updates

8:33 am Wednesday:

6 more blasts from the Israeli naval ships, in 2 sets.

No power, nor internet last night, no way to keep updating.  I didn’t go to Jabaliya, to my terrified friends, because it was too late, impossible to travel there without being a target.  They live on the eastern side of Jabaliya, and the roads which lead to their home are within an even more targeted area than other parts of Jabaliya, especially Salah al Din street, a main north-south road.

At 7 am, the blasts renewed, 8 blasts in sets of 2.  Ten minutes later, 3 blasts.

I learn that the Council of Ministers, hosting the Prime Minister’s Office, was targeted last night, at 8:50 pm, along with the Ministry of Interior in Tel al Hawa, which was targeted for the 3^rd time. Both were completely destroyed. The port, across from where I tried to sleep, was targeted, the Port Authority building destroyed and the dock repeatedly shelled, the impact of the shells some of the closest and most deafening I’ve felt yet, rivaling the shelling 30 m from my friends home in Jabaliya which we experienced three nights ago. The target: an olive orchard in the back yard of a fence-in neighbour’s house.

10:20 am, 6 more blasts, sets of 2, direction of the port

The Whole Building Shook, Like an Earthquake: Dr. Haidar Eid describes attacks on Ministry buildings 500m away from his home

Interview with Dr. Haidar Eid
Diaries, Electronic Intifada
*testimony taken 30 December, 5 pm

Dr. Haidar Eid is an Associate Professor in the Department of English Literature, Al-Aqsa University, Gaza Strip, Palestine.

*bombed Ministry Compound

“I was lying in my bedroom when the first strike happened, around 1:30 am. You know a strike isn’t just one explosion, it’s a series of explosions. Boom, boom, boom, boom. The whole building shook. I woke up and went to the bathroom first, and within 30 seconds the second strike hit. F-16s were bombing the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building, about 500m away. I could hear glass shattering everywhere. I went back into the bedroom and saw glass everywhere, all over the bed which is right up against the window. If I had been lying there still, it would have shattered all over me, would have seriously injured me, or worse, I don’t know. It was a very strong blast, and the glass must have hit the bed with great force.

I brought a mattress into the living room, which faces the sea, and lay down trying to sleep there. Moments later, I heard a huge explosion, the third strike, this time from an area closer to the sea. The front, sea-facing window exploded into the room, landing on the desk and the floor, thankfully too far from where I was lying.

I tried to call a friend who lives two buildings away from the Ministries. He’s got five children, ages 5 to 15. He said they were okay, but the children were terrified, screaming.

wreckage trail from Jabaliya to Gaza

*bombed truck, with shelled house behind, Jabaliya

2:20 pm, Tuesday, Shifa hospital, waiting for 1st aid training (decided that having some basic first aid skills could be helpful). An explosion nearby, not far from the hospital. An Apache was flying over, and now a drone buzzes loudly as it surveys the streets (the damage?). Dr. Khaled tells us that last night the Shifa hospital director received a bomb threat. “Some one called, saying he was an Israeli army officer, and told us we had to evacuate Shifa hospital immediately as it would be targeted.” With over 600 patients in Shifa, this was more than impractical, let alone unethical.  The director refused, Shifa wasn’t bombed.  But threats like this are made by phone calls, some followed by later bombing [like that of the home next to Jaber Wishah, among others], some just pyschological terror.

Later: Dr. Khaled Hadoura has just taken us through the basics of CPR, tying a tourniquet and inserting a cannula (I.V. used for drips or blood transfusions).

Tuesday, 10:30 am

I’ve just returned from Jabaliya, in Gaza’s north, where I and another woman, Sharon from Australia, spent the night again with our friends. They, the wives, sisters and relatives of my two male friends, spend their days and nights without their husbands and brothers, afraid, hiding in their basement where they’ve been since Saturday. Their basement is by no means a bomb shelter, simply the ground level floor of the house and with the smallest windows, so when the windows shatter from the bombing, there is a bit less chance they will be injured by glass. But if a bomb hits their house, they’re dead. The house is like most, not made of re-enforced cement, crumbling easily under bulldozer blades or missile impacts.

dangerous nights in Jabaliya and throughout Gaza

“Last night was very dangerous. Everybody on the street after dark dies. We were afraid for you,” Fatema explained to me, as Sharon and I arrive just after 6 pm on Monday night to her Jabaliya home, in northern Gaza. It’s already dark outside, and getting here any later would have been suicidal.

*Fatema’s baby, H.

We’d wanted to come back to them on Sunday night, but it was after 8pm, and H. insisted we not dare to come. “No one goes out on the streets after dark in this area,” he insisted. “No cars, no people. The Israeli drones, Apaches or F-16s will target you.” We didn’t go, knowing he knows best. Instead, we stayed at a Jabaliya hospital, talking with the doctors who were on call for an emergency. That hospital, Al Awda, doesn’t normally receive emergency patients. But nothing is normal here.

That night, Sunday, there were numerous explosions in and around Jabaliya, throughout the north, in Gaza city and the environs just outside Gaza. Everywhere.

from what I see

“It should be noted that the breakdown of a truce between Hamas and Israel had been observed for several months by both sides. The truce was maintained by Hamas despite the failure of Israel to fulfill its obligation under the agreement to improve the living conditions of the people of Gaza. The recent upsurge of violence occurred after an Israeli incursion that killed several alleged militants within Gaza.“

–Richard Falk, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights on Palestinian territories occupied since 1967

From on the ground here, and from hearing the accounts from 1st-hand witnesses, I would disagree that Israel is merely “targeting Hamas targets”.

There is significant support for Hamas in the Gaza Strip, hence their democratic election in 2006, after which they were penalized and put under international sanctions. Thus, to say one is targeting Hamas targets, when any civilian employed by the Hamas government, be he traffic police, civil police or in the Ministries, is an immoral declaration of war against a civilian population.

The situation I am addressing here is the mass-bombing of the entire Gaza Strip. As a civilian reporter here, not a military expert nor claiming to be, I am attempting to report what I see and hear here in Gaza, so I may make the mistake of using terms which have specific military definitions. For the sake of clarity, then, I will say mass bombing, indiscriminate bombing, as well as targeted bombing, instead of “carpet bombing”, although the meaning in the end is the same to me: every area of Gaza is being subject to Israeli bombing, from sea to walls.

Let me give you some personal examples of mass-bombing, indiscriminate bombing, and the targeting of civilians:

8 men, including a father (age 55), 6 of his sons (ages 15- mid-20s), and one friend (age 15) who were targeted by a missile from an Israeli drone yesterday at 5 pm while they attempted to return scrap metal to a metal workshop. This attack came 1 hour after an Israeli F-16 targeted the shop but hit the house next door, alleging the shop had missiles in it (it held oxygen tanks, for the work involved in a metal shop).

The 8 dead were torn to pieces by the missile which targeted them.

for now

i prepare for no electricity, no internet, and the worst

i’m praying that you will do your part outside Gaza to end this horror

7 more killed, 10s wounded in latest attack in north of gaza

Collective Punishment

1:11 pm, 29 December Israel continues with a campaign of targeting mosques, places of worship, which are embedded in towns and densely-packed camps, in addition to strikes on other civilian infrastructure. The al-Burno Mosque [photos] across from Shifa hospital was bombed late on the 1st night, completely leveling it. Three were targeted in Jabaliya camp, not far from the hospital where I and other internationals were staying to monitor the situation. Another 2 mosques in Gaza’s southeastern Khan Younis city were targeted.

Emad Akal mosque

The first mosque, Emad Akal mosque, was levelled, killing 5 young girls, ages 4, 8, 12, 14, 17, and endangering the lives of a 1-week old baby, a 1.5 year old child, and countless other civilians living and sleeping in their homes next to the mosque when the F-16’s missile struck it, causing the walls and rooves of neighbouring homes and buildings to crumble, burying and pummeling people inside.

Shifa ICU: a glimpse of hospital critical injuries

Dr Khaled from Shifa hospital ICU told me today around 10 that the majority of cases in the ICU are critical, with an approx 80% who will not survive.  The normally 12-bed ICU was caring for twice as many as normally capable, extra beds and extra rooms made to care for ICU patients. At that time, the 24 beds in the ICU were the 4th shift of critically injured, the former 3 having died from their injuries.

There is a critical need for more ICU beds, as well as mechanical ventilators

the majority of injuries were “multi-explosive injuries” with a concentration of head injuries (“head trauma”) resulting from the explosions, from shrapnel in the brain. Other injuries included abdominal injuries resulting in internal bleeding, from shrapnel in the abdomen.  The majority of head injuries were not expected to survive, and those who do are expected to have brain damage, some full paralysis (quadroplegea).  Because of the shortage of spaces and equipment, the ICU has had to turn patients away, others waiting in the reception until a patient dies and his space can be used.

among the critically wounded were a number of children and minors:

a six year old down’s syndrom with brain trauma

an 11 year old with brain trauma, not likely to survive

a 13 year old with a head injury (“brain matter out”)

a 21 year old, leg amputated, various shrapnel injuries over body and face, loss of hearing in one ear

a 21 year old, braindead, “hopeless” case

a man in his fifties, neither police nor resistance

a man in his forties, on the beach when struck, head trauma (“brain matter out”)

a man in his fifties, head trauma

a 53 year old, shrapnel in the brain, no surgery possible

many other men in their 20s and 30s, head injuries (shrapnel in brain), and abdominal injuries, some policemen.

*deceased, quickly replaced by newly arrived & waiting critical cases

widespread attacks on Gaza leave nearly 300 dead, hundreds seriously injured

**above: destroyed police station, Omar Mukthar street

UPDATED [12:00 pm Gaza time] 285 have been killed and over 750 wounded in attacks beginning Saturday morning after 11 am, in which over 100 bombs were dropped by 80 helicopters and Israeli warplanes, according to the Union of Medical Health Workers. Hospitals are overflowing with the wounded, and seriously incapable of dealing with all of the injured.

Among the civilians killed, the mother of my good friends in Jabaliya.

Christmas was sad, bleak, here, not for me on a personal level, but for fatigued Palestinian Christians denied every joy of celebrations because of the siege and the Israeli military occupation of Gaza. At Gaza’s Catholic church, the priest, Father Manuel Musallam, led a sad congregation in a Christmas Eve service which barely feigned joy. An attractive false Christmas tree, a manger scene, and a table dressed in white linen and adorned with seasonal red and greens didn’t manage to add cheer to the celebrants.Most couldn’t even watch the Bethlehem celebrations on tv because of power cuts or poverty. What do they have to celebrate? It wasn’t the absence of incense, nor certainly the lack of commercialism and shops selling trinkets, that left Christmas gasping and Christians grim in Gaza.

It was the siege.