Two years ago I wrote about Gaza’s antiquities, many of which were destroyed in the 2008-2009 Israeli war on Gaza. But until a few months ago, I hadn’t had the privilege of seeing one of them. Unexpectedly one day, while interviewing the Ministry of Agriculture on their many projects, I was taken by Tel Umm Amer, an archaeological site preserving fantastic mosaics and the monastery of St. Hilarion post continues
Today, three years ago, an Israeli sniper shot this man, shooting at both he and his colleague, as well as towards the ambulance I was in.
When Hassan and Jamal approached a body in the road, it was during the first day of Israeli-declared “cease-fire hours”, supposed humanitarian hours when civilians were to be allowed to move about without fear of Israeli bombing, shelling or shooting.
Hassan, a Palestinian Red Crescent medic, was uniformed, as was Jamal a volunteer with the Red Crescent. The ambulance I was in was flashing its lights and siren. The stretcher the two men carried was flat, blood-stained from other martyrs, but quite obviously just a stretcher. And when Hassan and Jamal walked from the Dawar Zimmo intersection of eastern Jabaliya towards our ambulance, sides to their sniper predator, their hands were full with the dead body they carried.
At this point, walking away from wherever the sniper was huddled (typically 2nd or 3rd floors of homes whose wall has been bored with sniper firing holes), the Israeli soldier began shooting at them, and us. Hassan and Jamal ran for it, body and all, until bringing the body back was impossible. Dropping it, they stumbled and ran for their lives. post continues
*Arafa Abd el Dayem after being shredded by an Israeli-fired dart bomb (photo source unknown)
Memories have a way of overpowering. And Arafa Abd el Dayem’s death should do so.
Three years on and his murder is no less painful, his loss no less present.
Arafa, when shredded to death by an Israeli-soldier-fired dart bomb (a dart bomb is a shell filled with between 5000-8000 dart-shaped metal nails, designed to bore into their targets and split apart upon impact, ensuring maximum damage), was a long-term medic with the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, as well as a high-school teacher and father. post continues
*ancient church and mosque in Gaza City [photo by Emad Badwan]
Oct 22, 2010 (IPS) By Eva Bartlett– Few outside of Gaza would consider its history much beyond the decades of Israeli occupation. But Gaza is a historical treasure house. Many of those treasures are now in Israeli museums, and those that remain are becoming difficult to preserve due to the Israeli siege. post continues
The walls surrounding the Shifa hospital compound came to life today when students from Gaza’s Al Aqsa University evoked scenes of the Israeli war on Gaza last winter.
Some scenes were representative of the destruction, savagery and mass casualties during the Israeli massacre, the desecration and shocking incidents that occured throughout the Strip at the bands of Israeli soldiers.
post continues
On January 18, the first day that Israel stopped most of the bombing all over Gaza (navy shelling continues to this moment), after learning that my friend’s father was alive in eastern Jabaliya, I went on to Attatra, the northwest region, which had been cut off since Israeli troops invaded. As expected, the destruction was great, the death toll high and still unknown. People streamed in both directions: going to see how their homes had fared or leaving from the wreckage and bringing as many surviving possessions as possible.
“This is our main road,” Yusef said dryly, gesturing at the undulating pavement and sand that served the towns in this region. “There should be houses here. Now there is nothing,” he added, seemingly more to himself than to me. post continues
front of the Wafa hospital, used as target practise by IOF soldiers invading from eastern Gaza-Israel Green Line border during 2008-2009 Israeli war on Gaza
By Eva Bartlett
The streets leading from the seriously-damaged Wafa rehabilitation centre in Sheijaiyee were filled with black filth smelling of sewage. The hospital, attacked on January 12th with a chemical bomb that may well be white phosphorus and which set fire to the roof, and whose 4 different buildings were shelled intensely on January 15th, is trying to re-build and re-open, as is the shelled, burned, seriously-damaged al Quds hospital in Tel el Hawa, Gaza city. post continues
