Gaza: The Forgotten Story [I]

By Aditya Ganapathiraju

Why are people on Gaza so unhappy? Well, if you had to live in a prison, wouldn't you be unhappy?— Former CIA officer Robert Baer[1]

It’s the most terrifying place I’ve ever been in… it’s a horrifyingly sad place because of the desperation and misery of the way people live. I was unprepared for camps that are much worse than anything I saw in South Africa.– Professor Edward Said 1993[2]

They may be living but they're not alive. – Journalist Philip Rizk[3]

The situation on the ground in Gaza has continued to deteriorate since January. One of the most densely populated areas in the world, this small coastal strip is home to a million and a half Palestinians, many of them refugees for over 60 years. It is now the worst condition it’s been in since 1967 when the Israeli army took military control of the land.[4]

As numerous scholars and observers have concluded, the Israeli plan for Gaza seems to be to turn it into a depoliticized humanitarian catastrophe,[5] turning the Palestinians trapped in there “beggars who have no political identity and therefore can have no political claims.”[6]

The Israeli assault against Gaza last winter brought this enclave to the forefront of the news cycle, only to disappear from the headlines in the weeks and months that followed. The attention of much of the world’s dominant media moved on to other issues soon after a unilateral Israeli pullout—planned precisely timed so as not to cause an unsightly distraction from the inauguration of the new American president.

The lack of prominent coverage was not because there was a lack of newsworthy events in Gaza. No, “breaking news is Gaza's middle name,” says freelance journalist Philip Rizk. “But because this breaking news always holds the same kind of information, no one cares to report on it.”[7]

“An Eye for an Eyelash”[8]

Violence in the occupied territories has always been bloody but many longtime observers were shocked by the brutality of winter assault,[9] which killed more Palestinians in the first three weeks than during the entire first Intifada, or uprising against the occupation (1987-1993), prompting the UN to label it “one of the most violent episodes in the recent history of the occupied Palestinian territory.”[10]

The January offensive left 1,417 people dead, 1,181 of which were non-combatants (313 children and 116 women). Another 5,303 Palestinians were injured in the attacks, including 1,606 children and 828 women, many left devastated with life-altering conditions.[11]

The attack, carefully-planned six months in advance,[12] destroyed 60 police stations early on, obliterated 20 ambulances and 30 mosques, in addition to leaving several hospitals bombed. Some 280 schools and kindergartens were damaged, 18 of which were destroyed completely (including 8 kindergartens).[13]

Another 6600 dunams of agricultural land, which Palestinian farmers depend on for their livelihood, were razed (1 dunam=1,000 square meters). In all, some 21,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed. An estimated $1.9 billion worth of damage was inflicted, according to an Economist Intelligence Unit report.[14]

“What we're witnessing today is an assault, a massacre,” and “not a war whatsoever,” said Zahir Janmohamed of Amnesty International on the 15 of January, reminding an audience that this was not a conflict between two equivalent military powers but rather another bloody chapter a long history of “Israel’s colonial operations” in the occupied territories.[15] His views were confirmed by facts on the ground, as one scholar recently observed.[16]

The systemic and widespread destruction of both lives and infrastructure was not an unintended consequence of the offensive but rather a deliberate strategy derived from the destruction inflicted during the 2006 Lebanon conflict.[17]

The attack followed the “Dahiya Strategy,” referring to the Beirut area that was destroyed during the attack on Lebanon in 2006. It concluded civilians must pay for their leader’s actions.[18]

The strategy was formalized two months before the attacks by Tel Aviv University's Institute of National Security Studies and urged the use of “disproportionate force” ( by definition a war crime) to inflict crushing damage on “economic interests” and “centers of civilian power,” leaving the targeted society devastated and “floundering” in a long reconstruction process.[19] (for more on the political dynamics involved and actions of Hamas and Israel before and during the attacks, see these papers[20]).

“Behind the dry statistics lie shocking individual stories,” a group of Israeli human rights groups wrote. “Whole families were killed; parents saw their children shot before their very eyes; relatives watched their loved ones bleed to death; and entire neighborhoods were obliterated.”[21]

The stories of those who experienced the attacks, who lost loved ones, and who continue to suffer, offer another perspective often absent here in the U.S. Some of these stories, which described the toll of war beyond numerical abstractions, trickled out in the British press, where journalists are less ideologically constrained to follow the party line, even despite the Israeli military ban on foreign journalists.[22]

Anwar Balousha, a 40-year-old man living in Jabalyia refugee camp in northern Gaza told British reporters of his personal loss. It was around midnight when an Israeli bomb struck their refugee camp’s mosque with a blast so powerful it collapsed several neighboring buildings, including the Balousha’s home. Of his seven daughters sleeping in a single room, five were killed—buried under bricks and rubble as they slept.

"We are civilians,” Anwar said. “I don't belong to any faction, I don't support Fatah or Hamas, I'm just a Palestinian. They are punishing us all, civilians and militants. What is the guilt of the civilian?"[23]

While human rights groups and other observers painstakingly extracted similar stories, the lesser-known narrative of a siege decimating Gaza’s society remained largely untold, confined to the dissident press and humanitarian groups.[24]

Most stories usually report on the violence and bloodshed between two forces, which are often implied to be equivalent both morally and physically. The day-to-day struggles of 1.4 million Palestinians enduring and resisting a 42-year old occupation do not fit neatly into the standard narrative of events describing the Palestinian-Israeli issue. It becomes easy for many to see ordinary Palestinians as nameless and faceless creatures, characters in a story taking place in a faraway land.

Israeli violence towards Gaza did not begin on the 27^th of December. As Amnety’s Janmohamed observed, the assault included the blockade and other attacks and incursions into Gaza, all of which started well before that Saturday morning in December.[25] The roots of the humanitarian disaster imposed by the Israeli need to be examined, he said, alluding to what one OXFAM official described as “a serious crime against humanity,”[26] a situation where 1.5 million people “are being punished for something they haven't done.”[27]

[This is the first part of a series on Gaza, Part II describes life under siege]

1. “‘U.S. and Iran Share an Equal Monopoly on Violence,’” Inter Press Service, January 23, 2009 http://www.ipsnews.net/print.asp?idnews=45526

2. Edwards Said and David Barsamian ,The Pen and the Sword, Common Courage Press, 1994, page 99

3. “'Gaza wears a face of misery,' Adam Makary, Al Jazeera” April 4, 2009 http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2009/04/20094313332943145.html

4. “UN: Gaza in worst condition since 1967” Ynet, http://www.ynetnews.com/Ext/Comp/ArticleLayout/CdaArticlePrintPreview/1,2506,L-3773955,00.html

5. “Israel wanted a humanitarian crisis” Ben White, Guardian, January 20, 2009 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/20/gaza-israelandthepalestinians

6. “If Gaza falls . . .”Sara Roy, the London Review of Books, January 1, 2009 http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n01/roy_01_.html

7. “'Gaza wears a face of misery,' Adam Makary, Al Jazeera” April 4, 2009 http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2009/04/20094313332943145.html

8. “How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe” Avi Shlaim, Guardian, January 7, 2009 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/07/gaza-israel-palestine

9. Avi Shlaim, Guardian:

“On 2 June 1948, Sir John Troutbeck wrote to the foreign secretary, Ernest Bevin, that the Americans were responsible for the creation of a gangster state headed by "an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders". I used to think that this judgment was too harsh but Israel's vicious assault on the people of Gaza, and the Bush administration's complicity in this assault, have reopened the question.”

“Leading Israeli Scholar Avi Shlaim: Israel Committing “State Terror” in Gaza Attack, Preventing Peace,” Democracy Now!, January 14, 2009 http://www.democracynow.org/2009/1/14/leading_israeli_scholar_avi_shlaim_israel

10. UN OCHA Report “Locked In:The humanitarian impact of two years of blockade on the Gaza Strip” footnote 36 http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.nsf/47D4E277B48D9D3685256DDC00612265/0DFF75BB11E6929285257612004B4859

11. Palestinian Center for Human Rights Press Release March 12, 2009 http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/PressR/English/2008/36-2009.html

12. “Disinformation, secrecy and lies: How the Gaza offensive came about” Haaretz, Barak Ravid http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1050426.html “IAF strike followed months of planning” Barak Ravid http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1050448.html

13. UN OCHA Report “Locked In”

14. Palestinian Center for Human Rights Press Release http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/PressR/English/2008/press.html

15. “The Gaza Offensive and the Laws of War with Zahir Janmohamed,” The Palestine Center January 23, 2009 http://www.thejerusalemfund.org/ht/display/ContentDetails/i/4022/pid/897

16. “UN Inquiry Finds Israel “Punished and Terrorized” Palestinian Civilians, Committed Acts of War During Gaza Assault, Democracy Now! September 16, 2009 http://www.democracynow.org/2009/9/16/un_inquiry_finds_israel_punished_and

17. “Israel's Bombing Campaign Will "Send Gaza Back Decades" Jonathan Cook, January 22, 2009 http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/121163

18. “The Dahiya strategy: Israel finally realizes that Arabs should be accountable for their leaders’ acts,” Ynet, Ynetnews.com, 6 Oct 2008 http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3605863,00.html

19. “Disproportionate Force: Israel’s Concept of Response in Light of the Second Lebanon War” Institute of National Security Studies, Insight No. 74, inss.org.il, 2 October 2008 http://www.inss.org.il/publications.php?cat=21&page=6

20. “Behind the Headlines of the Gaza Attacks” Aditya Ganapathiraju ZNet http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/20161

“Foiling Another Palestinian “Peace Offensive”: Behind the bloodbath in Gaza” Norman Finkelstein January 19, 2009 http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/finkelstein-on-gaza-war-massacre/

21. The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories

http://www.btselem.org/English/Press_Releases/20090909.asp

22. “Robert Fisk: Why do they hate the West so much, we will ask” Independent http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-why-do-they-hate-the-west-so-much-we-will-ask-1230046.html

“Robert Fisk: When journalists refuse to tell the truth about Israel” Independent

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-when-journalists-refuse-to-tell-the-truth-about-israel-681622.html

“Robert Fisk: Keeping out the cameras and reporters simply doesn't work” Independent

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-keeping-out-the-cameras-and-reporters-simply-doesnt-work-1225800.html

“Foreign reporters dub Israel 'military dictatorship'” Ynet http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3653154,00.html

23. “'I didn't see any of my girls, just a pile of bricks'” Guardian, December 30, 2008 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/30/israel-and-the-palestinians-middle-east

24. “Israel declares Gaza "enemy entity" (19 September 2007)” Electronic Intifada http://electronicintifada.net/bytopic/685.shtml

25. “The Gaza Offensive and the Laws of War with Zahir Janmohamed,” The Palestine Center January 23, 2009 http://www.thejerusalemfund.org/ht/display/ContentDetails/i/4022/pid/897

26. “Gaza: A humanitarian implosion: A report from eight UK human rights organizations says situation in Gaza worst since 1967” The Real News March 6, 2008

http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=1101

27. “New Report Finds Gaza Humanitarian Situation is Worst in 40 years” Voice of America News March 6, 2008 http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2008-03/2008-03-06-voa24.cfm?CFID=306830593&CFTOKEN=65036790&jsessionid=de30c06e056dbbc788ab7d61273855695769

"People say things are better this summer..."

This summer marks the third summer that I have come to Palestine to work with PMRS on a research project on mental health among women in the West Bank. A lot happened this year, including the election of Obama and the bombardment of Gaza this winter (for more on the impacts, check out older entries on this blog and http://www.emro.who.int/palestine/, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1057658.html, http://www.phr.org.il/phr/article.asp?articleid=702&catid=55&pcat=-1&lang=ENG.

People from Israel and the United States have told me that they are hearing that it's better now in the West Bank, especially that checkpoints have eased. So I've been asking Palestinians and looking for myself. Yes, some checkpoints are easier-for example, it was luxurious to drive into Nablus in a regular car without the usual checkpoint, where soldiers wouldn't let cars into the town. But, people in Palestine remind me about the dangers of saying "things are better than..."; the dangers of thinking that easing of abuse for one night or one week signifies real freedom, safety or sovereignty. Why should questions of basic human rights-such as ability to access health care, school, family be reduced to a question of scales of misery? Should Palestinians feel grateful that things are slightly better-knowing that the checkpoints can be reinstated at any time? Knowing, for example, that Atara checkpoint outside of Bir Zeit, which connects Ramallah with a main road, is still manned at the will of the Israelis? Or knowing that many-like the one above from a checkpoint in the West Bank this July- still exists the same as before?

The occupation of Palestine and the active de-development of infrastructure and society here continues. Like last year and the year before it, people tell me simply: This is not a life. And they say to tell people in the United States. Palestine is not in the midst of a "conflict", it is not even in the midst of a "war"; it is under occupation. The occupation is a military one, for sure. It is also a civilian one, seen in the ever-growing settlements-like the one in this photo from just outside Ramallah. And, even more this summer, I see that it is an economic one. 

Whether or not Obama will mandate real change in Israeli policy is still very unclear. Neither Palestinians nor the few Israelis I've spoken with are holding their breath.

What is it we say? Pessimism of intellect/experience, optimism of spirit? For sure, la lucha sigue. The struggle continues and I am grateful for those who lead it, here and at home. 

~in solidarity from Occupied Palestine

Cancer trauma inspires Palestinian animation film

By Mohammed Harmassi
BBC Arabic

A woman from Gaza stands at an Israeli check-point. We can only see her back but it is clear that in shame she opens her top to a female Israeli soldier to show that her breasts have been removed in an attempt to beat cancer. Despite this, she is refused entry to Israel on security grounds.

This is the climactic scene from the first major Palestinian attempt at an animated movie and it is based on a true story.

But this is not an anti-Israeli rant.

There are good and bad characters on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide.

The heroine of the movie is called Fatenah.

She is a Gazan woman whose dream of finding love and leading a normal life is torn apart by cancer and the conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis.

"Usually Palestinians are treated as numbers, but this is not the case here," said Saed Andoni, the film's producer. "Behind each number there is a long story and that is why we focus on this one individual."

True story

The animation tells of Fatenah's fight against cancer; the removal of both her breasts, Palestinian doctors who delayed her diagnosis and Israeli soldiers who delayed her treatment.

It also tells of a rare friendship between the Gazan and an Israeli woman, Dafna.

The animation is threaded together by a love story between Fatenah and a Gazan man.

The depiction of the impoverished coastal strip is condensed into harshly coloured scenes in the 30-minute animation; an Israeli checkpoint, crowded buildings and the sea.

Fatenah has large eyes and a small mouth - symbolic of a woman "compelled to a bitter existence but not empowered to speak", says director Ahmad Habash.

Fatenah's struggle and friendship with an Israeli woman is based on the real-life story of a Gazan woman named Fatma.

Her fight against breast cancer was told by the Israeli group "Physicians for Human Rights" in a 2005 report after the disease killed her.

"The report was so unbelievable, that when you read it you feel like it is fiction. It is absurd. You cannot believe that these things happen even though we as Palestinians live in this situation," says Mr Andoni.

Health care in Gaza is poor - a legacy of poor training, corruption and shabby equipment.

A blockade tightened after militant group Hamas seized power of Gaza in June 2007 has sealed people in, and kept many medical supplies out.

But Israel says it continues to allow in humanitarian goods despite the blockade.

Seriously ill residents must find treatment in Egypt, Israel, or cross from there to the West Bank or Jordan.

But it can take weeks for Palestinian bureaucrats to organise referrals and for Israel to approve entry.

Physicians for Human Rights says 12 residents have died unnecessarily from their illnesses after Israeli officials refused their applications to enter since Hamas took power.

Aggressive cancer

In 2004, 28-year-old Fatma felt a lump in her breast - Palestinian doctors said her cure was in having children or switching bras.

Months later they diagnosed aggressive cancer but refused to make a referral for her to be treated in Israel.

Fatma defiantly sent her medical report to an Israeli hospital where doctors said she needed immediate care.

Israeli activists lobbied defence officials to allow her to enter Israel, but she was frequently delayed and turned back by soldiers.

Sometimes, her ambulance was forced to return to Gaza because of fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants.

The report says the climatic scene in 'Fatenah,' where she is ordered to disrobe before an Israeli woman soldier took place in real-life in September 2004.

In the animation, Fatenah's back is to the camera, but she ashamedly reveals a bare shoulder, suggesting she is naked under her long Muslim robe.

In reality, Fatma wore a tee-shirt and a stuffed bra because her breasts were removed to try to halt the cancer.

She was lying on the floor because she was too weak to stand, and an Israeli soldier yelled at her to dress.

The report said she was then sent back into Gaza for failing a security check.

Sullied reputation

The film makers are at pains to say the animation is inspired by Fatma's story, but it isn't about her.

That nuance was lost in deeply conservative Gaza, where Fatma's family say it has sullied their deceased daughter's reputation because of Fatenah's innocent romance - there isn't any kissing or hand-holding - and the brief scene where her animated breast is shown in the movie.

The film took almost two years to make in the West Bank city of Ramallah on a budget of $60,000 (£36,400) provided by the World Health Organisation.

It will be sent to film festivals around the world and Mr Andoni said he hopes it lays the foundation for what will become a burgeoning Palestinian animation industry.


Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/8130934.stm

Published: 2009/07/03 06:33:49 GMT

© BBC MMIX

Justice Must Prevail: An American Doctor's Account

Published in the PalestineChronicle.com
05/29/09

By Bryan Saario

Following up upon a Christmas donation to Palestine Children's Relief Fund in 2006, I offered my services as a retired oral and maxillofacial surgeon for one of their future cleft palate missions to Palestine/Israel. I was looking for an opportunity to fulfill a sense of not having done quite enough during my professional career to justify the self indulgent life I was living as an affluent American retiree; and in my research of looking for worthy causes, I had uncovered a disturbing scene of utterly neglected children devoid of medical care, living in the desperate conditions of refugee camps in a time warp of 1948 when their grandparents and great grand- parents were forced to flee their farms and homes.

I eagerly accepted PCRF’s invitation to participate in a mission to the West Bank, and in April of 2007 entered though fortified gates and checkpoints into Nablus in the (militarily) occupied Palestinian territories and on to Rafidia Hospital where throngs of parents with their children awaited our surgical team. In a dawn-deep into the night schedule we operated on children who had a plethora of developmental and acquired facial disfigurements of cleft lips and palates, deformed and misaligned jaws, and untreated or poorly treated facial and traumatic jaw injuries stemming from the Israeli Palestinian conflict.

In my attempt to contribute something of value to a people in need, I found my specific surgical skills to be limited to an assistant surgeon’s role for the many cases which we treated. I soon realized though, that my unmet expectation of being able to find fulfillment in my personal mission was dwarfed by the misery of the people I had come to help. However serious might be the physical maladies that I observed around me, the spiritual and mental impairment caused by sixty years of oppressive occupation was by far the most serious injury to be seen, and it was afflicting the entire Palestinian population.

I had expected to see general deprivation in the Palestinian population before I arrived, and that in good part was why I chose to come to this part of the world and contribute in some way, but the desperation and hopelessness that I observed in their plight was overwhelming. It astounded me that a tragedy of this proportion could go on and be glossed over by the main stream media outlets of Western television, radio, and newspapers. Here in Palestine was occurring a human tragedy that matched the greatest injustices in modern history; meanwhile Americans were being led to believe that Israelis are innocent victims of constant Arab terrorism, and all Palestinians are terrorists that inflict rocket attacks and suicide bombers on a civilian population without cause or reason.

The Israeli public relations program makes seemingly plausible statements that depict a scenario of Israeli reasonableness and a Palestinian position of irrational and ill founded demands for a just settlement in a well coordinated script with the Western media that belies both reality on the ground and the truth. Nowhere in American reporting is the story of the Palestinian Nakba or Diaspora ever presented on a level that gives unassailable reverence to the preservation of Israeli Statehood at the expense of the Palestinian people.

My observations of ongoing, constant oppression of the people in the occupied territories were enlivened by the many stories I heard from Palestinians with whom I came into contact while on the mission, and was given historical context after arriving back in the U.S. and reading The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Israeli historian Ilan Pappe. In his accounting of the take-over of the Palestinian lands by European Jews in 1947-1948, based upon reports uncovered in Israeli Defense Force files, he described the extermination of whole Palestinian villages in such a way that all romantic notions of Israeli Nationhood were over shadowed by the truth of reality.

The ongoing racism, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, non judicial executions, house demolitions, confinement within their isolated towns, villages, and enclaves with restriction of travel to anywhere outside their locale, land confiscation, imprisonment without trial, and denial of civil and human rights – are all well documented by United Nations agencies, Israeli and International human rights organizations, and Israeli and Western peace activist groups – so why doesn’t the world community speak out against the Israeli elephant sitting in the living room of human rights violations? The collective will of nations of good conscience forced the compliance of South Africa in regard to democratic reform. Why can that not be done in regard to Israel and its egregious mal treatment of its occupied population?

If Israel is to be brought into the community of nations that conforms to upholding basic human rights for all inhabitants subject to their authority, so must its chief progenitor, the United States, be brought into alignment with the force of boycott, divestment, and sanctions. This measure can only be achieved through courageous United Nations leadership accompanied by concurrent enforcement of United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 (which provided the basis for the creation of Israel), United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194, and United Nations Security Council Resolution 242.

The insanity that allows Israel alone to determine the destiny of seven million displaced and dispossessed people must be rectified, and nowhere else can that be better accomplished than in the chambers of the United States Congress. Our Representatives and Senators must be weaned from the financial draw strings of an Israeli First lobby, and made to respond to the wishes of their constituencies that have overwhelmingly stated that we want an even handed and fair American foreign policy to bring justice and peace to the Middle East.

- Bryan Saario, D.D.S., M.D., is a retired oral and maxillofacial surgeon.
He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.

Clips from a documentary about health and human rights in Palestine (2002)

Clips from Dying to Live, a documentary film by Amineh Ayyad about health and human rights in Palestine. Shot in 2002. Interviews with Drs: Mustafa Barghouthi (Palestinian Medical Relief Society), Eyad El Sarraj (Gaza Community Mental Health Program), Ruchama Marton (Israeli Physicians for Human Rights).

CLOSED ZONE: 'Waltz With Bashir' Animator Makes Film On Gaza (VIDEO)

AP | March 4, 2009 02:25 PM

RAMALLAH, West Bank -- An Israeli creator of the Oscar-nominated "Waltz with Bashir" released a short film Wednesday about the effects of his country's Gaza blockade on Palestinians.

Yoni Goodman said he hoped the 90-second animated film, "Closed Zone," would draw attention to the plight of Gaza's civilians.

"People talk about Hamas, but there are many civilians there who are not Hamas supporters but who are suffering from this blockade," the animator said.

Israel has kept Gaza's borders largely sealed since the Islamic militant Hamas took over the seaside territory in June 2007. Since then, Israeli has heavily restricted Palestinians from leaving Gaza and limited the goods that can enter.



The closed borders are a major issue in both peace talks and proposals to reconstruct Gaza after Israel's three-week offensive ended in January. Both Palestinians and international aid groups say the borders must be opened to allow in much-needed living supplies.

Goodman said he began the film before Israel launched its offensive against Gaza's ruling Hamas militants in December, but the conflict affected the story.

The film, a combination of animation and real-life scenes, follows a boy chasing a blue bird while large hands block his way. The hands cut Gaza's borders in the ground with a giant cookie-cutter, then prevent the boy from crossing.

ISRAEL-OPT: Hotlines support Gaza residents

humanitarian news and analysis
UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

RAMALLAH, 15 January 2009 (IRIN) - Palestinians in Gaza, who are becoming increasingly traumatised as Israel’s bombardment of the tiny coastal enclave continues, are reaching out for psycho-social support via toll-free crisis-lines run by NGOs and aid agencies.

Residents have been trapped in their homes since the Israeli offensive began on 27 December 2008, without electricity and running water, while sanitation systems have collapsed. Some 56 percent of Gaza’s 1.5 million residents are children.

The telephone network - both land lines and the mobile phone network - has been severely damaged but it is still possible, for example, to dial 121 from a Jawal (Palestinian mobile phone company) phone and access the hotlines. Communications tend to improve at night when the number of calls increases.

One of the most popular crisis-lines is run by Sawa, meaning “together”, a Palestinian NGO in the West Bank town of Ramallah.

“We are receiving 200-250 calls per day,” its director, Jalal Khadar, told IRIN. His staff of 14 are working 24 hours a day to field the calls, which are treated confidentially.

Sami (not his real name), a 13-year-old from Rafah, called for support after he witnessed his three friends die in an aerial bombing near his home.

“I was playing with my friends when the plane attacked - they were cut to pieces,” Sami told the social worker fielding his call, according to a transcript Sawa retained from the call. “It would have been better to have died with them,” he said.

Social worker Abed Rahhal, 28, told IRIN: “We do our best to listen. About 70 percent of the callers are children and most children tell me they are afraid to die.”


“There is nowhere safe”

Rahhal also fielded a call from Hanan (not her real name), another 13-year-old from Rafah, after the house adjacent to hers was bombed, shattering the windows and doors of her home.

''I was playing with my friends when the plane attacked - they were cut to pieces. It would have been better to have died with them.''

Ten family members are staying in her grandfather’s home, she said, after Hanan’s family was forced to evacuate their home in Gaza City due to the shelling and bombing.

“We are dying - there is nowhere safe,” said Hanan over the phone. “We are so frightened.” IRIN was able to listen to Hanan’s call.

“I instruct the callers to take shelter in stairwells, or at least to stand together against the walls,” said Rahhal.

The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), in partnership with the Palestinian Centre for Democracy and Conflict Resolution in Gaza, is operating a 24-hour help-line offering support to residents. “Most parents report panic and fear amongst their children,” UNICEF spokesperson Monica Awad, based in Jerusalem, told IRIN.

World Health Organization (WHO) mental health officer Ragiah Abu-Sway, based in Jerusalem, told IRIN by phone: “The circling drones make people agitated and nervous. For sure this is psychological warfare.”

[ENDS]
Report can be found online at:
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=82377

Gaza children increasingly traumatised according to experts

RAMALLAH (WEST BANK), 13 January 2009 (IRIN) - As the Israeli aerial and ground bombardment continues in Gaza, the number of trauma cases is growing, say specialists.

“The whole community is vulnerable to the intensity of the attacks and the loss of family members that will not only cause post-traumatic stress disorder, but other mood and anxiety disorders as well,” World Health Organization (WHO) mental health officer Ragiah Abu-Sway, based in Jerusalem, told IRIN by phone.

“The reality is that this current violence is already compounding high levels of trauma in children in Gaza,” said World Vision UK’s head of emergency affairs, Ian Gray. “There’s the initial impact on children, which we’re already seeing - frequent bed-wetting, nightmares, and a heartbreaking loss of hope - but there’s also the long-term trauma that will devastate for years to come.”

Specialists say the sound of bomb explosions could cause pregnant women to miscarry or have premature or still births. However, bombs are not the only source of trauma: “The leaflets and phone calls [from the Israeli military calling on residents to evacuate their homes] are also traumatising,” said Abu-Sway.

According to the Gaza health ministry, as of 12 January 910 Palestinians have been killed, including 85 women and 292 children. Some 4,250 people have been injured, including 1,497 children and 626 women.

“People are vulnerable, frightened and defenceless,” psychiatrist Eyad Al-Sarraj, director of the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme which operates three mental health clinics in Gaza, told IRIN by phone. “People are in a state of heightened anxiety, on constant alert due to the bombing.”



Trapped

Residents have been trapped in their homes since the Israeli offensive began on 27 December 2008, without electricity and running water, while sanitation systems have collapsed.

“Children are scared, cold - particularly at night - and trapped,” UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) spokesperson Merixie Mercato, based in Jerusalem, told IRIN. “It’s going to take time and a great deal of support for them to recover.”

Since the ground invasion began on 3 January, 85 percent of the mobile phone network is down and a huge number of fixed lines are damaged or lack electricity, reported OCHA. This further isolates the population and causes them heightened anxiety, say specialists.

As of 12 January, 28,116 residents had fled to 36 UNRWA (UN agency for Palestinian refugees) shelters, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which says tens of thousands have sought refuge in other locations.

However, there are few safe places to flee to: As Hamas runs the civil police, schools and hospitals it is difficult for civilians to find an area without a Hamas institution, say local residents.

Dwindling food, water supplies

Dwindling food and drinking water supplies are causing widespread panic, according to residents.

Hashem (who did not want to give his last name), a 24-year-old pharmacist from Gaza City, feels isolated without electricity, depending on his friends in the West Bank to relay the latest news via telephone.

“I can hear the bombing from inside my house in Tal Al-Hawa. Every window in our home has been shattered,” Hashem told IRIN by phone. “People are hysterical, suffering from terrible anxiety - there is no safe place in Gaza, even at home.”

Three of the five community mental health centres run by the health ministry are operating in Gaza for a limited duration during the mornings. One centre was damaged by the bombing and another, surrounded by Israeli forces, cannot be accessed, said WHO’s Abu-Sway. UNRWA is offering psycho-social counselling at its emergency shelters, he said.

UNICEF, in partnership with the Palestinian Centre for Democracy and Conflict Resolution in Gaza, is operating a 24-hour toll-free help-line offering support to Gaza residents. “Most parents report panic and fear amongst their children,” UNICEF spokesperson Monica Awad, based in Jerusalem, told IRIN.


[ENDS]
Report can be found online at:
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=82335

Meet the children left to die among the bodies of their parents and families

Toll on Gaza's children 3:53 Louis-Georges Arsenault of UNICEF's Emergency Programmes tells CNN Gaza children are facing an unbearable situation.

New Restrictions on Mobility of Medical Personnel in the West Bank

As of Sunday, November 2nd, 2008, new Israeli army guidelines are in force, requiring Palestinian medical personnel from the West Bank who work in Jerusalem hospitals to come in only through the Qalandiya checkpoint in Ramallah.  Medical personnel from the West Bank are prohibited from coming to work through other checkpoints, even if these are closer to where they live.

Since November 2nd, 2008, many medical personnel who have been prevented by the military authorities from going to work have contacted Physicians for Human Rights–Israel, the Palestineian Medical Relief Society.  Today, Tuesday, November 4th, 2008, about 100 Palestinian medical personnel held a demonstration at the Qalandiya terminal to protest the new restrictions.

Requiring all Palestinian medical personnel to come to work via the Qalandiya terminal forces them to go through many checkpoints inside the West Bank, spend many hours on the road and on long lines at the Qalandiya terminal, which is more crowded than any of the other checkpoints on the West Bank, in order to get to work.  This, despite the fact that they carry documents authorizing them to travel to their workplaces in Israel.

Not only does this new regulation disrupt the schedules of these medical personnel, delays them and makes them late for work, but it also disrupts the orderly operation of the hospitals in which they are employed, rather than making it easier for this segment of the work force that needs accessible, fast and unrestricted passage through the checkpoints.

This restriction is another addition to the ongoing Israeli policy intended to weaken the connection between Palestinian hospitals in East Jerusalem and the population of the West Bank, in an attempt to harm their special status as Palestinian institutions operating in Jerusalem. Using “bureaucratic” methods and/or “security” arguments for political purposes is an attempt to deceive everyone involved as well as the international community, and in fact represents a change in the status quo in Jerusalem that Israel has committed itself to preserve.

Physicians for Human Rights-Israel and the Palestinian Medical Relief Society demand that this restriction be lifted immediately, and calls upon the Israeli medical community, and the international medical community, to intervene now in order to protect the right of Palestinian medical personnel to travel freely for their work.

For additional information please contact Mr. Ran Yaron, Director of  the Occupied Territories department, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, Tel. +972-(0)54-757-7696, e-mail: ranyaron@phr.org.il
Or Ms. Bahia Amra, External Relations Department, Palestinian Medical Relief Society- Ramallah. Tel. +972- (0)59-994-0073, e-mail: bahiaamra@hotmail.com 

International participants in conference on Gaza siege denied entry

Oct. 28, 2008

Jerusalem / PNN - The Israeli administration denied entrance to a major group of international academics, physicians and health professionals seeking to participate in a Gaza Strip conference.

“Siege and Mental Health, Walls vs. Bridges” will now be held via video conference on Monday and Tuesday instead of face-to-face due to the siege it intends to discuss.

Although the 120 slated participants in the Gaza Community Mental Health Program conference had applied for prior permission to pass the Erez Checkpoint, Israeli forces denied all entry permits without offering a reason.

Participants issued a statement reading in part, “We, the conference participants, protest this last-minute decision by the Israeli authorities and regard it as a deliberate attempt to stop professional communication and exchange between the international medical community and Gaza medical professionals.”

At a Sunday press conference in East Jerusalem, Professor Alice Rothschild, Harvard Medical School, USA, Professor Dr. W.H.G. Wolters, the Netherlands, Professor Federico Allodi, University of Toronto, Canada, Dr. Ghada Karmi, University of Exeter, UK, Professor James Deutsch, University of Toronto, Canada, Judy Deutsch, psychiatric social worker, Toronto, Canada, and Dr. Eyyad Sarraj, of Gaza who spoke via telephone today, expressed their protest.

The two-day conference, co-sponsored by the World Health Organization, will cover the impact of the ongoing Israeli siege on physical and medical health in the Gaza Strip. Prepared presentations include work on violence, social stress, poverty and children’s mental health. After being denied entry permits for Gaza the international participants decided to come to the West Bank in a stated show of support for the besieged residents of the Gaza Strip. They will join in the conference via video from Ramallah.

A request for entry for 80 of the international experts from countries such as the US, UK, Canada, Holland and Italy was submitted to the Israeli administration by the WHO Gaza office on 28 September. But on 13 October the Israeli military at Erez informed the WHO that all of the requests were denied without giving any reason.

Settlements

Mechanisms of Israeli rule in the West Bank include control of the movement of populations along roads through checkpoints, random arrests and detainments, and home demolitions. The occupation also takes on a civilian aspect, as Israeli settlers move into Palestinian areas, a practice that began in 1967 and now amounts to 450,000 settlers in 149 settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. While settling civilians into occupied terrorities is contrary to international law, the settlement population continues to grow at a rate of more than double that of the population expansion in Israel; growth rate averages at 5.5% a year between 1987 and 2004 (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN-OCHA), 2007b).


The now more than 149 Jewish-only settlements in the West Bank are an integral component of the Israeli closure policies and practices. Despite the 4th Geneva Convention prohibition on moving civilian populations into occupied territories, the settlement population in Palestine increased by almost 150% between 1987 and 2004, now totaling 450,000 (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN-OCHA), 2007b). The United Nations Security Council and the International Court of Justice have declared the continued establishment of settlements illegal. These settlements are linked to each other through a comprehensive network of roads and tunnels, on which Palestinians are not allowed to travel.


In the time between last summer and this summer, settlements in the West Bank appear to have increased. In a recent trip with the mobile clinic, I saw many road signs with the Arabic either crossed out or covered with stickers advertising settlements.

News of settler violence has increased sharply. Ha’aretz ran a story this morning about a settler who threw a brick through the car of a Palestinian woman and her smal child. In the evening, Ma’an News reported that Israeli settlers attacked a wedding partyi in Al Khalil (Hebron), and pushed a 15 year old Palestinian boy from his roof, breaking ihis back. (http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=30999)

On the 25th of July Ma’an News reported “three Israeli settlers, one masked and wielding a stick, pursued 14 Palestinian children who were on their way to a summer camp.” Although there had been an arrangement that Israeli military would excort the children, military personeel never arrived to do so. A few days later, there were reports that American solidarity workers from Christian Peacemakers who arrived to escort the children had been attacked by settlers so severely that one had to be taken to the hospital to treat a head injury he sustained. (http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=30855)

In all sorts of settings in Palestine, acts of violence are often extreme and sudden-house invasions, arrests, beatings. But there is another sort of violence that is slower, often more deliberate, and sustained over time. Through research we’ve been working on this summer we’ve heard many stories from women about the unrelenting stressors of occupation that rarely make the news. Settlements, perched on hills surrounding Palestinian villages, connected by roads accessible only to Israelis, suffocate both the tangible resources in Palestine and the ability of one’s mind to relax and simply enjoy a view. There was only one village in Palestine where I had the pleasure of looking at simple hills of Palestine. It’s a valuable and rare memory...sitting on a roof, eating watermelon, imagining what it must have been like before all of this...

Ten-year-old boy killed by Israeli forces during clashes in Ni'lin

Maan News Agency
Date: 29 / 07 / 2008 Time: 19:59

Ramallah – Ma'an – Ten-year-old Ahmad Husam Yousef Musa was killed by Israeli forces on Tuesday evening during clashes in the village of Ni'lin, west of Ramallah.

Eyewitnesses reported that the child was shot in the head and died immediately. His body was transferred to Ramallah hospital.

The former mayor of Ni'lin, Muhammad Srour, told Ma'an that while the Israeli bulldozers were finishing their daily work on the separation wall in the village, Israeli troops fired live ammunition directly at demonstrators who had gathered at the wall construction site.

Ni'lin residents have staged daily protests and marches against the separation wall, which is being built on the village's land. Some 77 demonstrations, sit-ins, and protests against the wall have been held in the village so far. The Israeli military frequently responds by shooting tear gas, sound bombs, rubber-coated metal bullets and live ammunition towards demonstrators and bystanders.

The Israeli wall will confiscate some 2,500 dunams of land belonging to the village, whose residents depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. A dunam is 1,000 square metres or approximately a quarter of an acre.

-http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=30905

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Israeli soldiers Tuesday fired shots near a group of Palestinian youths during a demonstration in the West Bank, killing a 9-year-old boy, eyewitnesses told CNN.

The Israeli military released a statement saying it is "conducting a careful and thorough examination" into the reported incident, including a joint medical investigation with Palestinian medical personnel.

The military said the head of Israel's Central Command, Maj. Gen. Gadi Shamni, "is following the investigation closely."

The incident happened during a demonstration against an Israeli security barrier near the village of Nil'in, which is near Ramallah.

There have been numerous demonstrations near the village in recent months against the security barrier that Palestinians say will result in the seizure of their land.

Israel says the security barrier is necessary to prevent terrorists from entering Israel and taking lives. But Palestinians say the barrier is an illegal land grab that also restricts them from traveling to work in Israel.

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/07/29/israel.palestinians/index.html

The Wall: Four Years After International Court Decision...

Yesterday, July 9, marked the four-year anniversary of the decision by the International Court of Justice that declared the construction of the Israeli Apartheid Wall illegal. (International Court of Justice, 2004) The 8-meter high, 436-mile long wall is a part of the growing geography of occupation in Palestine, where districts, towns, and even homes themselves, have been severed. The Palestinian Grassroots Anti Apartheid Wall Campaign notes that there are 17 enclaves “walled from three sides and tightly controlled from the fourth side.” (Palestinian Grassroots Anti Apartheid Wall Campaign, 2007) In some districts, the wall includes watchtowers with snipers every 400 meters, while in others there are electic fences, trace paths, barbed wire, cameras and trenches. (Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2004; Palestine Monitor, 2007)


Israeli occupation measures include stringent physical acts, such as the wall and associated physical measures (checkpoints, tunnels, gates, etc.), but also active economic measures, such as the Israeli control of water and agricultural land. The ruling notes “the wall will effectively annex most of the Western aquifer system (which provides 51%per cent of the West Banks’ water resources).” These measures are part of a program of active impoverishment of the Palestinian population, who suffer from what Sara Roy describes as de-development: “the deliberate, systematic deconstruction of an indigenous economy by a dominant power (Roy, 1995).” 43% of Palestinians fall below the poverty line and 15% live in deep poverty. The national GDP dropped 20% from 1999-2005. Unemployment in 2005 was 23%, and 35% among youth ages 20-24 (World Bank, 2005). The World Bank notes: “The inability of the Palestinian economy to fully use its productive potential is first and foremost the result of restrictions on the movement of people and goods (UNICEF; World Bank, 2006).”

Here in Palestine, communities have organized nonviolent protests against the continued construction of the wall. In the town of Ni’lin, ordinary citizens have been protesting since May. 26 people have been arrested, 160 have been injured by rubber coated steel bullets, and a PMRS ambulance was shot at. Live ammunition has been used on citizens who were peacefully protesting.

Many of us around the world work on issues dear to us that reflect the sacredness of human rights, self-determination, and international law. Some take exceptionally determined stands, compelled to extinguish the silence that atrocities require. I have been lucky enough to know some of these people...from an Army Lieutenant at Fort Lewis, Washington all the way to community organizers, educators, health workers, and citizens in Palestine. Knowing of their acts has made me wonder in the past few years what international law means to us all-especially those of us from occupying powers-and what we can do to burn its importance back into our collective memory.



The text of the decision:

“[By fourteen votes to one]:
The construction of the wall being built by Israel, the occupying Power, in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including in and around East Jerusalem, and its associated régime, are contrary to international law; Israel is under an obligation to terminate its breaches of international law; it is under an obligation to cease forthwith the works of construction of the wall being built in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including in and around East Jerusalem, to dismantle forthwith the structure therein situated, and to repeal or render ineffective forthwith all legislative and regulatory acts relating thereto, in accordance with paragraph 151 of this Opinion; Israel is under an obligation to make reparation for all damage caused by the construction of the wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including in and around East Jerusalem.”

Yours in struggle from occupied Palestine~

(for a primer on the wall: www.palestinemonitor.org/spip/spip.php?article4)