Eyewitness Report : Days and Nights of Rage in the West Bank Over Gaza Slaughter

by TD - FPC Tue Dec 30, 2008 14:09

You Tube video : ISM Guard Against Further Israeli Settler Attack.

Nedal Fareed Al-Awawi's house adjacent to the illegal Israeli outpost of Avraham Avinu in Hebron is repeatedly attacked by so called "settlers" - on 4 December 2008, when Israeli police and soldiers evicted 250 hard-line colonists from a house belonging to the Ar-Rajabi family (the House of Contention). the Al-Awawi home was one of the buildings vindictively torched by them in the aftermath.
Al-Awawi says Israeli police were present at the time of the attack, but stood idly by and made no arrests. During the attack, one room of the house was completely burned, and the house’s electricity and water connections destroyed. He says settlers assaulted him when he was installing a new water tank on the roof of his home, and destroyed the new tank also. During the night, activists from the International Solidarity Movement camp out on the buildings flat roof to forestall any further criminal attacks.

You Tube video : Qurtuba School Tel Rumeida, Hebron.

In an effort to terrorise and ethnically cleanse the area and in the presence of the non interventionist Israeli Occupation Forces, the pupils of the Palestinian Elementary School of Qurtuba in Tel Rumeida, central Hebron, along with their teachers and the internationals escorting them are regularly stoned, spat-on and assaulted by the children and adult settlers of the nearby Israeli colonizing "settlement" of Beit Hadassah - so much spit that one of the international observers said it felt like rain. This effort has been partially successful as evidenced in the ghost town scenes in the video - a recent poll has revealed that 40% of Palestinians in Gaza and 25% in the West Bank wanted to emigrate, also, the official Israeli Sasson report of 2005 found secret but systematic collusion between the settlers and government bodies. To boot, a 2003 survey conducted by the daily newspaper, Haaretz, revealed that the homes, education and infrastructure of the colonists had been massively subsidised by the Israeli government for many years and they had received US $12 billion in welfare benefits "over what would have been made available to them if they had remained inside Israel" (Jonathan Cook).

Caption: Video Id: T6SRDU1wCT0 Type: Youtube Video
Embedded video Youtube Video

Caption: Video Id: XXrz8J7kZFs Type: Youtube Video
Embedded video Youtube Video

by TD - FPC Tue Dec 30, 2008 14:56

Shawan Jabarin, whilst studying at the Irish Centre for Human Rights, NUI Galway, was a stalwart activist for Palestine and since his return to Ramallah in the West Bank as head of Al-Haq has been victimised by the Israeli government: "the repeated refusal to allow Mr. Jabarin to travel abroad constitutes an arbitrary and unlawful infringement on his right to freedom of movement, including the right to leave his own country, which is guaranteed in Article 12 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Israel ratified in 1991" (Human Rights Watch)
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2007/04/29/letter-prime-mini...barin

In 1988, Shawan was detained for nine months, without trial, in the Ketziot prison in the Negev Desert, a year later he "was so respected as a human rights worker that he was nominated for the 1989 Reebok Human Rights Award, given to young people who have contributed to freedom of expression and human rights" (New York Times).

Caption: Video Id: Kc49sbxfjQI Type: Youtube Video
Embedded video Youtube Video

by Justin Morahan Tue Dec 30, 2008 16:57

Keep telling us the truth TD.

You and your friend are important witnesses to what is happening in the West Bank at a time when Israel is destroying the lives of the people in Gaza.

If you can, please pass on our sympathy to the parents and relatives of A'raft (Arafat) Al-Khawaja, Mohammad Al-Khawaja and Muhammad Hamid and best wishes for a full recovery to Mohammad and the boy shot in the back .

All of these deliberate killings in the West bank are hard to bear. Each and every one of the multiple killings in Gaza are equally painful and horrendous. To think that the pain you describe has been multiplied over three hundred times in Gaza over a period of three days - it is unbearable. Three hundred families mourning individually the loss of a brother or sister or child or parent. No end in sight to grief. Only threats of further killings and fear night and day of murder from the Israeli/US war machine that pollutes the sky over Gaza.

And the killings in Sderot, though fewer, are no less hard for those who lament.

Please thank all the other witnesses who have risked their own lives by being there at this critical time.

And those Jewish people from Israel who stand out against the evil of their masters, especially the Shminidim and all refuseniks who are sent to prison for refusing to take part in this abominable spree of killing by their own Government/Army - let them know that their actions are not forgotten.

Good man TD. I know your sincerity, your compassion and your bravery. I know of your abhorrence of all violence. Your presence and that of our other friend are a blessing for those whom you meet and comfort. May you and all who are suffering near you in Gaza and in Israel have peace tonight and serenity amid the madness which we all oppose.

by Mary Kelly Tue Dec 30, 2008 18:55

thanks for the eyewitness report and your stalwarth presence. I am sure your anger and empathy are felt and much appreciated by those in the eye of this brutal storm. Courage and good luck!

by Diarmuid Breatnach Tue Dec 30, 2008 20:44

As far as I can see, nothing except the absence of gas ovens. The Israeli Zionists bomb civilians who don't have air defence, annexe territory and plant their own settlers there, evict people from their houses and lands, steal their belongings, put them in concentration camps, constantly check their papers, shoot and kill people without due process, give their army and police (and settler militia) immunity from prosecution even for murder, make a large part of their population second-class citizens with very limited travelling rights.

by Mike Wed Dec 31, 2008 07:22

Thanking the good Lord for small mercies - in this instance at least, there is no prevaricating bullshit from the UN but forthright condemnation.?

STATEMENT
The behavior by Israel in bombarding Gaza is simply the commission of wanton aggression by a very powerful state against a territory that it illegally occupies.

Time has come to take firm action if the United Nations does not want to be rightly accused of complicity by omission.The Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip represent severe and massive violations of international humanitarian law as defined in the Geneva Conventions, both in regard to the obligations of an Occupying Power and in the requirements of the laws of war.

Those violations include:

Collective punishment - The entire 1.5 million people who live in the crowded Gaza Strip are being punished for the actions of a few militants.

Targeting civilians - The airstrikes were aimed at civilian areas in one of the most crowded stretches of land in the world, certainly the most densely populated area of the Middle East.

Disproportionate military response - The airstrikes have not only destroyed every police and security office of Gaza's elected government, but have killed and injured hundreds of civilians; at least one strike reportedly hit groups of students attempting to find transportation home from a university.

I remind all member states of the United Nations that the UN continues to be bound to an independent obligation to protect any civilian population facing massive violations of international humanitarian law - regardless of what country may be responsible for those violations.

I call on all member states, as well as officials and every relevant organ of the United Nations system, to move expeditiously not only to condemn Israel's serious violations, but to develop new approaches to providing real protection for the Palestinian people.

Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, president of the 63rd session of the United Nations General Assembly issued this statement at UN Headquarters in New York on 27 December 2008.

by TD - FPC Wed Dec 31, 2008 12:57

Justin, a petition calling for the release of the Israeli high school students, the Shministim who have been imprisoned for refusing to serve in the IOF/IDF can be signed on link.

Even though I'm based on the Bil'in hills, its a vale of tears and suffering; a few minutes walk away, live the Bornat brothers: Rani ambushed and paralysed by an Israeli sniper bullet as he sought shelter in a ditch during a demonstration at the start of the Second Intifada, the bullet shattering two of his vertebrae, severing his spinal cord and carotid artery and causing massive damage to many of his internal organs, his brother, Ibrahim, permanently on crutches after being shot three times in the right thigh, again with dum-dum bullets by the IOF on June 13th during a protest at the Wall, prior to that, this rogue force, what Edward Said called "brigades of willing executioners" inflicted 83 injuries on his body, one smashing his forehead so badly that there is no bone structure there now, but along with Rani he has awe inspiring courage and resistance as both attend every Friday protest, their sumoud undimmed.

Further up the road in Nil'in, on Sunday, the murdered Arafat joined last Summer's IOF black harvest , joined the 12 year old Ahmad Mousa in the ground put there by a live bullet into his head as he rested under a tree, joined Yousef Amira, 17 years, put there with two rubber bullets again to the head after another Nil'in protest.

What's happening now in Palestine, is it not "the obliteration of an entire people by slow systematic methods of suffocation, outright murder and the stifling of everyday life" (Edward Said).
Is it not the case that Israel is edging closer to Sofer's vile advocacy of genocide: "When 2.5 million people live in a closed-off Gaza, it's going to be a human catastrophe. Those people will become even bigger animals than they are today, with the aid of an insane fundamentalist Islam. The pressure at the border will be awful. It's going to be a terrible war. So, if we want to remain alive, we have to kill and kill and kill. All day, every day. If we don't kill, we will cease to exist. The only thing that concerns me is how to ensure that the boys and men who are going to have to do the killing will be able to return home to their families and be normal human beings.! (Arnon Sofer, Professor of Geography at Haifa University, father of Ariel Sharon's "separation plan," quoted in the Jerusalem Post, Up Front magazine, May21,2004). Where the concern of the world
is lavished on the murderers, "the boys and men who are going to have to do the killing."?

"No night in our night lit up by the shelling
Our enemies are watchful and light the light for us
In the darkness of cellars" (Palestinian national poet, Mahmoud Darwish).

Bil'in activist, Haitham, beside graves of the murdered Ahmad Mousa and Yousef Amira in Ni'lin

Rani Bornat

His brother, Ibrahim

Near the side entrance to Qurtuba school, Hebron, a message to the pupils

Head of the Bil'in Popular Committee, Iyad Bornat, not forgetting the Shministim at last Friday's protest at the nearby Apartheid Wall

by Justin Wed Dec 31, 2008 14:56

It is so good to see the protest at the Bi'lin Wall saluting the young Shminstim and with them all the refuseniks and anti-war Israelis.

The Shministim are having a hard time especially now and their courage is tremendous.

They are the true light of the State of Israel and its only hope for the survival of that State in peace with its neighbours.

Brilliant young people - I salute you too.

by TD - Free Palestine Campaign Thu Jan 01, 2009 17:18

Last night, following the firing of a live bullet into his head by Israeli Occupation Forces last Saturday during a protest in the village of Nil'in against the ongoing Israeli barbarity in Gaza, Mohammad Al-Khawaja died in Ramallah Hospital - the same protest where another protester, Arafat Al-Khawaja was shot dead and another wounded with live fire.

Along with two other protesting Bil'in youths shot dead by the IOF last summer, this morning, Mohammad joined Arafat in the same ground and the sadness and anger were palpable and overwhelming. I attended and whatever guides the Israelis, it is not the milk of human kindness or any empathy to their prey, it is something inhuman, for the tail end of the funeral procession was attacked by the IOF with new streamlined tear gas projectiles and in the case of one mourner, with a live round to the leg, seven were injured with six sustaining injuries to the head, neck and body from the projectiles which the IOF are clearly using as bullets rather than for the dispersion of tear gas. As I type this report in the office of the Bil'in office of the Bil'in Peoples Committee, head of the committee, Iyad Burnat, tells me a fire appliance is currently dousing a fire in a Nil'in house, started by the IOF firing of a tear gas projectile/bullet

... the situation is ongoing.

Mourners at funeral of Mohammed Said al-Khawaja this morning in Nil'in

One of the seven mourners that were injured by the IOF attack on the funeral procession

Not seen in Nil'in or Bil'in before, one of the new IOF Tear Gas projectiles

by Justin Morahan Fri Jan 02, 2009 13:30

It is great to have you TD and friend keeping an eye on Bi'lin. and Ni'lin in the West Bank

Keep informing the world of what is happening at the Palestinian funerals of protestors and the scorching of houses in Palestine while the eyes of the world are focused on the atrocitiies of the same power in Gaza.

by TD - FPC Fri Jan 02, 2009 14:19

Today, as for the past four years, along with internationals and Israelis with, thankfully, consciences still alive, the villagers of Bil'in after Friday prayers marched to the nearby Annexation Wall to protest the thieving of 60% of their land by this illegal structure. Today's protest was imbued with anger and dismay at the ongoing ferocious criminal assault by the Israeli Air Force on the helpless concentration camp that is Gaza. Today was noteworthy by the use of a new bullet by the IOF against the protestors: small, light in weight, green coloured and filled with some liquid or other, it seems innocuous enough at first glance but lacerated the skin and drew blood on impact, yesterday, mourners at the funeral of Mohammad Al-Khawaja with a new tear gas projectile.

Bush and Obama on poster drawing contempt and blows

New bullet employed by the IOF against the protestors

One of the three youths injured by the new bullet (Photo : Haitham Al-Katib)

Copious bleeding after the impact of the bullet (Photo : Haitham Al-Katib)

by redbackunderthebed Fri Jan 02, 2009 14:23

Back in the 70 s and 80 s the protestants throw petrol bombs over the dividing walls into the catholics
housing estates. The catholics responded up over the dividing walls went their petrol bombs. On it went, Im not sure who threw the most or who scored the most kills. But it was quite a few for such a small country. The only difference between whats happening in Gaza at the moment,is that Israel has more and better " petrol bombs" than the arabs in Gaza. But if were really honest thats whats happening. People are dying. Whether the Muslim world likes it or not, Israel isnt going away. They have their kids just like the Arabs have theirs. The protestants still dont love the catholics , but they know that they aint going away. Visa versa with the catholics. The Muslim world has the wealth, the oil, and the resources to help each other out and to get on with life. Their is a lot of work to be done in their world to bring fairness and more sharing of the resources that only a few seem to have there. Stop the bombing yes, but everyone stop. Stand back and realise life is precious for everybody.Jew, Christian ,Muslim, hindu etc etc.

by TD - FPC Fri Jan 02, 2009 14:26

Pictured is the IOF shooter of the new bullets with what appears to be a magazine for the things atop his rifle.?

IOF gunman

by Benny Fri Jan 02, 2009 18:19

The Palestinian news agency Maan is reporting that, today, besides Bilin : West Bank cities and villages, as well as neighborhoods across East Jerusalem staged massive demonstrations following the Friday prayers, calling for an end to the Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip.

Demonstrations took place in the cities, including Hebron, Jericho, Nablus, Bethlehem and Ramallah, as well as villages Al-Ma’sara, Ni’lin, Jayous and Qalqiliya too where demonstrators announced their solidarity with Gaza and condemned the nonstop massacres, going on in Gaza.

Many of the slogans being shouted were blaming the silence of the Arab nations; others expressed vehement anger against Israeli callousness in the face of so many casualties.

More than 2,000 men, women and children gathered in Nablus after the Friday prayers and marched from the main mosque in the city through the streets to the old city.

Smaller scale demonstrations tool place all over the West Bank and in East Jerusalem, condemning the Israeli actions in Gaza.

by Andrew Fri Jan 02, 2009 19:44

That new weapon looks like the pepper ball guns the cops use in Washington state. The gun and the projectiles it fires are pictured at the link below. They are basically similar to a paint ball gun but the balls hold pepper spray, they will bruise and lacarerate the skin when used at close range and obviously then getting pepper spray into the wounds caused is very painful.

by TD - FPC Sat Jan 03, 2009 14:16

Andrew, it now appears that, yesterday, the IOF used two new type bullets on the Bil'in protestors - new to Bil'in anyway, rather than being shot with the green, green-liquid filled bullet, both Hamza Sulaiman Yasin (16) and Abdallah Mohammad Yasin (16) were shot with the pictured bullet/pellet - the former from a distance of 10/15 metres the latter from 50 metres, silencers/compressed air, whatever, seem to have been employed as the sound of live fire was not heard in both cases.?

The two new bullets used on the Bil'in protestors yesterday - lead bullet/pellet was retrieved from the abdomen of Abdallah Mohammad Yasin (youth in posted photo with stomach wound)

X-Ray of Hamza Sulaiman Yasin's femur (youth in photo with combat trousers) showing bullet's penetration of bone and surrounding bone debris

These two may be the shooters involved.?

by Nora Cambell Sat Jan 03, 2009 16:00

Chris Hedges in a Truthdig article gets to the heart of the matter: 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.

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.

by Maura Harrington - S2S; Davitt League Sat Jan 03, 2009 16:34

To TD and friend - thanks for doing what you do. Thinking of you and those whose plight you witness.

Go dté sibh slán a chomrádaigh.

by Forwarder Sat Jan 03, 2009 21:38

International Human Rights Activists now working with medical teams in northern Gaza as Israel launches invasion of Gaza Strip
January 3rd, 2009 | Posted in Press Releases, Gaza Region | Edit
For Immediate Release

7:30pm, 3rd January 2009, Gaza: European, Australian and American Human Rights Activists are now based in northern Gaza as Israel has intensified shelling in what appears to be the beginning of a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip.

They will be accompanying ambulances and medical teams in the Jabaliya, Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun areas while working from the Northern Station of the Red Crescent in Jabaliya.

“Pieces of 10cm shrapnel are now flying into the Red Crescent Station. Ambulance crews cannot make it to injured people due to the massive Israeli shelling of the area” Alberto Arce (Spain) - International Solidarity Movement

“The ambulance crews have requested international assistance and so we will be working from the Red Crescent Northern Station in doing that. We have been working with the medics for the last three days and are first aid trained.” Sharon Lock (Australia) - International Solidarity Movement

Other International Human Rights Activists are now based in Rafah and Gaza City.

International Human Rights Activists have been accompanying ambulances in the Gaza Strip since the murder of medic Mohammed Abu Hassera and Doctor Ihab Al Mathoon by Israeli missiles on the 31st December 2008.

Human Rights Activists now in Gaza:

Alberto Arce - Spain

Ewa Jasiewicz - Poland/Britain

Dr. Haider Eid - South Africa

Sharon Lock - Australia

Fida Qishta - Palestine

Jenny Linnel - Britain

Natalie Abu Shakra - Lebanon

Vittorio Arrigoni - Italy

Eva Bartlett - Canada

by very angry - none Mon Jan 05, 2009 20:38

Our prayers and thoughts are with you all, keep safe you are very brave.

by Forwarder Tue Jan 06, 2009 00:38

January 5th, 2009 | Posted in Press Releases, Journals, Gaza Region | Edit
By Eva Bartlett

Every time I manage to make it back to Gaza to write for a period, a new calamity.

“They’re shelling Awda hospital,” in Jabaliya, the news reports. Our internationals there at the moment report it was two shells at a police post next to the hospital, one hospital worker getting shrapnel to the head, but surviving.

The numbers slaughtered and injured are so high now –521 and 3,000 as of this morning, Gaza time — that sitting next to a dead or dying person is becoming normal. The stain of blood on the ambulance stretcher pools next to my coat, the medic warning me my coat may be dirtied. What does it matter? The stain doesn’t revolt me as it would have, did, one week ago. Death fills the air, the streets in Gaza, and I cannot stress that this is no exaggeration.

Back in Gaza city briefly, after a day and night again with the medics, I’ll try to summarize, though there is too much to tell, too much incoming news, and it’s too hard to reach people, even those just a kilometer away. Before dropping me off, the medics had gone to different gas stations, searching for gas for the ambulances. Two stations, no luck. Some at a final source fills their tanks. The absence of gas is critical. So is the absence of bread, which goes on, the lines longer than ever yet.

A text tells me (at this point I have to rely on news from phone and text messages, when reception is available) that the UN says 13,000 have been displaced since these attacks, that 20% of the dead are women and children, 70 % are without drinking water. There are many more facts to sober one drunk on apathy, but I can’t source or share them now.

The Israeli army occupied areas in the north, shelled houses, demolishing them, many injuries, dead, many off-limits to the ambulances.

Beit Hanoun is occupied by the Israeli army, which is now controlling the entry points to the northern region, cutting it off. One small, sub-par hospital without an ICU is staggering under the influx of injured from house demolitions, shellings, shootings… Two ambulances serve this region, I don’t have any information on their condition, the amount of petrol they have, or what areas of the Beit Hanoun region are accessible or not.

Entering via an ambulance to take an emergency case to Gaza’s Shifa hospital, I see the Beit Hanoun hospital crammed, with a frenzied air, families desperate to get their injured care…those who have been able to get to the hospital. Mohammed Sultan, 19, stands dazed with a gunshot graze to the back of his head. From Salateen, northwestern Gaza, he had to walk 1 km before a car could reach him and take him here.

The man we transfer to Shifa has been shot in the face. He is about 35, is a civilian, was in or near his house. His face has exploded, and we move as fast as possible over torn up roads, ambulance jarring as we move and as the medics try to administer delicate care. It’s on everyone’s mind that the army is present here, that our safety is not.

Beit Lahia and beyond, in the northwest, are mostly off-limits to ambulances, leaving the wounded and dead where they are. The calls from there for help, for evacuation, have been non-stop and now go ignored.

In Zaytoun, reports have one extended family being separated men from women, locked inside two houses, and the houses shelled a day later (this morning, around 11 am). Bodies are still being pulled and carted to Shifa hospital. Many estimate that as many as 20 were killed, 10s more injured. I will go to Shifa after this to try to confirm numbers, though again the disclaimer that confirmation in these conditions takes time (and working phone lines). Zaytoun area is occupied in parts, making ambulance access again nearly-impossible, if not fully, I don’t know at this point.

I’m told that areas further south have been invaded, shelled, occupied. Like Zahara, and Juhadik in central Gaza. Press TV reporter Yusuf al Helo told me this morning that the reason he hadn’t answered my phone calls last night (he is one of the better sources for up-to-date news) was because his uncle, in the extended Zaytoun area, just off the main Salah el Din street, was killed when Israeli forces shelled their house. “My cousins were in the house too,” he told me, as were many more injured. Over 15 hours after the assault, Yusuf updates me: “until now they still haven’t been able to take the injured and dead out of my uncle’s house.”

Last night, in a Jabaliya hospital, I talk with one nurse who tells us that his brother Adham, an 8 year old, was shot in the neck and in the chest at 4:30 pm that day (January 4th) when on his rooftop in the same northwestern area that ambulances now cannot reach.

Mohammed tells me his village, Khosar, east of Khan Younis was shelled in an agricultural area, one of the many open areas continuing to be pummelled. One of the many areas period: open, residential, market…

Painfully, I learn that after a hasty funeral, Arafa’s mourning tent was shelled yesterday, mourners inside. At least five injuries and much insult.

at 4:37, Haidar updates me that “the house of the El Eiwa family, from Shejaiyee, was attacked. Lots of casualties, including children.”

He updates me on a BBC report: “the one o’clock news on the local BBC channel interviewed a Norwegian doctor in Gaza wo said some of the victims bear traces of depleted uranium in their bodies.”