During Thursday's clash between IDF troops, Palestinian gunmen apparently hit
By Israeli mortar shells;
Earlier, IDF said Palestinian fire killed girl
How did she die? An IDF probe into a clash between soldiers and Gaza gunmen shows that a girl killed in the shootout was hurt by Israeli fire, army officials said late Thursday.
Earlier, the army said the Palestinian teenager was likely killed by Palestinian fire, but the investigation later revealed that this was likely not the case.
A 17-year-old girl was killed in the incident and 11 others were wounded, the Palestinians said.
Israeli fire kill girl (Photo: AFP)
An IDF force on patrol came under fire near the Gaza border fence Thursday, the army said, adding that troops responded by directing mortar shells at the Palestinian side. At this time it is unclear why the shells hurt a group of Palestinian civilians. The possibilities being examined are that the victims were in close proximity to the gunmen, or that troops erred while aiming their mortar fire.
"The debriefing continues and it's too early to draw final conclusions," an IDF official said. However, he added that the probe increasingly showed that the Palestinian civilians were mistakenly hit by IDF fire.
During operation Cast Lead in Gaza, a tactical error in the activation of the mortar system used in Thursday's incident led to the wounding of several IDF soldiers. The system in question is considered more accurate and less powerful than the firing of tank shells.
Meanwhile, IDF forces uncovered two explosive devices at the border fence near the site of the clash. The bombs did not explode during the incident. Army officials noted that the troops who came under attack initially prepared to cross the fence into Gaza, but eventually decided to fire mortar shells at the Palestinian gunmen.
Hamas did not rush to address the incident, and by Thursday night no Palestinian organization claimed responsibility for the attack on the IDF force.
Monday
In Um al Nasser, I meet 17-year old Saleh Ahmed al Madani who was injured in three places from Israeli ‘flechette’ shelling. The small, razor-sharp darts pierced and remain lodged in his neck, shoulder, and calf muscle.
Tuesday
A demonstration is being held on the road leading to Erez crossing. It is led by women, civil society groups, the disabled, and joined by international supporters. The visuals are impressive; an array of beautifully-crafted posters, flags, and stage prop reminders: two men in medics uniforms carry a wheelchair-laden stretcher, highlighting the need, not only for Erez to open, but for all the crossings to open for the ill, the disabled, and those seeking treatment unavailable within Gaza. Over 330 medical patients have died from being denied treatment due to the siege-closed crossings.
Wednesday
I stop by the beach camp home of Rafiq, a fishermen we know. He was severely injured while fishing in his small hassaka, a non-threatening boat barely larger than a surfboard, when Israeli soldiers opened fire on him with exploding ‘dum-dum’ bullets.
“I plunged deep into the water after I was shot. My brother just managed to fish me out,” said Rafiq.
His health is finally improving, though he still has multiple shrapnel shards from the two exploding bullets which blasted him.
‘Abu Adham stops by, to talk about his larger fishing trawler, which was stolen by the Israeli navy on Monday. His son and five others were kidnapped, beaten, interrogated, and finally released without charge in the late evening that day. This is not the first time ‘Abu Adham’s boat has been stolen; he, and over three thousand fishermen are braving it and facing unjust collective punishment for trying to eek out a living well-within Palestinian fishing waters.
Thursday
At the Palestinian Water Authority (PWA) office I spoke with Mohamed Ahmed, director of Water Control, about the situation of Gaza’s water. He updates me on the post-war destruction. From, the Coastal Water Municipalities and Utilities meeting the other day, I have learned about Israel’s targeting of water and waste-water treatment and storage facilities during the war on Gaza. Despite having the coordinates of such plants, Israeli soldiers bombed and bulldozed plants and piping, wreaking more havoc on an already dilapidated sewage and treatment system on the verge of another overflow.
I leave the PWA not wanting to enjoy the fresh sea air: as tons of sewage are pumped into the sea, in need of treatment. Surely bacteria must be in that fine sea mist one breathes; certainly it is in the water, and the fish.
Friday
It is Friday and I need to catch up with my friends in Ezbet Abed Rabbo. Walking past the hollowed houses, some with curtains feebly attempting to serve as walls, others with random blocks and stones providing privacy, others still gaping, I pass the bombed masjid, and turn onto the sandy path leading to my friends’ home. This walk will always carry the memories of the massacre; walking here before nightfall to stay with these friends, walking from here after checking out the night’s bombing, the new craters that formed, and running here to search for the elderly patriarch who refused to leave his neighborhood.
It has only been just over five months since Israel’s large-scale bombings (I refuse to use the term ‘cease-fire’, when Israel is still shelling tunnels, border areas, the sea, shooting farmers, fishermen and civilians). But, while five months should be enough time to see some changes in the destroyed landscape –if cement were allowed in by the controlling Israeli authorities –it is not enough time to forget the pain and fear.
I learn that Besam is getting some psychological help in the summer camps. She, the 14-year-old, is still afraid to walk in her own stairwell at night, and will not go near her martyred mother’s room.
My friends cover their pain and welcome me back, chiding me for taking so long in between visits, as we settle down for coffee on their shell-scarred veranda.
Saturday
Unabashed revelry, a party for a Gaza NGO. Arms flailing, hips shaking, and these are the men!
I never see this gay abandon outside of Palestine, not with the same intensity, an intensity (friends tell me) induced by an urgent desire to celebrate life, to find some joy in a miserable situation. All this is induced by the flick of a switch and the start of a song.
It is beautiful, humbling, inspiring, comical, and defiant.
Sunday
We go to the east of Beit Hanoun, in Gaza’s north, to search for a teenager missing nearly two months. Since April 21, the family of Ahmed Abu Hashish have believed him to be dead, likely shot by Israeli soldiers stationed along the Green Line. The family suspect the worst as it is well-known, and well-documented that Israeli soldiers shoot at anyone moving in the Israeli-imposed “buffer zone”.
After searching - under Israeli fire - for roughly 20 minutes, we find the youth’s body, 54 days decayed. Ahmed’s father, Abu Ayesh, is searching with us; he is not spared the agonizing truth of his son’s murder, nor of his post-death decomposition. Moreover, he is not spared the Israeli gunfire.
Such is life in Gaza; the borders, the economy, the sea, and life (militarily) is controlled by Israel.
Eva Bartlett is a Canadian human rights advocate and freelancer who spent eight months in 2007 living in West Bank communities and four months in Cairo and at the Rafah crossing. She is currently based inGaza, after the third successful voyage of the Free Gaza movement to break the siege on Gaza. She can be contacted at youth_campaign@iolteam.com
The UN panel heard emotional testimony from residents during the inquiry on Sunday
A UN human rights mission on the Gaza conflict is hearing from a range of experts on the social and the psychological effect of Israel's 22-day war on Gaza.
On the second of the two-day inquiry on Monday, a child psychologist told the panel that an estimated 20 per cent of children in Gaza suffer post-traumatic stress syndrome as a result of witnessing violence.
Dr Iyad Sarraj said: "The amount of killing and blood that they have seen or that their relatives have suffered from ... Is a huge amount, and this leads to negative psychological feelings, to radicalism and a cycle of violence."
Lost livelihoods
Al Jazeera's Sherine Tadros in Gaza, where more than half of the population of 1.5 million people is under 18-years of age, said Sarraj told the panel that six months after the war the trauma is still present among children.
In depth
Video: Gaza war testimony
The waste of Israel's Gaza war
'Go back and die in Gaza'
Two years after Hamas seized Gaza
Witness: The hostages of Gaza
Focus on Gaza
"During the war we spent the night with a family and we saw first hand the kind of trauma that Dr Sarraj was talking about in terms of the children and how frightened they were when the bombs were going off," she said.
The panel also heard from the head of a women's group in Gaza City, who said that most of those who died in the conflict were men, leaving behind the women they provided a livelihood for, Tadros said.
"Even months after the war the women are still suffering because they have lost their livelihood and have to go out and work," she said, adding that this was flagged up as a "major problem".
The hearing, which is being broadcast live for the public, will also include testimony from experts on the military operation on the Palestinian enclave.
The panel is to hold a second round of public hearings on July 6 and 7 in Geneva where it will hear from the victims of alleged violations in Israel and the West Bank.
The UN chose the Swiss city as the venue of the second round of hearings because the fact-finding mission did not receive permission to enter Israel.
The public hearings were called for by Richard Goldstone, the head of the 15-member team and previously a member of the South African constitutional court.
The mission is due to complete a report with its findings in August.
Israeli offensive
Israel launched its offensive against Gaza on December 27, citing rocket attacks from the enclave that caused injuries to residents and damage to property in Sderot and other towns.
The military operation killed more than 1,400 Palestinians, including more than 900 civilians, among them scores of children, according to Palestinian officials and human rights groups.
It also destroyed thousands of homes and heavily damaged Gaza's infrastructure.
Israel says the death toll was lower and most of the dead were Hamas fighters.
Thirteen Israelis were also killed during the fighting.
Gaza's reconstruction is being hampered by Israel's blockade of Gaza, which dates back to June 2007 when Hamas took control of the territory.
Since then, Israel and Egypt, which control Gaza's only border crossing that bypasses Israel, have kept the territory of 1.5 million aid-dependent people sealed to all but essential humanitarian supplies.
Israel has insisted that the blockade is necessary to prevent Hamas from arming itself. Human-rights groups say it is a "collective punishment" that wrongly hurts ordinary civilians.
The fact-finding mission is mandated by the UN to investigate all violations of international human rights and humanitarian laws that might have been committed at any time in the context of the military operations conducted in Gaza.
Source: Al Jazeera and agencies
The ICRC says that thousands of Gazans whose homes were destroyed by Israel’s war remain without shelter.
CAIRO — Six months after a deadly Israeli offensive and two years of a stifling blockade, Palestinians in the war-ravaged Gaza Strip are “trapped in despair” as they struggle to survive, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said in a report on Monday, June 29.
“The people living there find themselves unable to rebuild their lives and are sliding ever deeper into despair,” said the “Gaza: 1.5 Million People Trapped in Despair” report.
The ICRC says that the more than six months after the three-week assault Israeli launched last December, Gazans still can not rebuild their shattered lives.
ICRC's report
Israel Forces Gaza into Mud Homes
Gaza Sea… Bullet for Each Fish
The onslaught, which killed more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians, wrecked havoc on the Gaza infrastructure, leaving nearly 20,000 homes and thousands of other buildings damaged.
The ICRC affirms that thousands of Gazans whose homes and belongings were destroyed remain without adequate shelter.
Residents still lack basics and patients can not have and medical care, the report said
The ICRC heaps the blame over the territory’s crisis on the continuing Israeli blockade.
“This small coastal strip is cut off from the outside world,” said the report.
“Even before the latest hostilities, drastic restrictions on the movement of people and goods imposed by the Israeli authorities… had led to worsening poverty, rising unemployment and deteriorating public services.”
Israel has clamped a siege on the Gaza Strip since Hamas was voted to power in 2006.
It further tightened the blockade and closed Gaza's crossings to the outside world after Hamas assumed control in 2007 following clashes with Fatah rival.
Israel blocks humanitarian aid including harmless goods such as cheeses, toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap and toilet papers.
The humanitarian catastrophe created by the siege further aggravated after the December war.
With Israel blocking construction materials needed for rebuilding, thousands of Gaza civilians have been forced to take shelters for months in makeshifts tents.
Despair
“At first, there was hope that I would be given an operation. But as time went by I stopped hoping,” Do'aa, a cancer patient, told the ICRC.
The ICRC describes in its report a bleak picture on how Gazans are “caught up in an unending cycle of deprivation and despair” for more than two years.
“Most people struggle to make ends meet,” says the report.
The report says that most of Gazans have exhausted their “coping mechanisms” with the unbearable living conditions.
“Many have no savings left.
They have sold private
Belongings such as jewellery
And furniture and started to sell productive assets including farm animals, land, fishing boats or cars used as taxis.
“They are unable to reduce spending on food any further.”
The report also warned that the worst affected in Gaza are the children, who make up more than half of the population.
The report cites the accounts of many Gazans who describe how they have lost any hope in life as their sufferings go untreated.
"Being stuck here gives me a somber view of the future,” Ibrahim Abu Sobeih, a 24-year-old student who received a scholarship from a US University, but was not allowed through Israel to go there, says in the report.
“I would like to be educated and to make something of myself. I want to be able to help my family financially. But it is very difficult when I am trapped.
“I feel very angry and hopeless.”
Do'aa, 26, who has been waiting for months for permission to transit through Israel for an operation in Jordan, is no less pessimistic in life.
"I have a pancreatic tumor. At first, there was hope that I would be given an operation,” she told the ICRC.
“But as time went by I stopped hoping.”
The ICRC concluded the report urging the international community to press Israel for breaking the cycle of despair and destitution in Gaza.
“The ICRC once again appeals for a lifting of restrictions on the movement of people and goods as the first and most urgent measure to end Gaza's isolation and to allow its people to rebuild their lives.”
The report also stresses that humanitarian help alone is not enough, as a courageous political process involving all players could be the only way to address the plight of Gaza and restore a dignified life to its people.
“The alternative is a further descent into misery with every passing day.”
Oh! my dearest friend ozzieowl, a lot of thanks for giving me the happiness. Whenever I feel desperation I get something, which give me happiness. Today I am was really in state of depression as the continued violence in and around Bajaur Agency is a source of concern for me and my wife Fatima. Now I have no tears to shed, but still I am shedding my tears. Fatima is now feeling irritation in her eyes due to the continued tears. She is also feeling pain in the heart, but still I have not lost my hope. I am still hopeful of better days. The day when there will be peace in the whole world and we will enjoying the life. May God the Great give you all the happiness in this life and in the life hereafter if there is any.
A lot of thanks my dear friend ozzieowl for adding me in the list of your friends. May God the Great give you all the happiness in this life and in the life hereafter if there is any.
Hi Ozzieow,
Thanx for sending the avaazpetion out here. I do that as well on other networks. Basically, I operate on altnett.ning.com, a Norwegian ning-site.
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During Thursday's clash between IDF troops, Palestinian gunmen apparently hit
By Israeli mortar shells;
Earlier, IDF said Palestinian fire killed girl
How did she die? An IDF probe into a clash between soldiers and Gaza gunmen shows that a girl killed in the shootout was hurt by Israeli fire, army officials said late Thursday.
Earlier, the army said the Palestinian teenager was likely killed by Palestinian fire, but the investigation later revealed that this was likely not the case.
A 17-year-old girl was killed in the incident and 11 others were wounded, the Palestinians said.
Israeli fire kill girl (Photo: AFP)
An IDF force on patrol came under fire near the Gaza border fence Thursday, the army said, adding that troops responded by directing mortar shells at the Palestinian side. At this time it is unclear why the shells hurt a group of Palestinian civilians. The possibilities being examined are that the victims were in close proximity to the gunmen, or that troops erred while aiming their mortar fire.
"The debriefing continues and it's too early to draw final conclusions," an IDF official said. However, he added that the probe increasingly showed that the Palestinian civilians were mistakenly hit by IDF fire.
During operation Cast Lead in Gaza, a tactical error in the activation of the mortar system used in Thursday's incident led to the wounding of several IDF soldiers. The system in question is considered more accurate and less powerful than the firing of tank shells.
Meanwhile, IDF forces uncovered two explosive devices at the border fence near the site of the clash. The bombs did not explode during the incident. Army officials noted that the troops who came under attack initially prepared to cross the fence into Gaza, but eventually decided to fire mortar shells at the Palestinian gunmen.
Hamas did not rush to address the incident, and by Thursday night no Palestinian organization claimed responsibility for the attack on the IDF force.
Ali Waked contributed to the story
The Siege of Gaza Continues!
June 8-14, 2009
By Eva Bartlett
Monday
In Um al Nasser, I meet 17-year old Saleh Ahmed al Madani who was injured in three places from Israeli ‘flechette’ shelling. The small, razor-sharp darts pierced and remain lodged in his neck, shoulder, and calf muscle.
Tuesday
A demonstration is being held on the road leading to Erez crossing. It is led by women, civil society groups, the disabled, and joined by international supporters. The visuals are impressive; an array of beautifully-crafted posters, flags, and stage prop reminders: two men in medics uniforms carry a wheelchair-laden stretcher, highlighting the need, not only for Erez to open, but for all the crossings to open for the ill, the disabled, and those seeking treatment unavailable within Gaza. Over 330 medical patients have died from being denied treatment due to the siege-closed crossings.
Wednesday
I stop by the beach camp home of Rafiq, a fishermen we know. He was severely injured while fishing in his small hassaka, a non-threatening boat barely larger than a surfboard, when Israeli soldiers opened fire on him with exploding ‘dum-dum’ bullets.
“I plunged deep into the water after I was shot. My brother just managed to fish me out,” said Rafiq.
His health is finally improving, though he still has multiple shrapnel shards from the two exploding bullets which blasted him.
‘Abu Adham stops by, to talk about his larger fishing trawler, which was stolen by the Israeli navy on Monday. His son and five others were kidnapped, beaten, interrogated, and finally released without charge in the late evening that day. This is not the first time ‘Abu Adham’s boat has been stolen; he, and over three thousand fishermen are braving it and facing unjust collective punishment for trying to eek out a living well-within Palestinian fishing waters.
Thursday
At the Palestinian Water Authority (PWA) office I spoke with Mohamed Ahmed, director of Water Control, about the situation of Gaza’s water. He updates me on the post-war destruction. From, the Coastal Water Municipalities and Utilities meeting the other day, I have learned about Israel’s targeting of water and waste-water treatment and storage facilities during the war on Gaza. Despite having the coordinates of such plants, Israeli soldiers bombed and bulldozed plants and piping, wreaking more havoc on an already dilapidated sewage and treatment system on the verge of another overflow.
I leave the PWA not wanting to enjoy the fresh sea air: as tons of sewage are pumped into the sea, in need of treatment. Surely bacteria must be in that fine sea mist one breathes; certainly it is in the water, and the fish.
Friday
It is Friday and I need to catch up with my friends in Ezbet Abed Rabbo. Walking past the hollowed houses, some with curtains feebly attempting to serve as walls, others with random blocks and stones providing privacy, others still gaping, I pass the bombed masjid, and turn onto the sandy path leading to my friends’ home. This walk will always carry the memories of the massacre; walking here before nightfall to stay with these friends, walking from here after checking out the night’s bombing, the new craters that formed, and running here to search for the elderly patriarch who refused to leave his neighborhood.
It has only been just over five months since Israel’s large-scale bombings (I refuse to use the term ‘cease-fire’, when Israel is still shelling tunnels, border areas, the sea, shooting farmers, fishermen and civilians). But, while five months should be enough time to see some changes in the destroyed landscape –if cement were allowed in by the controlling Israeli authorities –it is not enough time to forget the pain and fear.
I learn that Besam is getting some psychological help in the summer camps. She, the 14-year-old, is still afraid to walk in her own stairwell at night, and will not go near her martyred mother’s room.
My friends cover their pain and welcome me back, chiding me for taking so long in between visits, as we settle down for coffee on their shell-scarred veranda.
Saturday
Unabashed revelry, a party for a Gaza NGO. Arms flailing, hips shaking, and these are the men!
I never see this gay abandon outside of Palestine, not with the same intensity, an intensity (friends tell me) induced by an urgent desire to celebrate life, to find some joy in a miserable situation. All this is induced by the flick of a switch and the start of a song.
It is beautiful, humbling, inspiring, comical, and defiant.
Sunday
We go to the east of Beit Hanoun, in Gaza’s north, to search for a teenager missing nearly two months. Since April 21, the family of Ahmed Abu Hashish have believed him to be dead, likely shot by Israeli soldiers stationed along the Green Line. The family suspect the worst as it is well-known, and well-documented that Israeli soldiers shoot at anyone moving in the Israeli-imposed “buffer zone”.
After searching - under Israeli fire - for roughly 20 minutes, we find the youth’s body, 54 days decayed. Ahmed’s father, Abu Ayesh, is searching with us; he is not spared the agonizing truth of his son’s murder, nor of his post-death decomposition. Moreover, he is not spared the Israeli gunfire.
Such is life in Gaza; the borders, the economy, the sea, and life (militarily) is controlled by Israel.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eva Bartlett is a Canadian human rights advocate and freelancer who spent eight months in 2007 living in West Bank communities and four months in Cairo and at the Rafah crossing. She is currently based inGaza, after the third successful voyage of the Free Gaza movement to break the siege on Gaza. She can be contacted at youth_campaign@iolteam.com
http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?c=Article_C&cid=1246346007078&pagename=Zone-English-Youth%2FYTELayout
UN assesses trauma of Gaza conflict
The UN panel heard emotional testimony from residents during the inquiry on Sunday
A UN human rights mission on the Gaza conflict is hearing from a range of experts on the social and the psychological effect of Israel's 22-day war on Gaza.
On the second of the two-day inquiry on Monday, a child psychologist told the panel that an estimated 20 per cent of children in Gaza suffer post-traumatic stress syndrome as a result of witnessing violence.
Dr Iyad Sarraj said: "The amount of killing and blood that they have seen or that their relatives have suffered from ... Is a huge amount, and this leads to negative psychological feelings, to radicalism and a cycle of violence."
Lost livelihoods
Al Jazeera's Sherine Tadros in Gaza, where more than half of the population of 1.5 million people is under 18-years of age, said Sarraj told the panel that six months after the war the trauma is still present among children.
In depth
Video: Gaza war testimony
The waste of Israel's Gaza war
'Go back and die in Gaza'
Two years after Hamas seized Gaza
Witness: The hostages of Gaza
Focus on Gaza
"During the war we spent the night with a family and we saw first hand the kind of trauma that Dr Sarraj was talking about in terms of the children and how frightened they were when the bombs were going off," she said.
The panel also heard from the head of a women's group in Gaza City, who said that most of those who died in the conflict were men, leaving behind the women they provided a livelihood for, Tadros said.
"Even months after the war the women are still suffering because they have lost their livelihood and have to go out and work," she said, adding that this was flagged up as a "major problem".
The hearing, which is being broadcast live for the public, will also include testimony from experts on the military operation on the Palestinian enclave.
The panel is to hold a second round of public hearings on July 6 and 7 in Geneva where it will hear from the victims of alleged violations in Israel and the West Bank.
The UN chose the Swiss city as the venue of the second round of hearings because the fact-finding mission did not receive permission to enter Israel.
The public hearings were called for by Richard Goldstone, the head of the 15-member team and previously a member of the South African constitutional court.
The mission is due to complete a report with its findings in August.
Israeli offensive
Israel launched its offensive against Gaza on December 27, citing rocket attacks from the enclave that caused injuries to residents and damage to property in Sderot and other towns.
The military operation killed more than 1,400 Palestinians, including more than 900 civilians, among them scores of children, according to Palestinian officials and human rights groups.
It also destroyed thousands of homes and heavily damaged Gaza's infrastructure.
Israel says the death toll was lower and most of the dead were Hamas fighters.
Thirteen Israelis were also killed during the fighting.
Gaza's reconstruction is being hampered by Israel's blockade of Gaza, which dates back to June 2007 when Hamas took control of the territory.
Since then, Israel and Egypt, which control Gaza's only border crossing that bypasses Israel, have kept the territory of 1.5 million aid-dependent people sealed to all but essential humanitarian supplies.
Israel has insisted that the blockade is necessary to prevent Hamas from arming itself. Human-rights groups say it is a "collective punishment" that wrongly hurts ordinary civilians.
The fact-finding mission is mandated by the UN to investigate all violations of international human rights and humanitarian laws that might have been committed at any time in the context of the military operations conducted in Gaza.
Source: Al Jazeera and agencies
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/06/200962992241563369.html
Red Cross:
Trapped Gazans Live “in Despair”
IOL Staff
The ICRC says that thousands of Gazans whose homes were destroyed by Israel’s war remain without shelter.
CAIRO — Six months after a deadly Israeli offensive and two years of a stifling blockade, Palestinians in the war-ravaged Gaza Strip are “trapped in despair” as they struggle to survive, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said in a report on Monday, June 29.
“The people living there find themselves unable to rebuild their lives and are sliding ever deeper into despair,” said the “Gaza: 1.5 Million People Trapped in Despair” report.
The ICRC says that the more than six months after the three-week assault Israeli launched last December, Gazans still can not rebuild their shattered lives.
ICRC's report
Israel Forces Gaza into Mud Homes
Gaza Sea… Bullet for Each Fish
The onslaught, which killed more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians, wrecked havoc on the Gaza infrastructure, leaving nearly 20,000 homes and thousands of other buildings damaged.
The ICRC affirms that thousands of Gazans whose homes and belongings were destroyed remain without adequate shelter.
Residents still lack basics and patients can not have and medical care, the report said
The ICRC heaps the blame over the territory’s crisis on the continuing Israeli blockade.
“This small coastal strip is cut off from the outside world,” said the report.
“Even before the latest hostilities, drastic restrictions on the movement of people and goods imposed by the Israeli authorities… had led to worsening poverty, rising unemployment and deteriorating public services.”
Israel has clamped a siege on the Gaza Strip since Hamas was voted to power in 2006.
It further tightened the blockade and closed Gaza's crossings to the outside world after Hamas assumed control in 2007 following clashes with Fatah rival.
Israel blocks humanitarian aid including harmless goods such as cheeses, toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap and toilet papers.
The humanitarian catastrophe created by the siege further aggravated after the December war.
With Israel blocking construction materials needed for rebuilding, thousands of Gaza civilians have been forced to take shelters for months in makeshifts tents.
Despair
“At first, there was hope that I would be given an operation. But as time went by I stopped hoping,” Do'aa, a cancer patient, told the ICRC.
The ICRC describes in its report a bleak picture on how Gazans are “caught up in an unending cycle of deprivation and despair” for more than two years.
“Most people struggle to make ends meet,” says the report.
The report says that most of Gazans have exhausted their “coping mechanisms” with the unbearable living conditions.
“Many have no savings left.
They have sold private
Belongings such as jewellery
And furniture and started to sell productive assets including farm animals, land, fishing boats or cars used as taxis.
“They are unable to reduce spending on food any further.”
The report also warned that the worst affected in Gaza are the children, who make up more than half of the population.
The report cites the accounts of many Gazans who describe how they have lost any hope in life as their sufferings go untreated.
"Being stuck here gives me a somber view of the future,” Ibrahim Abu Sobeih, a 24-year-old student who received a scholarship from a US University, but was not allowed through Israel to go there, says in the report.
“I would like to be educated and to make something of myself. I want to be able to help my family financially. But it is very difficult when I am trapped.
“I feel very angry and hopeless.”
Do'aa, 26, who has been waiting for months for permission to transit through Israel for an operation in Jordan, is no less pessimistic in life.
"I have a pancreatic tumor. At first, there was hope that I would be given an operation,” she told the ICRC.
“But as time went by I stopped hoping.”
The ICRC concluded the report urging the international community to press Israel for breaking the cycle of despair and destitution in Gaza.
“The ICRC once again appeals for a lifting of restrictions on the movement of people and goods as the first and most urgent measure to end Gaza's isolation and to allow its people to rebuild their lives.”
The report also stresses that humanitarian help alone is not enough, as a courageous political process involving all players could be the only way to address the plight of Gaza and restore a dignified life to its people.
“The alternative is a further descent into misery with every passing day.”
Myspace 4th of July Comments & Graphics
With love from Gaza,If you see and know how is our pain is painful,we will be shocked,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoJC9rfre6w&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eq81IqdHdVk&feature=channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJ0U_dFotvI&feature=fvw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPSaYE3IXec&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVdKOVJCUYk&feature=channel
Hi how are you? Am your friend from Boomerville.
I stood to see the mountains,
the flowers and the trees
I said I see your beauty
but where tell me, is me
the mountain said, I am your heart
and the flowers are your soul
the trees said root yourself with me
and be complete and whole
I heard them speak, I saw them be
and my mind knew we are one
my heart however could not feel
the warm hands of the sun
what must I do that I be free
I asked the winds around
go get your flute they said and play
and we will make the sound
the winds and I we played a tune
for all the world to hear
my heart grew soft, my soul spread out
to mountain, flower, tree - far and near
Indian Chant
Thanx for sending the avaazpetion out here. I do that as well on other networks. Basically, I operate on altnett.ning.com, a Norwegian ning-site.
Love & Joy to you!
Ole
regards, ove, peace & light.
i'm jash from india
i am a film student
i have made a video on world peace
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ly4bDl0ulf4
Plz watch it and comment and rate it!!! ON YOUTUBE
Plz show it to your friends and loved ones
please add this video to your blog/website/myspace/facebook account
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