The conflict in Gaza has attracted little international attention, not least because for five weeks it was overshadowed by that in Lebanon. But the death toll has continued to rise.
Israel's Scandalous Siege of Gaza
Photostory, Maan Images, 8 July 2006
Mohammad Az Zanoun, a photographer with Maan Images, was shot on 8 July as he photographed in the Zaitoun area of Gaza. On Thursday, 6 July, he narrowly escaped injury as an Israeli shell fell among a group of Palestinians, as he was photographing. On 8 July, he was injured by shrapnel, yet continued to photograph, continuing his work of documenting the Israeli siege on Gaza with moving and memorable photos that bring the experiences of Palestinians to the world. As he continued to photograph, he was shot directly in the stomach, and underwent serious surgery at Al Shifa hospital. This photostory presents some of Mohammad Az Zanoun's images of Gaza.
Palestinian children carrying pictures of relatives of prisoners in front of the United Nations in Gaza, July 5, 2006. (MaanImages/Mohamed al-Zanon)
Palestinians inspect the damaged school Dar al-Arkam following an Israeli air strike which targeted the school in Gaza City July 5, 2006. (MaanImages/Mohamed al-Zanon)
Palestinians inspect the damaged school Dar al-Arkam following an Israeli air strike which targeted the school in Gaza City July 5, 2006. (MaanImages/Mohamed al-Zanon)
A Palestinian carrying the body of a man badly wounded after Israeli mobile artillery fired shells at Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip July 6, 2006. (MaanImages/Mohamed al-Zanon)
Palestinians carrying the body of a man badly wounded after Israeli mobile artillery fired shells at Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip July 6, 2006. (MaanImages/Mohamed al-Zanon)
A Palestinian carrying the body of a killed boy after Israeli mobile artillery fired shells at Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip July 6, 2006. (MaanImages/Mohamed al-Zanon)
MaanImages photographer Mohamed al-Zanon at the office in Gaza. (MaanImages/Stringer)
MaanImages photographer Mohammed al-Zanon treated at the al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City July 8, 2006. (MaanImages/Thaeer al-Hassany)Dr. Bill Dienst writing from East Jerusalem, occupied West Bank, Live from Palestine, 31 October 2006
The Dome of the Rock situated in the Haram al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary)24 OctoberCentral Tel Aviv along the beach seems like such a relaxed and cosmopolitan place. From here one can ignore the cataclysmic events taking place to the north in Lebanon, to the south in Gaza, to the east in the West Bank and even further to the east in Iraq. I feel tempted to just go swimming here in the Mediterranean Sea, let my feet nourish the sand, and just relax on this beach to work on my tan. It would be easy to remain oblivious here in Tel Aviv to all the turmoil surrounding us here, but I must move on.
My Israeli friend Nir gives me instructions on how to take the bus up the hill from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. I board the bus, which is filled to capacity, and plop myself on the floor in the back, surrounded by young IOF soldiers. The trip takes less then an hour.
Then I take a taxi to Damascus Gate and find the local hangout for the International Solidarity Movement. I will stay here for two days, preparing and coordinating my travel to the northern West Bank, where I will be volunteering to work in a mobile health clinic sponsored by Palestine Medical Relief Society in villages near the towns of Qalqilya and Tulkarem. I buy a local mobile phone, which due to the numerous checkpoints, is an essential survival tool when traveling in the occupied Palestinian territories.
I meet Charlie Wilson, an ISM activist from California. Charlie has been here before, and was arrested, beaten and deported by the Israeli authorities for protesting in Bil'in during his last trip. Through various means that I will not divulge, he has infiltrated back into the country and is ready for more. We become fast friends. We walk the narrow passage ways of the old city Jerusalem, through Damascus Gate, along the Via Dolorosa and the 14 Stations of the Cross to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the site of Jesus' crucifixion. We exit the Old City at Jaffa Gate and cross the Green Line, the former border prior to 1967.
We spend time on Ben Yehuda Street, the main pedestrian thoroughfare in Israeli West Jerusalem, and have a beer at a refusnik hangout. Then we wander back across the Green Line and through the Armenian and Jewish Quarters, descending before the vista of the Wailing Wall, and the Dome of the Rock. We pass through a security checkpoint to the Wailing Wall, and don paper Yarmulkes to pay our respects and touch the wall.
We see a sign for tourists that proclaims that Solomon's Temple will be rebuilt for the third time. This is a scary thought, for it would necessitate the destruction of the Dome of the Rock, the third holiest shrine of Islam.
We head back to the ISM hideaway, getting lost a few times within the labyrinthine walkways of the Old City. It is now time to collapse until tomorrow morning ...
Zoughbi Zoughbi's philosophy25 October 2006
Today we take a group taxi across the Wall to Bethlehem in the south. We meet with Zoughbi Zoughbi and his American wife Elaine. Mr. Zoughbi is director of Wi'am, a local empowerment program in Bethlehem which uses techniques popularized by folks like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King -- techniques of nonviolent active resistance, which help local people survive the pressures of occupation. Mr. Zoughbi is also a member of the Bethlehem city council.
Next, we head to Manger Square and meet Georges, who gives us a tour of the Church of the Nativity. We see the site believed to be the exact location of Jesus' birth. Georges was stuck for over 40 days with 278 others inside the church during the siege in April 2002. He and his colleagues were surrounded by Israeli Occupation Forces, who tried to starve them into submission. Several were shot dead or wounded by Israeli snipers when they showed themselves at windows, or tried to smuggle food with outside assistance into the church. George gives us an audio interview describing what it was like to be inside during the siege.
The Bethlehem Arab Society for Rehabilitation administered by Dr. Edmun ShehadehNow it is time for a reunion. After 21 years, I finally make it back to visit Dr. Edmun Shehadeh, who is a physiatrist, and runs the Bethlehem Arab Society for Rehabilitation. Dr. Shehadeh was my first contact when I came to Palestine for the first time as a medical student back in 1985. Though so many things in occupied Palestine have gotten so much worse because of the oppression, this is one facility that has gotten so much better.
Dr. Shehadeh's rehab hospital is now a multidisciplinary facility. It is complete with orthopedic and general surgery services, hearing and eye care, occupational and physical therapy, vocational rehabilitation services, inpatient wards, and many other services. Like so many social services in Palestine, it relies on contributions from international non-governmental organizations, or NGOs, to survive.
Homes in Beit Jala which were ravaged by Israeli artillery fire from Gilo in spring 2002This rehabilitation hospital is located in Beit Jala, right next to Bethlehem. A large deep valley lies immediately to the north, and the settlement of Gilo, built over 20 years ago on confiscated East Jerusalem land, can be seen on top of the hill on the opposite side. There is also a settler-only highway that is off limits to Palestinians. The annexation wall is being constructed right below the window of Dr. Edmun Shehadeh's office.
Now it is getting late. We head back in the dark across the horrific new terminal that has been constructed by Israel in the past year. It has a concentration camp feel to it. We head back to East Jerusalem.
View of the highway from the Gush Etzion settlement block of towards Jerusalem, which only cars with Israeli plates are allowed to use, as seen from the window of Dr. Edmun Shehadeh’s office26 October 2006
Today is a day mainly for writing and preparation. In the afternoon we meet with Mr. Mordechai Vanunu at the American Colony Hotel in East Jerusalem. I met Mordechai the first time a year and a half ago.
It is now two years since he was released from Ashkelon Prison, after an 18 year sentence for telling the world of Israel's nuclear arsenal. A former worker involved in the production of plutonium at Israel's Dimona reactor in the Negev desert, Mordechai revealed that Israel possessed over 200 fissile warheads and 200 hydrogen bombs in 1986. For that he was kidnapped in Rome, and sent to prison, spending 11 years in solitary confinement. By now, the numbers of nuclear weapons possessed by Israel may be much higher. In spite of all the hardship, Mr. Vanunu does not regret this; he says he did a very good thing.
With all the hype about Iran's nuclear program currently in the Western media, there is virtual silence about Israel's well-established weapons program.
The author with Mordechai Vanunu at the American Colony Hotel in East Jerusalem
I ask Mordechai more about nuclear proliferation issues in North Korea and in Iran. He believes there is no stopping additional countries from getting the atom bomb as long as the hypocrisy and double standards continue. Developed countries like Israel and the US continue to violate the Non-Proliferation Treaty by refusing to disarm. Not only that, they continue to develop weapons like neutron bombs and smaller tactical nukes. And they continue to use depleted uranium and chemical weapons like white phosphorus in places like Lebanon and in Iraq.
Mr. Vanunu believes that it is only a matter of time before Iran gets the bomb, whether Israel or the United States bombs Iran or not. The more we threaten Iran, the more they feel they need atomic weapons to defend themselves from us -- the more we jeopardize peace and stability in the world. If we really want to stop Iran and other countries from developing nuclear weapons, the US and Israel must open their facilities to inspection and start dismantling their arsenals as part of being respectful members of the greater world community of nations.
I ask Mordechai about how peace and stability can be achieved between Israelis and Palestinians. He replies simply: through equal rights and justice. Palestinians must have all of the rights given to Jews in this land. The Apartheid laws, which favor Jews over all others, must end.
We say goodbye to Mordechai, and I give him a hug. I repeat what I said to him last time: "I hope to see you someday soon in Seattle." "That would be great," he remarks, "if only I could get out of this place." This is for the Israeli legal system to decide. He is still prohibited from getting anywhere close to the border or traveling abroad.
Charlie and I take a bus across the Wall toward Ramallah and other parts of the northern West Bank. Now we will not make it back to Jerusalem for a while.
Dr. Bill Dienst is a rural family and emergency room physician from Omak, Washington, USA.
Gaza suffers for the sake of yet another lesson Israel refuses to learn
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&article_id=76634&categ_id=17
Lebanon has sat near the top of the international community's diplomatic agenda since this past summer's war with Israel broke out on July 12, a fact that has helped maintain the UN-brokered August 14 cessation of hostilities and served to buttress Beirut's efforts to obtain reconstruction assistance. Unfortunately, the unusual focus on Lebanese issues has also provided convenient cover for another exercise in Israeli brutality, namely the merciless pummeling of the Gaza Strip. The people of that unfortunate patch of land have been subjected to more than three years of steadily increasing violence, and there appears to be no end in sight.
Today's ugliness in Gaza will be no more successful than past attempts at using a preponderance of military power to extinguish Palestinian aspirations, and unless Israel finally incurs some form of cost for its shameless bullying of a desperate people, no one should expect that the crisis will end any time soon. As some early Zionist leaders warned their more hawkish colleagues, reliance on the profligate use of armed force as Israel's primary interface with the Arab world can never bring about its acceptance by the region. Those more sensible voices went unheeded, and so Israel's history since 1948 has been one of repeated failure to learn from past mistakes in this vein, a trend made possible by the blanket impunity bestowed on the Jewish state by it principal benefactor, the United States.
The terrible events of September 11, 2001, should have demonstrated to America once and for all that blind support for its irksome ally was causing more problems than it ever solved. Instead, the Bush administration has only increased its acquiescence in Israel's counterproductive strategy of opting instinctively for the disproportionate use of force in defense of policies and practices that violate international law at every turn.
As The Daily Star went to press, former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was still clinging to life despite a heart problem that has apparently worsened the coma in which he has been for 10 months. Given his participation in various capacities during virtually all of Israel's many wars, Sharon's career illustrates perfectly the futility of relying on the gun. In the end, his despicable actions during the 1982 invasion of Lebanon were not enough to frustrate his domestic political ambitions, but they did ensure the birth of the very resistance that humiliated his successor, Ehud Olmert, in July and August. This pattern of depredation and retaliation, interrupted only by periods of rearmament by all parties, will continue unless and until an American government finds the steel to put limits on an Israeli one.
Dear Dave,
The pictures tells all and no matter how world does not want to see it but our eyes as we what I have seen and heard through my own ears too, it is just not going to disappear......! The pain and suffering and complete Ethnic cleaning I have ever witnessed there.
Though I could not visit Gaza but these pictures telling us how it is there.......life at it's end! I travelled through that highway with an Indian friend and a Canadian friend as we visited a Settlement to meet some one and he did have a Israeli licence plate. Going to Bethleham the day before I noticed that home on the hill (shown in the picture) and several other homes too destroyed by the IFD. Nov 2005 Israel closed the gates to Bethleham and now one goes through the new checkpoint. We few were the last one to cross the old check point.
My heart lies with my Palestinian my friends in West Bank and more so in Nablus, Balata Camp!! Freedom is the birth right of every human, I pray some day they can taste the freedom from this Ocupation! Insha Allah!
peace and solidarity
Meenakshi
Children of Beit Hanoon & USA's 'HELP'!!!
I guess we should thank the US and the whole world for their unbelievable HELP!!!
Beit Hanoon children terrorized by the death
and destruction inflicted on their city by Israeli
occupation terrorist forces. Al-Khaleej newspaper
reported that US military officers have been
helping Israeli commanders in planning and executing
their attack on the Palestinian city!!!,
instead of peace mediation between the two sides !!!
(Al-Khaleej, 11/5/06).
Aljazeerah.info
Ramallah, Treatment and Rehabilitation Center for Victims of Torture (TRC) using the most advanced weapons and military machinery, Israel is committing genocide against innocent civilians in Beit Hanoun, in the Gaza Strip. . .
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=17&article_id=76778#
The slaughter in Gaza has lessons for all concerned in the Middle East, but some are more obvious than others. The danger is that some or all of the players in the region, both indigenous and not, will fail to accurately interpret what is happening and so run the risk of continuing to fuel a cycle of perpetual instability.
The Lebanese, for instance, would do well to carefully observe and fully absorb both the causes and the consequences of the internal divisions that have destabilized the Occupied Territories for years, but especially since Hamas won January's legislative elections. The source of Hamas' dispute with the traditional ruling party, Fatah, centers on whether and how to deal with Israel. The result of the ensuing feud has been to open the way for the Jewish state to attempt the imposition of nonsensical "solutions" that rely totally on its superior military power - and so serve only to prolong the acrimony between two peoples who, one way or the other, must eventually learn to live with one another.
The Arab League foreign ministers meeting in Cairo next week to discuss the recent killing of 18 Palestinian civilians in a single artillery barrage need to understand that their purpose will not be well served by limiting their purview to a single event, or even to the week-long offensive that preceded it: The Israeli military has been bleeding Gaza for six years, long before and ever since the laughable "withdrawal" of August 2005. The massacres have come at a slower pace than those in Lebanon this past summer, but the victims have been just as brutally killed and have been even more numerous. The ministers need to be fully cognizant of this monstrous crime if they are to take what should be their next step: an attempt to communicate the scale of the problem to both the White House and the newly elected US Congress.
Washington, too, has much to gain - or at least considerable losses to avoid - by drawing the appropriate conclusions from the bloodletting in Gaza. More than 100,000 US troops are currently mired in the Iraq mess, and every act of injustice committed by Israel with America's blessing exposes those men and women to the fury of Iraqis and other Arabs who have resolved to stop turning the other cheek.
The Middle East will not know stability unless and until Israel finds something other than the profligate and indiscriminate use of force to function as its foreign policy. But that can only be made to happen by a US government that finally understands how misguided has been its traditional practice of unconditional support for the Jewish state. That realization will not take place of its own accord: It is therefore up the Arabs to get much better at articulating what should be an easy argument to make.
