{"id":11979,"date":"2008-12-29T09:41:05","date_gmt":"2008-12-29T08:41:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.anjameulenbelt.nl\/weblog\/2008\/12\/29\/gaza-today-this-is-only-the-beginning\/"},"modified":"2011-08-26T12:52:45","modified_gmt":"2011-08-26T10:52:45","slug":"gaza-today-this-is-only-the-beginning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.anjameulenbelt.nl\/weblog\/2008\/12\/29\/gaza-today-this-is-only-the-beginning\/","title":{"rendered":"Gaza today: ‘This is only the beginning’"},"content":{"rendered":"

0001230413382gaza_massacre_5.jpg<\/a><\/p>\n

Gaza today: ‘This is only the beginning’
\nBy Ewa Jasiewicz
\n
\nAs I write this, Israeli jets are bombing the areas of Zeitoun and Rimal
\nin central Gaza City. The family I am staying with has moved into the
\ninternal corridor of their home to shelter from the bombing. The windows
\nnearly blew out just five minutes ago as a massive explosion rocked the
\nhouse. Apache\u2019s are hovering above us, whilst F16s sear overhead.<\/p>\n

UN radio reports say one blast was a target close to the main gate of Al
\nShifa hospital \u2013 Gaza and Palestine\u2019s largest medical facility. Another
\nwas a plastics factory. More bombs continue to pound the Strip.<\/p>\n

Sirens are wailing on the streets outside. Regular power cuts that plunge
\nthe city into blackness every night and tonight is no exception. Only
\nperhaps tonight it is the darkest night people have seen here in their
\nlifetimes.<\/p>\n

Over 220 people have been killed and over 400 injured through attacks that
\nshocked the strip in the space 15 minutes. Hospitals are overloaded and
\nunable to cope. These attacks come on top of existing conditions of
\nhumanitarian crisis: a lack of medicines, bread, flour, gas, electricity,
\nfuel and freedom of movement.<\/p>\n

Doctors at Shifaa had to scramble together 10 make shift operating
\ntheatres to deal with the wounded. The hospital\u2019s maternity ward had to
\ntransform their operating room into an emergency theatre. Shifaa only had
\n12 beds in their intensive care unit, they had to make space for 27 today.<\/p>\n

There is a shortage of medicine \u2013 over 105 key items are not in stock, and
\nblood and spare generator parts are desperately needed.<\/p>\n

Shifaa\u2019s main generator is the life support machine of the entire
\nhospital. It\u2019s the apparatus keeping the ventilators and monitors and
\nlights turned on that keep people inside alive. And it doesn\u2019t have the
\nspare parts it needs, despite the International Committee for the Red
\nCross urging Israel to allow it to transport them through Erez checkpoint.<\/p>\n

Shifaa\u2019s Head of Casualty, Dr Maowiye Abu Hassanyeh explained, \u2018We had
\nover 300 injured in over 30 minutes. There were people on the floor of the
\noperating theatre, in the reception area, in the corridors; we were
\nsending patients to other hospitals. Not even the most advanced hospital
\nin the world could cope with this number of casualties in such a short
\nspace of time.\u2019<\/p>\n

And as IOF Chief of Staff Lieutenant-General Gabi Ashkenaz said this
\nmorning, \u2018This is only the beginning.\u2019<\/p>\n

But this isn\u2019t the beginning, this is an ongoing policy of collective
\npunishment and killing with impunity practised by Israel for decades. It
\nhas seen its most intensified level today. But the weight of dread,
\nrevenge and isolation hangs thick over Gaza today. People are all asking:
\nIf this is only the beginning, what will the end look like?<\/p>\n

11.30am
\nMyself and Alberto Acre, a Spanish journalist, had been on the border
\nvillage of Sirej near Khan Younis in the south of the strip. We had driven
\nthere at 8am with the mobile clinic of the Union of Palestinian Relief
\nCommittees. The clinic regularly visits exposed, frequently raided
\nvillages far from medical facilities. We had been interviewing residents
\nabout conditions on the border. Stories of olive groves and orange groves,
\nfamily farmland, bulldozed to make way for a clear line of sight for
\nIsraeli occupation force watch towers and border guards. Israeli attacks
\nwere frequent. Indiscriminate fire and shelling spraying homes and land on
\nthe front line of the south eastern border. One elderly farmer showed us
\nthe grave-size ditch he had dug to climb into when Israeli soldiers would
\nshoot into his fields.<\/p>\n

Alberto was interviewing a family that had survived an Israeli missile
\nattack on their home last month. It had been a response to rocket fire
\nfrom resistance fighters nearby. Four fighters were killed in a field by
\nthe border. Israel had rained rockets and M16 fire back. The family,
\ncaught in the crossfire, have never returned to their home.<\/p>\n

I was waiting for Alberto to return when ground shaking thuds tilted us
\noff our feet. This was the sound of surface to air fired missiles and F16
\nbombs slamming into the police stations, and army bases of the Hamas
\nauthority here. In Gaza City , in Diere Balah, Rafah, Khan Younis, Beit
\nHanoon.<\/p>\n

We zoomed out of the village in our ambulance, and onto the main road to
\nGaza City , before jumping out to film the smouldering remains of a police
\nstation in Diere Balah, near Khan Younis. Its\u2019 name – meaning ‘place of
\ndates’ – sounds like the easy semi-slang way of saying \u2018take care\u2019, Diere
\nBala, Diere Balak \u2013 take care.<\/p>\n

Eyewitnesses said two Israeli missiles had destroyed the station. One had
\nsoared through a children\u2019s playground and a busy fruit and vegetable
\nmarket before impacting on its target.<\/p>\n

Civilians Dead
\nThere was blood on a broken plastic yellow slide, and a crippled, dead
\ndonkey with an upturned vegetable cart beside it. Aubergines and
\nsplattered blood covered the ground. A man began to explain in broken
\nEnglish what had happened. \u2018It was full here, full, three people dead,
\nmany many injured\u2019. An elderly man with a white kuffiyeh around his head
\nthrew his hands down to his blood drenched trousers. \u2018Look! Look at this!
\nShame on all governments, shame on Israel, look how they kills us, they
\nare killing us and what does the world do? Where is the world, where are
\nthey, we are being killed here, hell upon them!\u2019 He was a market trader,
\npresent during the attack.<\/p>\n

He began to pick up splattered tomatoes he had lost from his cart, picking
\nthem up jerkily, and putting them into plastic bags, quickly. Behind a
\nsmall tile and brick building, a man was sitting against the wall, his
\nlegs were bloodied. He couldn\u2019t get up and was sitting, visibly in pain
\nand shock, trying to adjust himself, to orientate himself.<\/p>\n

The police station itself was a wreck, a mess of criss-crossed piles of
\nconcrete \u2013 broken floors upon floors. Smashed cars and a split palm tree
\nsplit the road.<\/p>\n

We walked on, hurriedly, with everyone else, eyes skyward at four apache
\nhelicopters \u2013 their trigger mechanisms supplied by the UK \u2019s
\nBrighton-Based EDM Technologies. They were dropping smoky bright flares \u2013
\na defence against any attempt at Palestinian missile retaliation.<\/p>\n

Turning down the road leading to the Diere Balah Civil Defence Force
\nheadquarters we suddenly saw a rush of people streaming across the road.
\n\u2018They\u2019ve been bombing twice, they\u2019ve been bombing twice\u2019 shouted people.<\/p>\n

We ran too, but towards the crowds and away from what could possibly be
\ntarget number two, \u2018a ministry building\u2019 our friend shouted to us. The
\napaches rumbled above.<\/p>\n

Arriving at the police station we saw the remains of a life at work
\nsmashed short. A prayer matt clotted with dust, a policeman\u2019s hat, the
\nubiquitous bright flower patterned mattresses, burst open. A crater around
\n20 feet in diameter was filled with pulverised walls and floors and a
\nmotorbike, tossed on its\u2019 side, toy-like in its\u2019 depths.<\/p>\n

Policemen were frantically trying to get a fellow worker out from under
\nthe rubble. Everyone was trying to call him on his Jawwal. \u2018Stop it
\neveryone, just one, one of you ring\u2019 shouted a man who looked like a
\ncaptain. A fire licked the underside of an ex-room now crushed to just 3
\nfeet high. Hands alongside hands rapidly grasped and threw back rocks,
\nblocks and debris to reach the man.<\/p>\n

We made our way to the Al Aqsa Hospital. Trucks and cars loaded with the
\nmen of entire families \u2013 uncles, nephews, brothers \u2013 piled high and
\nspeeding to the hospital to check on loved ones, horns blaring without
\ninterruption.<\/p>\n

Hospitals on the brink
\nEntering Al Aqsa was overwhelming, pure pandemonium, charged with grief,
\nhorror, distress, and shock. Limp blood covered and burnt bodies streamed
\nby us on rickety stretchers. Before the morgue was a scrum, tens of
\nshouting relatives crammed up to its open double doors. \u2018They could not
\neven identify who was who, whether it is their brother or cousin or who,
\nbecause they are so burned\u2019 explained our friend. Many were transferred,
\nin ambulances and the back of trucks and cars to Al Shifa Hospital.<\/p>\n

The injured couldn\u2019t speak. Causality after casualty sat propped against
\nthe outside walls outside, being comforted by relatives, wounds
\ntemporarily dressed. Inside was perpetual motion and the more drastically
\ninjured. Relatives jostled with doctors to bring in their injured in
\nscuffed blankets. Drips, blood streaming faces, scorched hair and shrapnel
\ncuts to hands, chests, legs, arms and heads dominated the reception area,
\nwards and operating theatres.<\/p>\n

We saw a bearded man, on a stretcher on the floor of an intensive care
\nunit, shaking and shaking, involuntarily, legs rigid and thrusting
\ndownwards. A spasm coherent with a spinal chord injury. Would he ever walk
\nagain or talk again? In another unit, a baby girl, no older than six
\nmonths, had shrapnel wounds to her face. A relative lifted a blanket to
\nshow us her fragile bandaged leg. Her eyes were saucer-wide and she was
\nmaking stilted, repetitive, squeaking sounds.<\/p>\n

A first estimate at Al Aqsa hospital was 40 dead and 120 injured. The
\nhospital was dealing with casualties from the bombed market, playground,
\nCivil Defence Force station, civil police station and also the traffic
\npolice station. All leveled. A working day blasted flat with terrifying
\nforce.<\/p>\n

At least two shaheed (martyrs) were carried out on stretchers out of the
\nhospital. Lifted up by crowds of grief-stricken men to the graveyard to
\ncries of \u2018La Illaha Illa Allah,\u2019 there is not god but Allah.<\/p>\n

Who cares?
\nAnd according to many people here, there is nothing and nobody looking out
\nfor them apart from God. Back in Shifa Hospital tonight, we meet the
\nbrother of a security guard who had had the doorway he had been sitting in
\nand the building \u2013 Abu Mazen\u2019s old HQ – fall down upon his head. He said
\nto us, \u2018We don\u2019t have anyone but God. We feel alone. Where is the world?
\nWhere is the action to stop these attacks?\u2019<\/p>\n

Majid Salim, stood beside his comatosed mother, Fatima. Earlier today she
\nhad been sitting at her desk at work \u2013 at the Hadije Arafat Charity, near
\nMeshtal, the Headquarters of the Security forces in Gaza City. Israel\u2019s
\nattack had left her with multiple internal and head injuries, tube down
\nher throat and a ventilator keeping her alive. Majid gestured to her, \u2018We
\ndidn\u2019t attack Israel, my mother didn\u2019t fire rockets at Israel. This is the
\nbiggest terrorism, to have our mother bombarded at work\u2019.<\/p>\n

The groups of men lining the corridors of the over-stretched Shifaa
\nhospital are by turns stunned, agitated, patient and lost. We speak to one
\ngroup. Their brother had both arms broken and has serious facial and head
\ninjuries. \u2018We couldn\u2019t recognise his face, it was so black from the
\nweapons used\u2019 one explains. Another man turns to me and says. \u2018I am a
\nteacher. I teach human rights \u2013 this is a course we have, \u2018human rights\u2019.
\nHe pauses. \u2018How can I teach, my son, my children, about the meaning of
\nhuman rights under these conditions, under this siege?\u2019<\/p>\n

It\u2019s true, UNRWA and local government schools have developed a Human
\nRights syllabus, teaching children about international law, the Geneva
\nConventions, the International Declaration on Human Rights, The Hague
\nRegulations. To try to develop a culture of human rights here, to help
\ngenerate more self confidence and security and more of a sense of dignity
\nfor the children. But the contradiction between what should be adhered to
\nas a common code of conducted signed up to by most states, and the
\nrealities on the ground is stark. International law is not being applied
\nor enforced with respect to Israeli policies towards the Gaza Strip, or on
\n\u201948 Palestine, the West Bank, or the millions of refugees living in camps
\nin Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.<\/p>\n

How can a new consciousness and practice of human rights ever graduate
\nfrom rhetoric to reality when everything points to the contrary \u2013 both
\nhere and in Israel ? The United Nations have been spurned and shut out by
\nIsrael , with Richard Falk the UN\u2019s Special Rapporteur on Human Rights
\nheld prisoner at Ben Gurion Airport before being unceremoniously deported
\nthis month \u2013 deliberately blinded to the abuses being carried out against
\nGaza by Israel . An international community which speaks empty phrases on
\nIsraeli attacks \u2018we urge restraint\u2026minimise civilian casualties\u2019.<\/p>\n

The Gaza Strip is one of the most densely populated regions on the planet.
\nIn Jabbaliya camp alone, Gaza \u2019s largest, 125,000 people are crowded into
\na space 2km square. Bombardment by F16s and Apaches at 11.30 in the
\nmorning, as children leave their schools for home reveals a contempt for
\ncivilian safety as does the 18 months of a siege that bans all imports and
\nexports, and has resulted in the deaths of over 270 people as a result of
\na lack of access to essential medicines.<\/p>\n

A light
\nThere is a saying here in Gaza \u2013 we spoke about it, jokily last night. \u2018At
\nthe end of the tunnel\u2026there is another tunnel\u2019. Not so funny when you
\nconsider that Gaza is being kept alive through the smuggling of food, fuel
\nand medicine through an exploitative industry of over 1000 tunnels running
\nfrom Egypt to Rafah in the South. On average 1-2 people die every week in
\nthe tunnels. Some embark on a humiliating crawl to get their education,
\nsee their families, to find work, on their hands and knees. Others are
\nreportedly big enough to drive through.<\/p>\n

Last night I added a new ending to the saying. \u2018At the end of the tunnel,
\nthere is another tunnel and then a power cut\u2019. Today, there\u2019s nothing to
\nmake a joke about. As bombs continue to blast buildings around us, jarring
\nthe children in this house from their fitful sleep, the saying could take
\non another twist. After today\u2019s killing of over 200, is it that at the end
\nof the tunnel, there is another tunnel, and then a grave?\u2019, or a wall of
\ninternational governmental complicity and silence?<\/p>\n

There is a light through, beyond the sparks of resistance and solidarity
\nin the West Bank, \u201948 and the broader Middle East. This is a light of
\nconscience turned into activism by people all over the world. We can turn
\na spotlight onto Israel\u2019s crimes against humanity and the enduring
\ninjustice here in Palestine, through coming out onto the streets and
\npressurizing our governments; demanding an end to Israeli apartheid and
\noccupation, broadening our call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, and
\nfor a genuine Just Peace.<\/p>\n

Through institutional, governmental and popular means, this can be a light
\nat the end of the Gazan tunnel.
\n—–<\/p>\n

Ewa Jasiewicz is an experienced journalist, community and union organizer,
\nand solidarity worker. She is currently Gaza Project Co-coordinator for
\nthe Free Gaza Movement.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.FreeGaza.org<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gaza today: ‘This is only the beginning’ By Ewa Jasiewicz<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false},"categories":[2,14],"tags":[209],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anjameulenbelt.nl\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11979"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anjameulenbelt.nl\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anjameulenbelt.nl\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anjameulenbelt.nl\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anjameulenbelt.nl\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11979"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.anjameulenbelt.nl\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11979\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58388,"href":"https:\/\/www.anjameulenbelt.nl\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11979\/revisions\/58388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anjameulenbelt.nl\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anjameulenbelt.nl\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anjameulenbelt.nl\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}