direction, according to an Amnesty International representative investigating its use in Gaza.
A resident, father of an ambulance driver killed by a drone missile on 5 January, pointed to nails lodged in the side of his house. He said the Israeli army used the weapon on them during his son's funeral procession.
"I don't have any feelings any more," said Mohamed Hindi. "The Israelis have managed to destroy everything. Even our emotions."
All rights reserved, IPS - Inter Press Service (2009). Total or partial publication, retransmission or sale forbidden. Jim Lobe in Washington contributed to this article.
Israeli Supreme Court voids ban on participation of Arab parties in National Elections
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- Written by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies
- Published: 21 January 2009 21 January 2009
- Hits: 3103 3103
Israeli online daily, Haaretz, reported on Wednesday that the Israeli Supreme Court issued a ruling voiding a order barring Arab parties in Israel from participating in the parliamentary elections which will be held in Israeli next month.
The ruling was made after several Arab political leaders filed an appeal against the ban.
Arab member of Knesset, Ahmad Tibi, said that this decision is “a defeat to fascism”, and added that discrimination is deeply rooted in Israel, therefore the “battle is not quite finished”, Haaretz reported.
The United Arab List and the Balad parties were banned from participating in the elections after the Central Elections Committee issued an order last week in this regard.
Arab parties objected against the ruling and described its as a form of fascism.
The Central Elections Committee accused Arab parties of “incitement, supporting terrorist groups and of refusing to recognize Israel”, Haaretz said. Arab parties also strongly apposed the Israeli offensive against the Gaza Strip.
The ultra-Orthodox parties, Yisrael Beiteinu and the National Union-National Religious Party were the two parties that filed the original appeal to bar Arab parties from participating in the elections.
Avigdor Lieberman, chairman of the Yisrael Beitenu Party, described the Supreme Court decision as “unfortunate” and said that the court did not establish a boundary to punish “disloyal Arab members of Knesset”.
Lieberman added that in the next Knesset, religious parties will push for a law barring citizenship to some “disloyal Arab citizens”.
Lieberman is well known for his extreme views against the Arabs and Palestinians as he repeatedly called massive deportation and transfer of Arabs and Palestinians into neighboring Arab countries.
Ten out of 120 Knesset members are Arabs, and the Arab population in Israel is nearly 20%.
So, I Asked the UN Secretary General, Isn't it Time for a War Crimes Tribunal?
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- Written by Robert Fisk Robert Fisk
- Published: 20 January 2009 20 January 2009
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It's a wrap, a doddle, an Israeli ceasefire just in time for Barack Obama to have a squeaky-clean inauguration with all the world looking at the streets of Washington rather than the rubble of Gaza. Condi and Ms Livni thought their new arms-monitoring agreement – reached without a single Arab being involved – would work. Ban Ki-moon welcomed the unilateral truce. The great and the good gathered for a Sharm el-Sheikh summit. Only Hamas itself was not consulted. Which led, of course, to a few wrinkles in the plan. First, before declaring its own ceasefire, Hamas fired off more rockets at Israel, proving that Israel's primary war aim – to stop the missiles – had failed. Then Cairo shrugged off the deal because no one was going to set up electronic surveillance equipment on Egyptian soil. And not one European leader travelling to the region suggested the survivors might be helped if Israel, the EU and the US ended the food and fuel siege of Gaza.
After killing hundreds of women and children, Israel was the good guy again, by declaring a unilateral ceasefire that Hamas was certain to break. But Obama will be smiling on Tuesday. Was not this the reason, after all, why Israel suddenly wanted a truce?
Egypt's objections may be theatre – the US spent £18m last year training Egyptian security men to stop arms smuggling into Gaza and since the US bails out Egypt's economy, ignores the corruption of its regime and goes on backing Hosni Mubarak, there's sure to be a "compromise" very soon.
And Hamas has had its claws cut. Israel's informers in Gaza handed over the locations of its homes and hideouts and the government of Gaza must be wondering if they can ever close down the spy rings. Hamas thought its militia was the Hizbollah – a serious error – and that the world would eventually come to its aid. The world (although not its pompous leaders) felt enormous pity for the Palestinians, but not for the cynical men of Hamas who staged a coup in Gaza in 2007 which killed 151 Palestinians. As usual, the European statesmen appeared hopelessly out of touch with what their own electorates thought.
And history was quite forgotten. The Hamas rockets were the result of the food and fuel siege; Israel broke Hamas's own truce on 4 and 17 November. Forgotten is the fact Hamas won the 2006 elections, although Israel has killed a clutch of the victors.
And there'll be little time for the peacemakers of Sharm el-Sheikh to reflect on the three UN schools targeted by the Israelis and the slaughter of the civilians inside. Poor old Ban Ki-moon. He tried to make his voice heard just before the ceasefire, saying Israel's troops had acted "outrageously" and should be "punished" for the third school killing. Some hope. At a Beirut press conference, he admitted he had failed to get a call through to Israel's Foreign Minister to complain.
It was pathetic. When I asked Mr Ban if he would consider a UN war crimes tribunal in Gaza, he said this would not be for him to "determine". But only a few journalists bothered to listen to him and his officials were quickly folding up the UN flag on the table. About time too. Bring back the League of Nations. All is forgiven.
What no one noticed yesterday – not the Arabs nor the Israelis nor the portentous men from Europe – was that the Sharm el-Sheikh meeting last night was opening on the 90th anniversary – to the day – of the opening of the 1919 Paris peace conference which created the modern Middle East. One of its main topics was "the borders of Palestine". There followed the Versailles Treaty. And we know what happened then. The rest really is history. Bring on the ghosts.
Israel 'admits' using white phosphorus munitions
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- Written by Martin Fletcher in Jerusalem Martin Fletcher in Jerusalem
- Published: 20 January 2009 20 January 2009
- Hits: 3361 3361
January 21, 2009
Israel 'admits' using white phosphorus munitions
[PHOTO: Children play with a flaming lump, allegedly containing white phosphorus, in the northern Gaza Strip on Monday]
Martin Fletcher in Jerusalem
The Israeli military came close to acknowledging for the first time yesterday its use of white phosphorus munitions during the war in Gaza, but continued to insist that it did not breach international law.
As fresh evidence emerged of Gazan civilians being burned by phosphorus, Avital Leibovich, the army spokeswoman, said its use was “legal according to international law...All the munitions we were using were legal, like the French, American and British armies. We used munitions according to international law.
“They [Hamas] were committing war crimes by putting the civilians in the front line,” she said. “If Hamas chooses to locate training camps, command centres...in the middle of the [civilian population]...look how populated it is...naturally they are endangering the lives of civilians. Hamas is accountable for the loss of the civilians.”
Major-General Amir Eshel, the army's head of strategic planning, said that firing shells to provide a smoke screen was legal. “It is the most nonlethal kind of weapon we used. I don't see any issue with that,” he said.
The Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv reported that the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) had privately admitted using phosphorus bombs, and that the Judge Advocate General's Office and Southern Command were investigating.
The Times first accused Israeli forces of using white phosphorus on January 5, but the IDF has denied the charge repeatedly. Phosphorus bombs can be used to create smoke screens, but their use as weapons of war in civilian areas is banned by the Geneva Conventions.
Yesterday reports emerged from Gaza about the killing of five members of the Halima family, when a single white phosphorus shell dropped on their house in the town of Atatra on January 3. Two others were in a coma and three were seriously wounded, according to doctors and survivors.
Salima Halima, 44, who is in Gaza City's Shifa hospital, said that the chemical burst in all directions after hitting her living room.
Nafiz Abu Shahbah, a doctor who trained in Britain and America, said he was sure white phosphorus was responsible. Her wounds at first appeared superficial “but it eats at the flesh, it digs deeper and gets to the bone...The whole body becomes toxic,” he said.
In the Jabaliya refugee camp, the Associated Press found a crater that was still producing acrid smoke days after the war ended, and in the town of Beit Lahiya a lump of white phosphorus burst into flames after some boys dug it up from beneath some sand.
Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, expressed outrage at Israel's destruction of Gaza yesterday, when he became the first world leader to visit the Palestinian territory since the end of the war. “This is shocking and alarming,” he declared while visiting a UN warehouse that was still smouldering after being hit on Thursday, allegedly by white phosphorus shells. “I'm just appalled.”
Visibly angry, he condemned Israel's “excessive” use of force, and demanded that those responsible for shelling schools and other facilities run by the UN Relief and Works Agency during the 22-day offensive should be held to account. “It is an outrageous and totally unacceptable attack on the United Nations,” he said.
Israel has apologised for attacks on UN facilities but insisted in almost every case that Hamas fighters were using the buildings for cover.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5556027.ece?Submitted=true