Gaza Update (from 2 Jan 2009)

PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY

"...Hamas has repeatedly proposed long-term truces with Israel and offered to negotiate a permanent truce. During the last cease-fire, established through Egyptian intermediaries in July, Hamas upheld the truce although Israel refused to ease the blockade. It was Israel that, on Nov. 4, initiated an armed attack that violated the truce and killed six Palestinians. It was only then that Hamas resumed firing rockets at Israel." -- Richard Falk, the U.N. special rapporteur for human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory and former Princeton University law professor.

Israel bears special responsibility as the occupying power exerting effective control over the Gaza Strip. -- Physicians for Human Rights-Israel

"Privilege and power, especially military power, is a dangerous narcotic. Violence destroys those who bear the brunt of its force, but also those who try to use it to become gods. Over 350 Palestinians have been killed, many of them civilians, and over 1,000 have been wounded since the air attacks began on Saturday. Ehud Barak, Israel's defense minister, said Israel is engaged in a "war to the bitter end" against Hamas in Gaza. A war? Israel uses sophisticated attack jets and naval vessels to bomb densely crowded refugee camps and slums, to attack a population that has no air force, no air defense, no navy, no heavy weapons, no artillery units, no mechanized armor, no command and control, no army, and calls it a war. It is not a war. It is murder." -- Chris Hedges, who covered the Mideast for The New York Times for seven years.

"The use of terror and hunger to break a hostile population is one of the oldest forms of warfare. I watched the Bosnian Serbs employ the same tactic in Sarajevo. Those who orchestrate such sieges do not grasp the terrible rage born of long humiliation, indiscriminate violence and abuse. A father or a mother whose child dies because of a lack of vaccines or proper medical care does not forget. A boy whose ill grandmother dies while detained at an Israel checkpoint does not forget. A family that loses a child in an airstrike does not forget. All who endure humiliation, abuse and the murder of family members do not forget. This rage becomes a virus within those who, eventually, stumble out into the daylight. Is it any wonder that 71 percent of children interviewed at a school in Gaza recently said they wanted to be a "martyr"? The Israelis in Gaza, like the American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, are foolishly breeding the next generation of militants and Islamic radicals. Jihadists, enraged by the injustices done by Israel and the United States, seek to carry out reciprocal acts of savagery, even at the cost of their own lives. The violence unleashed on Palestinian children will, one day, be the violence unleashed on Israeli children. This is the tragedy of Gaza. This is the tragedy of Israel." -- Chris Hedges

"It is macabre," Falk said of the blockade. "I don't know of anything that exactly fits this situation. People have been referring to the Warsaw ghetto as the nearest analog in modern times." "There is no structure of an occupation that endured for decades and involved this kind of oppressive circumstances," "The magnitude, the deliberateness, the violations of international humanitarian law, the impact on the health, lives and survival and the overall conditions warrant the characterization of a crime against humanity. This occupation is the direct intention by the Israeli military and civilian authorities. They are responsible and should be held accountable." -- Richard Falk

"...what Israel is doing to the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza "a crime against humanity." Falk, who is Jewish, has condemned the collective punishment of the Palestinians in Gaza as "a flagrant and massive violation of international humanitarian law as laid down in Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention." He has asked for "the International Criminal Court to investigate the situation, and determine whether the Israeli civilian leaders and military commanders responsible for the Gaza siege should be indicted and prosecuted for violations of international criminal law." -- Richard Falk

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For background information, see Item 6. For essential actions, see Items 1-5.

Please act today!

Peace,
Bill

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1) Guardian: Eyewitness: 'The injured were lying there asking God to let them die'
2) Report from Physicians for Human Rights-Israel
3) Support Shifa Hospital in Gaza
4) End Israel's Attacks on Gaza: Updated Emergency Action Alert
5) Eyad al Sarraj: An Earthquake On Top of Your Head"
6) Party to Murder
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1) Guardian: Eyewitness: 'The injured were lying there asking God to let them die'

Date: Tue, 30 Dec 2008 12:54:52 +0200
From: Sam BAHOUR
Subject: Guardian: Eyewitness: 'The injured were lying there asking God to let them die'

The Guardian
Eyewitness

'The injured were lying there asking God to let them die'

Fikr Shaltoot
The Guardian, Monday 29 December 2008
Fikr Shaltoot is a programme coordinator for Medical Aid for Palestinians, a British non-governmental organisation that provides medical supplies in Gaza

Being a health worker, I had to check the needs of Shifa hospital and the other hospitals in Gaza. The situation in Shifa is really bad. There were corpses in corridors covered with blankets. The mortuary couldn't cope with the number of bodies. Two bodies were left on stretchers, one wrapped in a blanket. They leave them until families can recognise them.

There were mothers, fathers looking for children, looking for relatives. Everyone was confused and seeking support. Mothers were crying, people were asking about relatives, the medical team was confused.

Some people were just lying there, some were screaming, some were very, very angry. There were a lot of injured arriving, ambulances coming in and out. The injured were coming by private cars and they were being left wherever. You could see blood here and there.

There is talk [the Israeli air strikes] were targeting the police and security forces but in Shifa hospital, I saw many, many civilians, some dead, some injured, some were children, some were women, some were elderly people.

There are people without their legs in very severe pain. The doctors and nurses were trying to give them painkillers and to keep them alive. Patients are lying there knowing they've lost their legs. Some were asking God if they could die. They were in a terrible psychological state.

The doctors and nurses were trying to do their best. They discharged all the patients from the chronic diseases ward and from the oncology ward to make way for the injured. They were using whatever they could.

There's no gauze so they are using cotton, which sticks to the wounds. They can't sterilise clothes for the operating theatre. They're using wrong sized syringes. They're working 24 hours. They're referring cases from one hospital to the next. One hospital was running out of anaesthesia. They're also drawing blood and there's no alcohol. This is a disaster.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/29/israel-gaza-attack-shifa-hospital/print
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2) Report from Physicians for Human Rights-Israel

Date: Tue, 30 Dec 2008 20:31:20 +0200
From: ranyaron@phr.org.il

Physicians for Human Rights-Israel
Wounded and in A Catch-22

Update: December 30, 2008
Research:Salah Haj Yehyeh, Reut Katz: Hadas Ziv: Ran Yaron

Contextual Information:
Hamam Nasman, spokesperson for the Palestinian Ministry of Health, and incharge of coordinating all incoming information from Gaza hospitals spoke to us from Shifaa Hospital in Gaza: Bombing continued into the night, targeting government buildings and homes. Residents received warnings to leave their homes immediately, 5-10 minutes later the homes were bombarded.
Medical Assistance: Aid dispatches from Saudia Arabia, Qatar, and Libya entered Gaza through Rafah and Kerem Shalom Crossing late last night. The dispatches are extremely important but cannot provide adequate response to an entire medical system already on the verge of collapse due to ongoing closures especially in the face of the complex needs of the critically injured persons.
Inability to admit patients: Dr. Khalil Nahleh, from the Emergency Room in Gaza informed us that the situation in Emergency rooms is very bad considering they have no empty beds. All ten beds in the emergency room are occupied by people with severe injuries. The hospital took another 15 beds from other departments and has been utilizing them for emergency cases. All 25 beds are currently in use. Yesterday, for example, 4 critically injured people were brought in and there were no beds. After some of the patients left for Egypt however, these patients were admitted.
The hospital itself is in a state of emergency. Lightly injured or sick persons are no longer admitted. Urgent cases are accepted on a life-saving basis or for surgery. If possible, they are referred to other hospitals.
There are currently 9 patients in intensive care: including 6 children and two women on ventilators. The hospital has approached the Peres Center for Peace regarding the transfer of the children to Israeli hospitals. At this time they are still awaiting further coordination.
Government Hospitals: According to Mr. Nasman, out of 13 public hospitals only ten are able to admit wounded persons. So far, 362 people have been killed, 15% of them are women and children. 1, 700 people have been injured.
Irrregurlar supply of Electricity, Generators and Gasoline: Gaza hospitals are currently receiving 6-8 hours of electricity per day. This has resulted in power outages in Gaza hospitals and poses a grave danger to the lives of critically wounded individuals who are completely dependant on ventilators and other electrical equipment. Generators have been in use for extremely long periods of time, and require repairs, oil and additional spare parts which are not available.


Transfer of wounded persons through Rafah Crossing:
A Saudi plane has been positioned on the Egyptian side of Rafah Crossing to shuttle wounded victims to medical centers. Gaza’s medical centers are still awaiting necessary permission from Egyptian authorities and have so far not been able to transfer patients. Dr. Hassan Halaf, the Deputy Minister of Health and the Executive Director of Shifaa Hospital notified us that yesterday afternoon, Monday December 29^th, several ambulances with 27 wounded persons, 8 in critical condition and in need of emergency support left Rafah in the direction of El Arish. El Arish Hospital is not properly equipped to treat critical injuries and it is unclear if the patients will be referred to other advanced centers. For this reason, Dr. Halaf indicated that they are currently not referring critically injured patients to El Arish because it is unclear whether they will indeed reach the appropriate centers.

Coordination of Patients and wounded through Erez Crossing:
PHR Israel initiated a call to the Israeli Ministry of Health regarding the transfer of wounded persons to Israel for medical care, the medical administration director has informed us that Israel was indeed ready to accept patients from Gaza and even prepared space for them. Apparently – he claimed - the Palestinian Civil Affairs Committee has decided against submitting requests on behalf of wounded persons to the Israeli District Coordination Office (DCO).

Upon receiving this information PHR-Israel contacted the Palestinian Civil Affairs Office in Gaza, (under the direction of the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah) and was informed by its representative that it has indeed decided not to refer wounded persons to Israel, only to Egypt. With regards to sick patients, he stated that he would put in a request with Israeli authorities only regarding life saving cases. Since the beginning of attacks, no permit requests have been submitted to Israeli authorities.

The Public Appeals Officer of the Israeli District Coordination Office (DCO) has now agreed to take on urgent cases and if they receive security clearance and administrative authorization, they will allow the transfer of sick patients and the wounded through the Erez Crossing. The Israeli Ministry of Health stated that in light of the impending crisis and due to the fact that the Israeli Health System is also on high alert, all security and technical coordination will indeed be done within the DCO office, though the decision of where to refer patients will be taken within the Ministry of Health.

On Monday, December 29^th, an ambulance carrying a young Gazan man 16 years old, wounded in the air attacks, reached Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv. Only one person succeeded in gaining entry into Israel, despite information from COGAT the that 11 patients were granted authorization to leave the Strip. The youth was injured at the UNRWA school and it was found that he was permitted to exit only after UNRWA agreed to shoulder the costs of his medical care. PHR-Israel has learned, after a thorough inquiry into the matter that wounded persons are not referred to Israeli hospitals due to the decision by the Palestinian Referrals Office in Ramallah that they will not cover the cost of hospitalization in Israel for many reasons, primarily because it regards Israel as responsible for the direct wounds inflicted on the individuals.

PHR Israel's opinion:
Physicians for Human Rights-Israel is adamant that patients and those wounded in the attacks should not become the victim of financial or bureaucratic arrangements. Furthermore, patients should not become an instrument to the conflict. All those with special interests such as Hamas, Fatah Israel or Egypt should leave them aside, and do their utmost to ensure that patients and wounded persons reach immediate and adequate care. Israel bears special responsibility as the occupying power exerting effective control over the Gaza Strip.

A humanitarian crisis of this stature is not the appropriate time for the stubbornness of bureaucratic processes. The sick and wounded can wait no longer!

The high numbers of injuries, compounded with an already devastated medical system necessitates that Israel show responsibility and do all it can to ensure treatment to ailing individuals. If Israel deems itself unable to cope with the crisis it should seek international aid.

Note: we would like to note the difficulties in acquiring information and that things on the ground are constantly changing. We have worked diligently to compare information and explanations received from both Israeli and Palestinian sources. We shall keep you updated.

For more information please contact: Hadas Ziv hadas@phr.org.il + 972-54-6623232 or Ran Yaron ranyaron@phr.org.il
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3) Support Shifa Hospital in Gaza

Please support Rabia's request. 100% of your donation will go toward direct relief. Nothing will be withheld.

Date: Tue, 30 Dec 2008 02:08:31 -0500
From: Farouq Shafie
Subject: Fw: Support Shifa Hospital in Gaza

Dear Friends,

Genocide is being committed in Gaza by the Israeli military in violation of international law, not to mention all sense of decency and proportion. We at the Palestine Aid Society (PAS) have been inundated with calls for action by fellow Americans of all faiths and ethnicities. We feel the pain and the hurt as we watch, with horror, the terrorized children, the dismembered bodies, the wounded crying in pain, the frustrated aid workers, all on our television screens. We also hear in disgust the support for this Israeli-conducted genocide by some of our representatives in Washington DC. At the time of this writing the number of dead has exceeded 345 and the wounded more than 1650, most of them unarmed civilians. And it seems that Israel is intent on carrying this orgy of violence for days to come, proclaiming that the people of Gaza are not Israel's enemies, but that their democratically-elected government is! The need in Gaza for immediate relief is immense. The Shifa Hospital is the major medical facility in Gaza receiving and caring for the majority of the victims and it has been inundated, especially after months of an inhumane and punitive siege that has left it short of medicine and other medical supplies. As a small gesture of solidarity with the people of Gaza and in order to help alleviate a bit of their suffering, PAS is calling on all people of good will in our community to donate what they can to a fund for Shifa Hospital. Your tax-deductible donations (100% of all monies contributed) will be transmitted by PAS to the International Red Cross with instructions to deliver them to Shifa Hospital. Please make your checks payable to PAS, earmarked to Shifa Hospital, and send it to:

Palestine Aid Society of America
P.O.Box 130572
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48113
Tax # 38-2381-291.

Peace,

Rabia Shafie
Palestine Aid Society
(734) 668-6430

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4) End Israel's Attacks on Gaza: Updated Emergency Action Alert

Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2008 10:45:53 -0500 (EST)
From: US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation

Subject: End Israel's Attacks on Gaza: Updated Emergency Action Alert

December 31, 2008

Israel has killed at least 375 Palestinians through four days of brutal attacks on the occupied Gaza Strip with U.S. weapons in violation of U.S. law. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has threatened that this is merely "the first stage."

Israel's attacks come on top of a brutal siege of the Gaza Strip, which has created a humanitarian catastrophe of dire proportions for Gaza's 1.5 million Palestinian residents by restricting the provision of food, fuel, medicine, electricity, and other necessities of life.

Make no mistake about it-Israel's war and siege on the Gaza Strip would not be possible without the jets, helicopters, ships, missiles, and fuel provided by the United States.

From 2001-2006, the United States transferred to Israel more than $200 million worth of spare parts to fly its fleet of F16's and more than $100 million worth of helicopter spare parts for its fleet of Apaches. In July 2008, the United States gave Israel 186 million gallons of JP-8 aviation jet fuel and signed a contract to transfer an addition $1.9 billion worth of littoral combat ships to the Israeli navy. Last year, the United States signed a $1.3 billion contract with Raytheon to transfer to Israel thousands of TOW, Hellfire, and "bunker buster" missiles.

TAKE ACTION NOW

1. Take to the streets and make your opposition public. Thousands of people have already taken to the streets in New York, Washington, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Dearborn, MI and dozens of other cities to protest Israel's attacks on the Gaza Strip. We're maintaining a comprehensive listing of all protests-more than 100 in at least 30 states and 65 cities so far-on our website and updating it continuously. Join a protest near you or organize one and send us the details.

If you know of a protest not listed on our site, send us all the logistical details and contact information by clicking here.

We must keep up the protests until there is a cease-fire and a lifting of the siege of Gaza. We're calling on everyone to continue to organize protests in your community.

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2. Educate and organize people in your community. Tonight millions of people will gather in public places around the country to celebrate New Year's Eve.

We are encouraging everyone to attend public events tonight in their communities to pass out information on Israel's atrocities in Gaza and to collect signatures to end U.S. military aid to Israel. Download a flyer by clicking here and a petition by clicking here and make copies.

Also, sign up as a volunteer organizer to challenge military aid to Israel by clicking here and we'll send you an organizing packet with fact sheets, petitions, and the postcards below.

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3. Contact your elected representatives and set up emergency meetings with your Members of Congress before January 6. Demand from the President, your Representative, and Senators an unconditional, immediate cease-fire; full humanitarian access to Gaza and a lifting of Israel's siege; and accountability for Israel's misuse of U.S. weapons to kill Palestinian civilians. Send your letter today by clicking here.

Congress is scheduled to go back into session on Jan. 6. Until then, many Members of Congress are in their home districts. Assemble a delegation of concerned constituents and request an immediate meeting with them. For contact information, click here. For tips on how to arrange a meeting, click here.

In these meetings, ask your Members of Congress to send a public letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and make a public statement with the political demands above. To download a sample letter to give to your Members of Congress, click here.

Also give them a copy of our open-letter to President Elect-Obama signed by more than 250 organizations entitled " We Need a Change in Israel/Palestine Policy" to show them that there is growing and widespread opposition to our country's policy of support for Israel's human rights abuses of Palestinians. Download a PDF copy of the letter by clicking here.

If you can take the lead in arranging an emergency meeting with your Members of Congress, please fill out this brief form by clicking here.

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4. Get the message out to the media. Call in to talk radio programs and write letters to the editors. To download talking points for the media, click here. To find contact information for your local media, click here.

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5. Step Up the Pressure on the New Administration and Congress. Sign our open letter to President Elect-Obama by clicking here. This open letter will be published as a full-page ad on Inauguration Day. Add your individual and organizational endorsements to it today by clicking here.

Then spread the word by copying and pasting the flash graphic below into your email signature, blog, social networking site, or webpage and join our Facebook group and forward it to all your friends.

Join us in Washington, DC on January 20 for Inauguration Day to say "Yes We Can…End U.S. Military Aid to Israel!" Sign up to help us pass out information and collect signatures by clicking here.

And join us again in Washington, DC for a Grassroots Advocacy Training and Lobby Day on February 1-2 with Interfaith Peace-Builders. Gain the skills you need to change U.S. policy toward Palestine/Israel to support human rights, international law, and equality, and express your concerns directly to your Members of Congress. Space is filling up fast. For more information and to register, click here.

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6. Donate more money to us and give less of your taxes to Israel's war machine. Make a tax-deductible contribution today to the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation by clicking here. Owe less in taxes for 2008 by making your contribution before midnight (we'll gladly accept your donation in the New Year too) to make sure that less of your money goes to fund Israel's war crimes against Palestinians. Make the most generous contribution you can right now by clicking here.

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5) Eyad al Sarraj: An Earthquake On Top of Your Head"

By Dr. EYAD AL SERRAJ
December 26, 2008
The Bombing of Gaza
"An Earthquake On Top of Your Head"

By Dr. EYAD AL SERRAJ

The bombing went on for about 10 minutes. It was like an earthquake on top of your head. The windows were shaking and squeaking. My 10-year-old was terrified, he was jumping from one place to another trying to hide. I held him tight to my chest and tried to give him some security and reassure him. My 12-year-old was panicking and began laughing hysterically, it's not normal. I held her hand and calmed her and told her she would be safe. My wife was panicking. She was running around the apartment looking for somewhere to hide. We live on the ground floor so we headed to the basement.

Not very far from our home is the headquarters of the police and there was a massive bomb. The chief of police was killed. Two streets away there was another bomb and more people were killed. The office of the president is about one kilometre from our house and it was also bombed.

We went downstairs to the basement and tried to hide ourselves from the shelling. The child of one of our relatives, who lives in our building, finally came home from school. We hadn't been able to find her. All the phone connections were jammed. She came home and she was in a very serious state of shock. She was pale and trembling and she was describing dead bodies in the streets. On her way home she passed Hamas people in uniform and they were dead.

I had been very apprehensive when I woke up this morning. I had some bread, some cheese and a glass of tea. Like all the people in Gaza I felt that something was going on and something very serious. When Israel allowed the delivery of food and fuel [when it ended the blockade of Gaza yesterday] I said to myself and my friends that Israel is really planning a massive strike. They don't want to be blamed for starving the people.
I was sitting in the living room with my family trying to figure out what to do today for lunch, it's our main meal. What to cook and how to cook, whether we have enough to eat. There was no rice so I wanted to have lentil soup and my wife said "No, there's no lentils in the market." I said "What else can we do?" She said "I bought some cans of food." We were discussing this when suddenly the whole thing erupted. Suddenly there was a big explosion.

Right now I feel very anxious about what's going to happen. I'm worried about how many more people are going to die.

Dr Eyad Al Serraj is a practicing psychologist in Gaza City.

This article first appeared at www.Counterpunch.org
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6) Party to Murder

Published on Tuesday, December 30, 2008 by TruthDig.com
Party to Murder
by TruthDig.com
by Chris Hedges

TruthDig.com editor's note: In light of the recent fighting in Gaza, Truthdig asked Chris Hedges, who covered the Mideast for The New York Times for seven years, to update a previous column [1] on Gaza.

Can anyone who is following the Israeli air attacks on Gaza-the buildings blown to rubble, the children killed on their way to school, the long rows of mutilated corpses, the wailing mothers and wives, the crowds of terrified Palestinians not knowing where to flee, the hospitals so overburdened and out of supplies they cannot treat the wounded, and our studied, callous indifference to this widespread human suffering-wonder why we are hated?

Our self-righteous celebration of ourselves and our supposed virtue is as false as that of Israel. We have become monsters, militarized bullies, heartless and savage. We are a party to human slaughter, a flagrant war crime, and do nothing. We forget that the innocents who suffer and die in Gaza are a reflection of ourselves, of how we might have been should fate and time and geography have made the circumstances of our birth different. We forget that we are all absurd and vulnerable creatures. We all have the capacity to fear and hate and love. "Expose thyself to what wretches feel," King Lear said, entering the mud and straw hovel of Poor Tom, "and show the heavens more just."

Privilege and power, especially military power, is a dangerous narcotic. Violence destroys those who bear the brunt of its force, but also those who try to use it to become gods. Over 350 Palestinians have been killed [2], many of them civilians, and over 1,000 have been wounded since the air attacks began on Saturday. Ehud Barak, Israel's defense minister, said Israel is engaged in a "war to the bitter end" against Hamas in Gaza. A war? Israel uses sophisticated attack jets and naval vessels to bomb densely crowded refugee camps and slums, to attack a population that has no air force, no air defense, no navy, no heavy weapons, no artillery units, no mechanized armor, no command and control, no army, and calls it a war. It is not a war. It is murder.

The U.N. special rapporteur [3] for human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, former Princeton University law professor Richard Falk, has labeled what Israel is doing to the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza "a crime against humanity." Falk, who is Jewish, has condemned the collective punishment of the Palestinians in Gaza as "a flagrant and massive violation of international humanitarian law as laid down in Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention." He has asked for "the International Criminal Court to investigate the situation, and determine whether the Israeli civilian leaders and military commanders responsible for the Gaza siege should be indicted and prosecuted for violations of international criminal law."

Falk's unflinching honesty has enraged Israel. He was banned from entering the country on Dec. 14 during his attempt to visit Gaza and the West Bank.

"After being denied entry I was put in a holding room with about 20 others experiencing entry problems," he said. "At this point I was treated not as a U.N. representative, but as some sort of security threat, subjected to an inch-by-inch body search, and the most meticulous luggage inspection I have ever witnessed. I was separated from my two U.N. companions, who were allowed to enter Israel. At this point I was taken to the airport detention facility a mile or so away, required to put all my bags and cell phone in a room, taken to a locked, tiny room that had five other detainees, smelled of urine and filth, and was an unwelcome invitation to claustrophobia. I spent the next 15 hours so confined, which amounted to a cram course on the miseries of prison life, including dirty sheets, inedible food, and either lights that were too bright or darkness controlled from the guard office."

The foreign press has been, like Falk, barred by Israel from entering Gaza to report on the destruction.

Israel's stated aim of halting homemade rockets fired from Gaza into Israel remains unfulfilled. Gaza militants have fired more than 100 rockets and mortars into Israel, killing four [4] people and wounding nearly two dozen more, since Israel unleashed its air assault. Israel has threatened to launch a ground assault and has called up 6,500 army reservists. It has massed tanks on the Gaza border and declared the area a closed military zone.

The rocket attacks by Hamas are, as Falk points out, also criminal violations of international law. But as Falk notes, "... such Palestinian behavior does not legalize Israel's imposition of a collective punishment of a life- and health-threatening character on the people of Gaza, and should not distract the U.N. or international society from discharging their fundamental moral and legal duty to render protection to the Palestinian people."

"It is an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe that each day poses the entire 1.5 million Gazans to an unspeakable ordeal, to a struggle to survive in terms of their health," Falk has said of the ongoing Israeli blockade of Gaza. "This is an increasingly precarious condition. A recent study reports that 46 percent of all Gazan children suffer from acute anemia. There are reports that the sonic booms associated with Israeli overflights have caused widespread deafness, especially among children. Gazan children need thousands of hearing aids. Malnutrition is extremely high in a number of different dimensions and affects 75 percent of Gazans. There are widespread mental disorders, especially among young people without the will to live. Over 50 percent of Gazan children under the age of 12 have been found to have no will to live."

Before the air assaults, Gaza spent 12 hours a day without power, which can be a death sentence to the severely ill in hospitals. Most of Gaza is now without power. There are few drugs and little medicine, including no cancer or cystic fibrosis medication. Hospitals have generators but often lack fuel. Medical equipment, including one of Gaza's three CT scanners, has been destroyed by power surges and fluctuations. Medical staff cannot control the temperature of incubators for newborns. And Israel has revoked most exit visas, meaning some of those who need specialized care, including cancer patients and those in need of kidney dialysis, have died. Of the 230 Gazans estimated to have died last year because they were denied proper medical care, several spent their final hours at Israeli crossing points where they were refused entry into Israel. The statistics gathered on children-half of Gaza's population is under the age of 17-are increasingly grim. About 45 percent of children in Gaza have iron deficiency from a lack of fruit and vegetables, and 18 percent have stunted growth.

"It is macabre," Falk said of the blockade. "I don't know of anything that exactly fits this situation. People have been referring to the Warsaw ghetto as the nearest analog in modern times."

"There is no structure of an occupation that endured for decades and involved this kind of oppressive circumstances," the rapporteur added. "The magnitude, the deliberateness, the violations of international humanitarian law, the impact on the health, lives and survival and the overall conditions warrant the characterization of a crime against humanity. This occupation is the direct intention by the Israeli military and civilian authorities. They are responsible and should be held accountable."

The point of the Israeli attack, ostensibly, is to break Hamas, the radical Islamic group that was elected to power in 2007. But Hamas has repeatedly proposed long-term truces with Israel and offered to negotiate a permanent truce. During the last cease-fire, established through Egyptian intermediaries in July, Hamas upheld the truce although Israel refused to ease the blockade. It was Israel that, on Nov. 4, initiated an armed attack [5] that violated the truce and killed six Palestinians. It was only then that Hamas resumed firing rockets at Israel.

"This is a crime of survival," Falk said of the rocket attacks by Palestinians. "Israel has put the Gazans in a set of circumstances where they either have to accept whatever is imposed on them or resist in any way available to them. That is a horrible dilemma to impose upon a people. This does not alleviate the Palestinians, and Gazans in particular, for accountability for doing these acts involving rocket fire, but it also imposes some responsibility on Israel for creating these circumstances."

Israel seeks to break the will of the Palestinians to resist. The Israeli government has demonstrated little interest in diplomacy or a peaceful solution. The rapid expansion of Jewish settlements on the West Bank is an effort to thwart the possibility of a two-state solution by gobbling up vast tracts of Palestinian real estate. Israel also appears to want to thrust the impoverished Gaza Strip onto Egypt. Dozens of tunnels had been the principal means for food and goods, connecting Gaza to Egypt. Israel had permitted the tunnels to operate, most likely as part of an effort to further cut Gaza off from Israel. This ended, however, on Sunday when Israeli fighter jets bombed over 40 tunnels along Gaza's border with Egypt. The Israeli military said that the tunnels, on the Gaza side of the border, were used for smuggling weapons, explosives and fugitives. Egypt has sealed its border and refused to let distraught Palestinians enter its territory.

"Israel, all along, has not been prepared to enter into diplomatic process that gives the Palestinians a viable state," Falk said. "They [the Israelis] feel time is on their side. They feel they can create enough facts on the ground so people will come to the conclusion a viable state cannot emerge."

The use of terror and hunger to break a hostile population is one of the oldest forms of warfare. I watched the Bosnian Serbs employ the same tactic in Sarajevo. Those who orchestrate such sieges do not grasp the terrible rage born of long humiliation, indiscriminate violence and abuse. A father or a mother whose child dies because of a lack of vaccines or proper medical care does not forget. A boy whose ill grandmother dies while detained at an Israel checkpoint does not forget. A family that loses a child in an airstrike does not forget. All who endure humiliation, abuse and the murder of family members do not forget. This rage becomes a virus within those who, eventually, stumble out into the daylight. Is it any wonder that 71 percent of children interviewed at a school in Gaza recently said they wanted to be a "martyr"?

The Israelis in Gaza, like the American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, are foolishly breeding the next generation of militants and Islamic radicals. Jihadists, enraged by the injustices done by Israel and the United States, seek to carry out reciprocal acts of savagery, even at the cost of their own lives. The violence unleashed on Palestinian children will, one day, be the violence unleashed on Israeli children. This is the tragedy of Gaza. This is the tragedy of Israel.

© 2008 TruthDig.com

Chris Hedges writes a regular column for Truthdig.com [6]. Hedges graduated from Harvard Divinity School and was for nearly two decades a foreign correspondent for The New York Times. He is the author of "American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America. [7]"

Article printed from www.CommonDreams.org
URL to article: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/12/30-11 The link has all the hyperlinks.

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