Today I went to my corner shop to get bread for my breakfast. It was closed - two members of the family had been killed in Israeli airstrikes overnight. Like every Gazan, they never know when they leave the house in the morning if they, their child, their brother,sister, mother, father, friend will return home alive.
And if they do make it home, will there be electricity to read or study, will there be gas to cook with, will there be medicine for the sick? Will the international community take responsibility today for enabling with its silence, Israel's killing of their loved ones, by both quick deaths and slow?
Click for big version
Is this child a terrorist or collateral damage?
Take the seven-year-old brain-dead child pictured, admitted to Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City while I was there this-morning - does he look like a terrorist? Or like a civilian victim of collateral damage?
Take the 12 killed overnight, and at last count, the three more killed today - 'terrorists about to attack Israel' says the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) to justify their attacks on innocent civilians going about their daily business, walking in the street, going to school.
"Rockets have been fired at Israel" they say the reports [News links: Jerusalem Post - Times Of Israel], failing to mention the number of rockets, missiles and other weaponry they themselves fired at Gaza before Gazans fired even one rocket in retaliation to Israel's breaking of the ceasefire.
"Four Israeli's have been injured, one critically" says a report, ignoring the double-digit deaths of Gazans and scores injured by Israel in the same period.
Whatever happened to civilised legal practices such as due process? Since when it is okay to decide, without producing a shred of evidence, that it is acceptable to murder someone because you think they might do something bad in the future? No, not murder – butcher them. The last 24 hours have seen Israel fine-tune their terrorism into the most macabre and pathological form of video-game-like carnage.
Where in August they used prohibited weapons to target lower and upper limbs, leaving surviving victims severely disabled from amputations, this time round they are targeting the head. There are no survivors from these attacks.
As Dr Ayman Al-Sahbani, of Al Shifa Hospital Emergency Department told me today, most of the dead had had their heads blown off – there was just nothing there.
As for the ‘collateral damage’ – the twenty-something injured (including women, children, and the elderly) because they happened to be walking in the street where Israel decided to take out a car, a motorbike - what sort of treatment can they receive when an already overcrowded, under-resourced and under-staff emergency department with only 3-4 doctors already coping with 150 patients in two hours is inundated with by victims of Israeli attacks?
When the hospital is suffering electricity cuts because there is no diesel to run the power plant, when it is suffering medicine and medical supply shortages of 185 essential medicines and over 200 essential medical supplies such as gloves, alcohol, sutures? When there are no more beds left to admit them? How can Gazans survive?
These are questions the international community must answer – and fast.
Whether having your head blown off by an illegal Israeli weapon and dying quickly, or whether dying the slow death of deprivation of the most fundamental resources needed to sustain life, such as electricity, gas, and medicines, the end result is the same – the killing of Gaza through Israeli action, and international inaction.
These atrocities must STOP, and stop NOW.
"We hope the Israelis will stop the attacks"
Part two of interview with Dr Al-Sahbani - Gaza March 11 2012
Part two of interview with Dr Al-Sahbani - Gaza March 11 2012
"They can die, and all the world sees this..."
Part three of interview with Dr Al-Sahbani - Gaza March 11 2012
Part three of interview with Dr Al-Sahbani - Gaza March 11 2012
Julie Webb-Pullman (click to view previous articles) is a New Zealand based freelance writer who has reported for Scoop since 2003. She has been reporting from Gaza for most of the past year and is one of a handful of Western journalists located in the besieged Palestinian city.
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!
0 Have Your Say!:
Post a Comment