white phosphorous

impressions from Gaza on a few hot August days

    

*north from Gaza City, overlooking sweltering concrete slums of Beach Camp and on to border with Zionist state. The stepped-building in the right hand photo is a never-finished project begun in the 90s after Oslo

As I spoke with Emad’s father last night there was a loud blast somewhere in the distance. He is hard of hearing, asked what’s that? I told him it’s  a bomb somewhere. He shrugged and walked off to the mosque to pray his evening  prayers.

At night I lay rooftop, again star-gazing, listening to F-16s and other IOF warplanes roar overhead every so often, and heard a series of bombings again far off.

The noise of the wedding party in eastern Deir al Balah almost obfuscated the bombings, and as the planes didn’t do their evil work in our area I, like everyone else, shrugged and went to sleep.

The thing is, here, you never know where is being bombed, whether it is farmland or a home or a car a market the beach. And with electricity cuts (ours was out at the time of the first bombings and again this morning), there’s virtually no way of getting news, save ringing up people who might have internet access or tv. But,  it is so normal to have these warplanes growling overhead, menacing with their presence and the potential of at any moment dropping a bomb anywhere on the 1.7 million caged in the 360 square kilometers that is Gaza, that you’d rack up a massive phone bill trying to find out what every bombing was.  Bombing in ‘defense’, of course. continue reading

burning al Quds: one of Gaza’s remaining functional hospitals bombed in Israel’s war on Gaza

UPDATE: at least 23 are believed to have been killed in the Tel el Hawa invasion alone.

In the early hours of January 15, the Israeli army which had invaded and occupied the Tel el Hawa region, began shelling and firing heavily on the al Quds hospital and surrounding apartment buildings and shops. Residents of that newest region to be attack were sent fleeing, to join hoards of displaced, sheltering with families -if lucky-or in schools, if truly desperate. Medics and volunteers inside the hospital report at least 150 calls that were not being answered because medics’ and ambulances’ movement had been halted by the presence of tanks and snipers outside. post continues

white phosphorous mutilated and murdered family members

–By Eva Bartlett

It’s daily hard to believe it can get worse, but daily it does.

Last week, I saw what seemed to be the white phosphorus clouds doctors have written about, condemned. From a tall Gaza city building, the panoramic view showed a spreading stream of poison, on eastern Gaza.

The chemical burns deeply, to the bone, experts say. It is considered illegal warfare, not to be used in civilian areas. Yet the accounts grow of its use: heavy use in the Khosar region, east of Khan Younis, and in the northwest of Gaza, and in eastern Jabaliya, Sheik Zayid, Sheik Rajleen, Zaitoun… Everywhere. The UN headquarters housing hundreds of fleeing Palestinians which was bombed on January 15 was hit with white phosphorus.

“Five days ago, in Jabaliya, I saw an abnormal material: white dust, spread out in spinning circles which spread the dust further. From inside there was something falling down which looked like snow. It covered a large area, over many houses,” Maher el Madhouan, head of Physiotherapy department in Sheik Radwan had told me last week. post continues

long-burning fires: White Phosphorous on Sheikh Rajleen

Naim Abed Saed Shamella, 48, explained how when the tanks’ shelling in their neighbourhood, near their house, had gotten intense he moved his family of 10 to one ground floor room. After the missile hit his house, going through the 2nd story roof, he’d gone upstairs to get his cell phone. He entered into a cloud of smoke, noxious and lung-tightening. Three days later, when we visited we found the house by the smear of black burn around the upper window, blown out, of course.

The room, blackened, incredibly still had a small fire burning. Three days later. post continues