Bowen diary: Stranded with dead

BBC Middle East Editor Jeremy Bowen's diary of the conflict between Hamas and Israel.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7852218.stm

Ahmed, a 16-year-old boy, only became animated when he talked about his dead pets. Even then the mask that his face has become shifted only slightly.

"I don't know why they [Israeli soldiers] kill animals. I don't believe birds can harm them".
Ahmed

He pointed towards a pile of rubble: "That was my house. We were living there and we were very happy. The Israelis destroyed my house and the other houses before they pulled out."

'I had two goats and a donkey and they killed them. And they killed 10 pigeons, and our chickens and a cockerel and two ducks. The pigeons and the goats were mine. The rest belonged to the family.

"I loved seeing my pets grow. I wanted to see their babies. It makes me very sad that they killed the animals, the donkey, the goats, the pigeons and the ducks.

"Why? I don't know why they kill animals. I don't believe birds can harm them. My white pigeons were shot. I know that because I found their bodies."

'High-tech' rocket
Ahmed talks with some expression about the death of his pets because he is trying to clear his mind of everything else he witnessed in Gaza City.

"Three of my brothers died next to me. I had been lying next to my brother Ismail" said Ahmed.

Ahmed says that after the Israeli soldiers came to his street he was confined with 90 members of his extended family in a house just opposite his own. Other witnesses confirm his story.

After more than 24 hours, the house was hit by some sort of projectile and there was a big explosion. Local people say that 29 people were killed.

When representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) reached the site more than 48 hours later they found part of what they say looked like a high-tech rocket in the building.

They also found children who had been stranded there with the bodies. One of them was Ahmed.
When he talks about it his face is a mask again. When the explosion happened he thought at first that he was dead.

"But I opened my eyes and moved my arms and legs and I realised I was alive. But I couldn't speak or get up," Ahmed says.

I asked him what happened to his family.

"Three of my brothers died next to me. I had been lying next to my brother Ismail. My head was a half-a-metre from his. My brother Yacoub was hurt. There was a hole in his stomach that you could have put a coffee cup into."

And his mother was killed. Ahmed says he thinks of her every day.

Trauma sessions
The survivors were allowed to leave by the soldiers who had told them to stay in the house. Ahmed could not walk, so the others promised to go for help.

He says the time they were there in the house was terrifying. They found a small amount of water. He would drag himself to the door to watch the Israelis. He saw them bulldozing the mosque flat.

The ICRC says Israel refused to let them get to the wounded for more than two days.

That is why they broke their usual silence to issue an angry statement saying it looked as though the Israeli army had not fulfilled its obligations under the laws of war to treat the wounded or arrange for their evacuation.

The house the soldiers commandeered is 10 paces away from the place where Ahmed and the others waited for help for more than two days with the bodies.

His father survived, as did four younger brothers and two older sisters. He has not gone back to school yet, because he says his clothes and his books were destroyed when his house was bulldozed. So was the bicycle he used to get to school. Maths was his favourite subject.

Ahmed has had some sessions with experts in the trauma that children suffer when they experience violence.

In Gaza, they have developed considerable expertise. They say he needs a lot of time and treatment, and even then the experience he has had will scar him for life.

The doctors were encouraged that, when he spoke about his mother, his expressionless mask slipped slightly, and he looked as if he was struggling not to cry.

The psychologist and psychiatrist who were with him said that he was going to have to go through a great deal of emotional pain, the pain that he was trying with all his might to suppress, if he was to have any hope of getting better.

No wonder Ahmed finds it easier to talk about his dead pets.

No one should be above the law

Tariq Al-Maeena talmaeena@aol.com in Arab News

From 1945 to 1949, a series of trials were held in Nuremberg, Germany, before the International Military Tribunal. In the dock were 24 major political and military leaders of Nazi Germany, indicted for aggressive war, war crimes and crimes against humanity. The charges included the wanton killing and total disregard for the lives of Poles, Russians, Jews and others.

Now that there is a lull in the Holocaust in Gaza, several international organizations including appointees by the United Nations have taken it a step further to charge Israeli leaders for their complicity in the more than three weeks of murderous assault on the people of Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Ehud Barak have all been named as conspirators in this murderous assault on a primarily defenseless people. A formal complaint was submitted by Lebanese lawyers to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, against Ehud Barak and others in the Israeli Cabinet on the charge that they had committed war crimes and crimes against humanity by ordering and maintaining a siege on Gaza.

This was not a war as some may have been led to believe but a systematic destruction of human lives carried out with unmatched firepower. Since June 2007, the 1.5 million residents of Gaza have been under a blockade imposed by the Israeli government, helped in great part by former US President George Bush and his administration. According to international law, the siege, which is still in force, is collective punishment of innocent people.

The-year-and-a-half-long siege had caused severe food and fuel shortages, intermittent drinking water and electricity supply problems, disruption to sewage treatment plants and shortages of medicine and essential medical equipment, affecting the people — a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention and Rome Statute. The despair and depression of such a people cannot be described in simple words.

While Americans were going to the polls back in November, the Israelis were violating the fragile cease-fire agreement killing 15 Palestinian civilians and wounding 50 others including seven women and 15 children. This was preceded by the blocking of UN humanitarian supplies and holding shipments of EU-funded fuel to the territory’s sole power plant.

Then on Dec. 27, 2008, the Israelis began the aerial bombardment of civilian population centers in Gaza. The attacks involved scores of aircraft sorties, dropping hundreds of tons of bombs on Gaza neighborhoods. Schools and hospitals were initially targeted, bringing the death toll of children to a disproportionate number.

More than 1,300 people — men, women and children lost their lives and 5,300 people were injured. The bombs damaged thousands of homes and turned hundreds of thousands of people into refugees. White phosphorus explosives were used indiscriminately against a defenseless people.

White phosphorus is an incendiary agent used to inflict serious burn wounds. UN officials and human rights groups have alleged Israel used it in the 22-day Gaza campaign. Amnesty International has called Israel’s firing of white phosphorus shells in densely populated residential areas of Gaza a war crime.

In their charge, Amnesty International stated that its researchers had found phosphorus wedges, sometimes still burning, in residential areas of Gaza. The group said that the wedges had been packed into steel artillery shells and fired from the air, a tactic that can scatter them over an area larger than a soccer field.

Medics interviewed in Gaza last week confirmed that so many patients had sustained burns consistent with white phosphorus and that it was obvious beyond a degree of doubt that Israeli forces used the chemical in highly populated areas.

At Shifa, the main hospital in Gaza City, doctors said that scores of patients had arrived with unusual burns, dark, foul-smelling splotches that grew deeper and blacker despite being washed with water and saline solution. The burns were so toxic in some patients that even those with relatively minor wounds, which ought to have been treatable, grew ill and died, the doctors said.

“We have never seen this type of injury or the number of such injuries,” said Dr. Nafez Abu Sha’ban, the head of the burns unit at Shifa. “These were not usual burns.”

The victims reported that they’d come into contact with smoking chunks of phosphorus, and in some cases had reached hospitals with wounds on their bodies still smoking. White phosphorus burns as long as it’s exposed to oxygen, and can reach temperatures well over 1,000 degrees.

To protect themselves, the Israelis first went into a total denial and spin mode. Then taking it a step further, they retrained their own media from revealing any details on those parties involved in this heinous crime.

According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the Israeli government made it forbidden for the press to make known the full names of military commanders of the units that participated in the war on Gaza. This action was taken to “prevent the possibility of prosecution for war crimes by Israeli left-wing activists and international organizations.” But can the Israeli government escape these charges so simply? Only if the rest of the world remains muted, and permits such atrocities to happen again and again without demanding punishment to the perpetrators.


Arif N. Khanhttp://www.netvert.biz/wordpowerhttp://profiles.yahoo.com/ank2000pkPS. Please endorse a copy of your comments on my post to ank2000pk@yahoo.com

Israeli white phosphorous bombs

Hi All

To get a visual feeling of what it means for a school -- sheltering civilians -- to be subjected by Israeli white phosphorous bombs ..... rain of inextinguishable fire balls falling from the sky in all directions, deliberately designed to cause maximum death and destruction.

No wonder it is illegal to use white phosphorous as a weapon of war, particularly in civilian settings, let alone a UN shelter!

In this criminal attack children were killed, one mother lost her legs, and dozens of children and women were injured --(some from inhaling the phosphorous smoke -- the effects of which will only be revealed with time )

Forward these photos for all those who call for JUSTICE(UNRWA SCHOOL IN BEIT LAHIA, GAZA, PALESTINE)

God in not only for JEW's but for all

These two websites are great resources and will definitely help anyone who takes part in a conversation with a zionist. Even if you're not planning on having tea and cake with a zionist any time soon, the info is still good to know.

Zionists may talk about their 'God given' rights and 'Palestinian acts of terror' but let us talk about facts and statistics....which are verified by international aid agencies and human rights groups.

1) www.whatreallyhappened.com

2) www.ifamericansknew.org

3) jewsagainstzionism.com

4) jewsnotzionists.org

The first site has links to excellent videos (which can be graphic at times) and photo galleries which are harrowing to say the least.The second is a wonderful site full of charts, graphs and analyses (so good for the techy/maths people among us!)

The last two sites are very coherent (if not so user friendly) at making the distinction betwen Judaism and zionism. It's really important to shake off this 'anti-semitic' tag which is thrown at us when we criticise the state of Israel and in my experience, these sites help us stand on our own when confronted with that slander.

I really hope that Muslim organisations forge links with groups such as Neturei Karta because seeing Jews protest against the attacks in Gaza has really made some previously anti-palestine people in this country question their preconceptions about what's going on and who's to blame.

Obama orders Guantanamo closure

Guantanamo Bay has been widely condemnedby international rights groups [GALLO/GETTY]

Barack Obama, the US president, has ordered the closure of the Guantanamo Bay prison camp within one year and a review of the military tribunals set up by the Bush administration to try them.

Obama also signed an order ending the harsh interrogation of prisoners held by the US and the closure of any secret prisons run by the CIA.

On his second full day in office, Obama signed the three orders surrounded by retired military officers in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington.

Obama said the signing of the order showed "we are willing to observe core standards, not just when its easy but when its hard".

"The message that we are sending around the world is that the United States intends to prosecute the ongoing struggle against violence and terrorism," Obama said.
"We are going to do so vigilantly; we are going to do so effectively; and we are going to do so in a manner that is consistent with our values and our ideals."

Obama had promised to close the detention centre during his election campaign.

Prisoners future
Guantanamo was set up by the Bush administration in 2002 to hold prisoners it detained as part of its so-called war on terror.

Guantanamo prisoners will be treated in amanner consistent with international law [AFP]More than 240 prisoners remain held there, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is suspected of planning the September 11 attacks on the US.

The White House said the order closing Guantanamo also sets up a series of reviews to determine whether it is possible to transfer prisoners to their home countries, if US national security is not threatened.

If that is not possible, the review will then look at options for prosecuting them, the White House said in a statement.

The order also orders that all prisoners held at Guantanamo be held in a manner consistent with the Geneva Conventions until the facility is closed.

Al Jazeera's Anand Naidoo in Washington DC said it was likely that the five men facing charges over the September 11 attacks would face some kind of prosecution on US soil.

The US president also said he was setting up a task force that would have 30 days to recommend policies on handling "terror" suspects who are detained in future.

The force would look at where those detainees should be held instead of Guantanamo.

On Thursday, Obama had ordered a halt to military tribunals of al-Qaeda suspects held at the camp, including those suspected of involvement in the September 11 attacks.

Shane Kadidal, a senior lawyer at the Guantanamo Global Justice Initiative that works on behalf of detainees, told Al Jazeera the move was a step in the right direction.

"We've always said that these military commissions were insupportable. The system was designed to launder evidence gained through torture and all those cases should be transferred to ordinary federal courts."

Legal advice
The order ending harsh interrogations also requires that all interrogations follow the US Army's Field Manual interrogation guidelines, which ban the use of techniques such as "waterboarding," which simulates the sensation of drowning.

The order bans the CIA from operating secret prisons, and forbids them from opening any new such facilities.

It also ends US government reliance on a series of controversial legal advice notes on the treatment of prisoners drawn up by Bush administration advisers.

The order, however, does not ban the controversial practice of rendition, which involves the secret detention and transfer of "terror" suspects from one country to another.

It does, however, order a review of the practice.

Obama also issued a memorandum ordering a review of the case of Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, a Qatari citizen and the only "enemy combatant" held on US soil at a Navy prison in South Carolina.

Obama orders missile Strikes in Pakistan

President orders air strikes on villages in tribal area.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/24/pakistan-barack-obama-air-strike

Barack Obama gave the go-ahead for his first military action yesterday, missile strikes against suspected militants in Pakistan which killed at least 18 people.

Four days after assuming the presidency, he was consulted by US commanders before they launched the two attacks. Although Obama has abandoned many of the "war on terror" policies of George Bush while he was president, he is not retreating from the hunt for Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders.

The US believes they are hiding in the tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan, and made 30 strikes last year in which more than 200 people were killed. In the election, Obama hinted at increased operations in Pakistan, saying he thought Bush had made a mistake in switching to Iraq before completing the job against al-Qaida in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The US marine corp commander said yesterday that his 22,000 troops should be redeployed from Iraq to Afghanistan. Gen James Conway said "the time is right" to leave Iraq now the war had become largely nation-building rather than the pitched fighting in which the corps excelled; he wanted the marines in Afghanistan, especially in the south where insurgents, and the Taliban and al-Qaida, benefit from both a nearby safe haven in Pakistan and a booming trade in narcotics.

Obama has warned that he is prepared to bomb inside Pakistan if he gets relevant intelligence about the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden. He had also said he would act against militants along the border if the Pakistan government failed to.

The US missiles were fired by unmanned Predator drones, which hang in the sky gathering intelligence through surveillance and, when commanded and directed by remote control, to launch attacks.

The strikes will help Obama portray himself as a leader who, though ready to shift the balance of American power towards diplomacy, is not afraid of military action.

The first attack yesterday was on the village of Zharki, in Waziristan; three missiles destroyed two houses and killed 10 people. One villager told Reuters of phonethat of nine bodies pulled from the rubble of one house, six were its owner and his relatives; Reuters added that intelligence officials said some foreign militants were also killed. A second attack hours later also in Warizistan killed eight people.

The Pakistan government publicly expressed hope that the arrival of Obama would see a halt to such strikes, which stir up hostility from Pakistanis towards the government; in private, the government may be more relaxed about such attacks.

There is a lot of nervousness in the new administration about the fragility of Pakistan, particularly as it has nuclear weapons, but it also sees Afghanistan and Pakistan as being linked. In the face of a Taliban resurgence, there is despair in Washington over the leadership of the Afghan leader, Hamid Karzai, and there will not be much disappointment if he is replaced in elections later this year.

But Washington insists on seeing as one of its biggest problems the ability of the Taliban and al-Qaida to maintain havens in Pakistan. Obama on Thursday announced he was making veteran diplomat Richard Holbrooke a special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan. The secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, spoke by phone to the Pakistan president, Asif Ali Zardari.

Make the World a Better Place - Jews speak out against Israel

Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

Join American Jews in Condemning Gaza War

http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2009/01/15/join-american-jews-in-condemning-gaza-war/


Jan 15th, 2009 by Richard Silverstein


Jerry Haber and I, along with Verso Books, the publishers of A Time to Speak Out, have prepared the following statement from American Jews condemning the Gaza assault and Israeli policy toward the Palestinians.


We hope that you will sign it and encourage others you know to do so as well. Roane Carey of The Nation has expressed some interest in publishing it there, if we succeed in getting a significant number of signatories. We hope you will help start a viral campaign by promoting this statement as widely as you can via e mail, websites and general word of mouth.

To sign, please send your full name, title (if you wish), & affiliation (if you wish) to statement.signatories@gmail.com

It is only for signatures and not for regular correspondence. For that, please e mail me or this site directly.


“We Shall Not Be a Party to Their Counsel!”


As human beings, we are shocked and appalled at the mass destruction unleashed by the State of Israel against the people of Gaza in its current military operation, following years of Israeli occupation, siege, and deprivation.

As Americans, we protest the carte blanche given Israel by the US government to pursue a war of “national honor,” “restoring deterrence,” “destroying Hamas,” and “searing Israel’s military might into the consciousness of the Gazans.”

As progressives, we reject the same justifications for the carnage that we heard ad nauseam from the supporters of the Second Iraq War: the so-called “war on terror,” the “clash of civilizations,” the “need to re-establish deterrence” – all of which served to justify a misguided and unnecessary war, with disastrous consequences for America and Iraq.

But as Jews of different religious persuasions, from Orthodox to secular atheist, we are especially horrified that a state that purports to speak in our name wages a military campaign that has killed over 1,000 people, a large percentage of them civilians, children, and non-combatants, with little or no consideration for human rights or the laws of war.

While the moral and legal issue concerning Israel’s right to respond militarily in these circumstance can be debated, there is near-universal agreement that its conduct of the military operation has been unjust and even criminal – with only the usual apologists for the Jewish state disagreeing.

As Jews, we stand united with another Israel, the patriarch Jacob, who cursed his sons Simeon and Levi for massacring the people of Shechem in revenge for the rape of their sister Dinah. Like Jacob, “we shall not be a party to the counsel of zealots. We shall not be counted in their assembly. (See Genesis 34. 49: 5-7).

As Jews, we stand united with the Jewish sages who rejected the zealotry of the Jewish “terrorists” at Masada, those who masked ethnic tribalism in the cloak of “self-defense” and “national honor.”

As Jews, we listen not only when the sage Hillel says, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me?” but also when he says, “If I am only for myself, what am I?” Hillel’s closing words also ring true in this hour of decision when a ceasefire is demanded of both sides: “If not now, when?”

Finally, as American Jewish progressives, and as human beings, we condemn Hamas and Israel for violating the human rights of civilians on both sides, although we do not necessarily declare these violations to be morally or legally equivalent. We affirm the rights of both Israeli and the Palestinian peoples to self-determination and self-defense, as we affirm the rights of both Israelis and Palestinians to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

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Pope Benedict on Gaza attacks 2008-2009

'Concentration camp' remark threatens Pope's visit to Israel

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5473588.ece

A diplomatic row between Israel and the Vatican cast doubt over Pope Benedict XVI’s planned visit to the Holy Land yesterday, after a prominent cardinal said that Gazans were living in a “big concentration camp”.

In his annual speech to diplomats in the Vatican the Pope sought to damp down the dispute. He said that the war was “provoking immense damage and suffering for the civilian populations” in Gaza and Israel. He urged “the rejection of hatred, acts of provocation and the use of arms” and added: “Violence, wherever it comes from and whatever form it takes, must be firmly condemned. The military solution is never an option,” he said.

His remarks came amid outrage from Israelis over a statement by Cardinal Renato Martino, the head of the Vatican Council for Justice and Peace and a former Holy See envoy to the United Nations, who compared Gaza to a concentration camp. The cardinal criticised Israel for killing civilians who had taken shelter at a UNrun school in Gaza.

Israeli officials said that they were “deeply shocked that a man of religion is using the vocabulary of Hamas propaganda”. The Simon Wiesenthal Centre, which monitors antiSemitism and hunts down Nazi war criminals, said that Cardinal Martino had used the language of a “Holocaust denier”.

n his remarks to the Italian website Il Sussidario, Cardinal Martino, one of the Pope’s closest aides, said: “Defenceless populations are always the ones who pay. Look at the conditions in Gaza: more and more, it resembles a big concentration camp.” He condemned Hamas’s rocket attacks on Israel, saying they were “not confetti” and that Israel “certainly has the right to defend itself”.


But he added: “We need willingness from both parties because both are guilty. No one sees the interests of the other, only their own benefit. The consequences of this egoism is hatred for others, poverty and injustice. Those who pay are always the local people – just look at the conditions in Gaza.”


He responded to Israeli protests by saying: “They can say what they want. I say look at the conditions in which people live; conditions that run contrary to human dignity. What is happening in these days causes horror.”


The row has brought to the surface festering tensions over a range of issues, including plans by the Pope to beatify Pope Pius XII, the wartime pontiff accused by critics of failing to speak out in defence of Jews during the Nazi Holocaust. The Vatican insists that Pius XII helped Jews while avoiding public statements that would have made matters worse, and has demanded the removal of a plaque attacking Pius XII at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem.


Vatican officials also charge Israel with failing to keep promises to ease travel restrictions on Arab-Catholic clergy and remove taxes on Church-owned property in the Holy Land. Diplomats said that although plans for Pope Benedict’s trip to Israel, Jordan and the West Bank in May were well advanced, they had now been put on hold. He had hoped to follow in the footsteps of Pope John Paul II, who in 2000 prayed at the Wailing Wall.

Archbishop’s statement on Gaza

Press release from Lambeth Palace

Wednesday 31st December 2008

For immediate use

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has made the following statement regarding the current situation in Gaza:

The spiraling violence in Gaza tragically illustrates the fact that the cycle of mutual threat and retaliation have no lasting effect except to reinforce the misery and insecurity of everyone in the region. I want to express my grief and sympathy for the innocent lives lost in this latest phase of violence. People of all faiths in this country will want to join their voices to the statements of the Christian Muslim Forum and the Council of Christians and Jews in urging a return to the ceasefire and efforts to secure a lasting peace. We must unite in urging all those who have the power to halt this spiral of violence to do so.

Those raising the stakes through the continuation of indiscriminate violence seem to have forgotten nothing and learned nothing. It must surely be clear that, whilst peace will not wipe out the memory of all past wrongs, it is the only basis for the future flourishing of both the Israeli and Palestinian peoples. The recent statement by the Patriarchs and Heads of Church in Jerusalem reflects a clear awareness that there can be no winners if the current situation is allowed to persist. Its continuation can only condemn ordinary Palestinian and Israeli citizens to the prospect of another year of fear and suffering.

Urgent humanitarian needs have arisen through the attacks on Gaza and Israel and they demand a generous response to local appeals for support, such as that issued by the Anglican Diocese of Jerusalem for its hospital in Gaza. But this humanitarian response, both local and international, needs to be matched by redoubled efforts in the political sphere.

The prophet Zechariah declared, "Not by might and not by power, but by my spirit says the Lord of Hosts". The New Year is an opportunity for a new initiative that will set the tone for what lies ahead. Religious leaders, most particularly those of the region, have an urgent responsibility in supporting the search for peace and reconciliation. But it is the political leaders and opinion-formers who hold the key to implementing the necessary changes that can bring hope. Can they not agree a period of truce as the New Year begins, so that the communities of the Holy Land may once again explore how common security might at last begin to replace the mechanical rhythms of mutual threat? Might the outgoing and incoming Presidents of the USA combine to make such an appeal and pursue its implementation?

The Anglican Communion worldwide stands alongside other religious communities and humanitarian organisations in its commitment to supporting any such initiative. Without such a sign of hope, the future for the Holy Land and the whole region is one of more fear, innocent suffering and destruction.

Mark Steel:

Now we've all seen through the Israeli government's excuses

If the Hamas rockets are so lethal, why doesn't Israel swap an F-16 for some?

Wednesday, 21 January 2009

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/mark-steel/mark-steel-now-weve-all-seen-through-the-israeli-governments-excuses-1452234.html

The worrying part about whether the ceasefire in Gaza can hold together will be whether the international community can stop the flow of arms to the terrorists. Because Israel's getting their planes and tanks and missiles from somewhere and until this supply is cut off there's every chance it could start up again.


The disregard for life from these terrorists and their supporters is shocking. For example Thomas Friedman, the New York Times columnist, wrote that the purpose of the Israeli attack must be to "inflict a heavy death toll and heavy pain on the Gaza population".


Replace "Gaza" with "western", and that could have been written by al-Qa'ida. Maybe this is the problem: the Israelis are writing their policies by downloading statements from an Islamic Jihad website and just changing the place names. Also, if the Israelis think the Hamas rockets are as lethal as they say, why don't they swap their F-16 fighters and Apachehelicopters for a few of them?


These things are capable of terrorising a whole nation for years apparently, yet the Israelis have neglected to buy any, wasting their money on gunboats and stuff. Given that their annual arms budget is $7.2bn plus $2.2 bn in "aid", they'd save enough to buy a selection of banks in every country in the world.


The military advantages would be enormous because the Israelis' complaint about Hamas is the use of tunnels to smuggle arms. But if Israel gave Hamas a few planes and tanks and helicopters, they could probably be persuaded to shut down those tunnels that seem to be the cause of such bad feeling.


Whatever you say about Israel, at least it moves its weapons about legally – except for when it secretly built a nuclear arsenal against an array of international agreements. But they did it above ground and not in a tunnel and that's the main thing.


Watching the reports from Gaza, another reason why the ceasefire may break down becomes apparent. The Israelis might claim that their satellite pictures now show Palestinians in possession of huge mounds of rubble – lethal if thrown over the border. Luckily these weapons are easy to spot. Most of them are next to women howling, "Look what they've done to my house," but perhaps the airforce should bomb them again – just in case. The Israelis say they fear Hamas will once again break the ceasefire by sending over those rockets. But the whole point of the operation was to make that impossible. Because they must have asked themselves the question, "If we slaughter 1,300 people, including 300 children, is that likely to make people: A. less cross or B. more cross?" And presumably they concluded it will make them much less likely to grow up full of hatred and determination to retaliate. Perhaps they saw medical research that shows when someone is suffering from anxiety and bouts of irascible ill-tempered behaviour, the best treatment is to pen them in with no food or medicine and then kill some of them, and that calms them down a treat.


Another way to allay their worries about Hamas breaking the ceasefire is to read the report from their government's own Intelligence and Terrorism Information Centre. This states that during the ceasefire "Hamas did not take part in any rocket fire and sometimes prevented other organisations from attacking." Still, with all that's been going on I suppose they haven't had time for reading.


Despite all this there might be one cheery sign, which is that never before have so many people seen through the Israeli government's excuses for handing out mass destruction. The demonstrations in support of Palestinians have been bigger than ever before, and even the United Nations and the Wall Street Journal have suggestedIsrael has committed war crimes. One poll in America suggested that 60 per cent of people opposed the bombardment, and the change of opinion reached the point that an Israeli diplomat has admitted that "The harm to civilians in Gaza is causing us huge damage."


Maybe, best of all, was genetics expert Steven Rose who appeared on Radio 4's Today programme to talk about a new study that's located "morality spots", the part of the brain that deals with our morality. Asked how we could know whether this was true, he said in a marvellously posh academic Radio 4 voice "Well we could test the brains of the Israeli cabinet and see if they've got no morality spots whatsoever."


And the most immoral part of all is the perfectly cynical timing, as if three weeks ago Bush shouted: "Last orders please. Any last bombing, before time's up? Come along now, haven't you got homes to demolish?"

Gaza doctor's loss grips Israelis

Luch Ash - BBC World Service

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7838465.stm
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I first met Dr Izeldeen Abuelaish eight years ago when I made a radio documentary about his extraordinary life and work.

A Palestinian obstetrician who specialises in treating infertility, he lives in the Jabaliya camp in the Gaza Strip, but used to work part-time in Israel helping Jewish women to have babies.

He also had a clinic in Gaza, taught medical school students there and arranged for seriously ill Palestinian patients to be treated in Israel.

He put up with the tedious and sometimes humiliating border checks with dignity and patience.

He stayed calm when one of his own Palestinian medical students told him she was "very, very angry" that he was helping Israelis to have children.


"What if these babies grow up to become soldiers who kill our people?" asked the young woman.


Despite all the suspicion, the hatred and the barriers Dr Abuelaish continued his work.

In 2001, Dr Gad Potashnik was in charge of the IVF clinic at the Soroka University Hospital in Beersheba.

He described Dr Abuelaish as a "magical, secret bridge between Israelis and Palestinians".

But that "magical, secret bridge" is now close to breaking point.
I have stayed in touch with Dr Abuelaish over the years.

Since we met he has had a number of jobs and research posts abroad.

In September 2008 he was about to start working for the European Union in Africa but had to return home after he wife, Nadia, fell ill with leukaemia.

Israeli patients
She died soon after his return, leaving him a widower with eight children aged three to 20.

In the middle of the recent conflict, I interviewed Dr Abuelaish for the BBC World Service's Outlook programme.

He told me all the glass had been blown out of the windows of his house, he could hear firing and explosions all around and he was desperately worried for the safety of his children.

Then on Friday afternoon, just a day before the ceasefire was announced, his worst nightmare came true.


"My daughters were just sitting quietly talking in their bedroom at home," Dr Izeldeen Abuelaish told me on the phone between sobs.


"I had just left the room, carrying my youngest son on my shoulders. Then a shell came through the wall.


"I rushed back to find their dead bodies - or rather parts of their bodies - strewn all over the room. One was still sitting in a chair but she had no legs.

"Tell me why did they have to die? Who gave the order to fire on my house?"
In a voice cracked with emotion, he added: "You know me, Lucy. You have been to my house, my hospital; you have seen my Israeli patients.


"I have tried so hard to bring people on both sides together and just look what I get in return."


The victims were Bisan, aged 20, Mayar, 15, Aya aged 13 and the physician's 17-year-old niece Nur Abuelaish.


"My eldest daughter was five months away from finishing her degree in business and financial management. She was looking forward to the future and I was so proud of her."


I remember talking to Dr Abuelaish in his house as his children scurried around him asking questions and singing songs.


Bisan was a cheeky, bright-eyed girl, keen to show off her English and read aloud from her school text book.


Audience response
During the recent military campaign, Dr Abuelaish, who speaks fluent Hebrew, had been acting as an unofficial correspondent for a Tel Aviv-based TV station, giving daily updates by phone.



He was determined to let Israelis know as much as possible about the suffering of Palestinian civilians under Israel's bombardment.


Minutes after the shell hit his house, Dr Abuelaish phoned the station's presenter, Shlomi Eldar, to describe what had happened.


The Israeli journalist looked awkward and visibly distressed as the doctor's disembodied voice is broadcast crying: "My daughters, they killed them, Oh Lord. God, God, God."


Mr Eldar mobilised his contacts in the Israel military to open the border and fly the injured girls by helicopter to the Tel Hashomer Medical Centre, the largest hospital in Israel.


He said thousands of viewers had called the station following the harrowing interview with Dr Abuelaish.


"I think this broadcast will change public opinion in Israel," said Mr Eldar speaking by phone from Tel Aviv.


"It feels to me as if some of our audience is seeing and hearing about the high price ordinary Palestinians are paying in this conflict for the first time".


Dr Abuelaish's 17-year-old daughter Shadha is recovering there from an operation which may save her right eye, injured in the blast.


Her 12-year-old cousin Daida is in a critical condition from shrapnel wounds.
A spokeswoman for the Israeli military said the incident is now under investigation.
"For the time being, all that I can tell you is that our troops fired on the house because they had come under attack from somewhere in the vicinity of the house. Possibly a sniper but I can't confirm that," the spokeswoman said.


Speaking from the hospital, Dr Abuelaish denied that any militants had been hiding in or firing from his house.


"Violence is never the right way. My daughters and I were armed with nothing but love and hope."