Gaza live: death and rubble as real and PR battles rage
(Channel4 News) – The Israeli Defence Force says it has now struck 1,470 “terror targets” on the Gaza Strip, into which more than 1.7-million people are crammed. A spokesman says 210 of these were on tunnels, 770 on concealed rocket launchers and 130 on training bases and weapons storage sites.
Israel says its missile attacks on Gaza has been in response to more than 1,000 rockets launched by Hamas and other factions from Gaza over the past week. The IDF says more than 130 of those were fired yesterday, of which 100 hit Israel and 22 were intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defence system.
Not a single Israeli civilian has been killed.
Director of Gaza’s Shifa hospital told #c4news:
“This is a dirty war.” He’s back at work, but
his house was completely destroyed last night
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Dr Nasser al-Tattar went home to rest after 6 days flat out. 5 mins warning.
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Director of Gaza's biggest hospital, his house was destroyed by 3 missiles last night.Naser Pediatric Hospital, Gaza City, besieged – January 2008
A knock on the roof, then another Gaza home destroyed by Israeli missile
Continued below the fold …
A knock on the roof, then another Gaza home destroyed by Israeli missile
(The Guardian) – The way the Israeli military tells it, “knocking on the roof” is a careful and humane practice, its drone operators and pilots holding back against the risk of collateral damage. But too often it is not careful, as the civilian death toll from the last week of attacks on Gaza attests.
In the same Shati neighbourhood, Dr Nasser Tatar, director general of Gaza’s largest medical facility, the al-Shifa hospital, is examining the ruins of his own house and of his private clinic.
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Supplies exhausted at Gaza hospitals, but not medical workers' commitment (Gaza Solidarity)He says he had just returned to his family on Sunday night after working a week straight at an overwhelmed hospital short of resources. “We’ve had tens of deaths and hundreds of injured. I needed to be at the hospital,” he says. “It was just after the time for breaking the Ramadan fast at 7:50pm.
“The IDF called my nephew with a 10-minute warning saying that they planned to destroy my house. Because it took him several minutes to find me, it was less than 10 minutes. I got my family out quickly and warned my neighbours to take care. Then they hit my house with a rocket and then a second.”
He walks through the destruction, picking up a book left on his consulting desk now covered in dust, and examines the tangled crater at the centre of his gutted home.
“I’m at a loss to explain why they did this,” says Tatar, 59. “I have been a doctor for 30 years. First I was a cardiologist, then head of cardiology, then director general. I have tried to reach out through channels to find out why this happened, but I’ve had no reply.”
- ○ Occupied Palestinian Territory: MSF operating in second hospital in Gaza
○ Gaza’s hospitals short of surgeons and supplies
A familiar story, during the previous Gaza War a sibling of a Palestinian doctor working both in Israel and Palestine was targeted.
Title to original diary – Clinton Rushed to the Side of Netanyahu, Not the Palestinian People! Nov. 21, 2012
Why did the Egyptian negotiated deal for a cease fire not materialize as Hillary Clinton’s plane touched the runway in Tel Aviv?
Regional and International diplomatic pressure had been mounted on Israel not to go into Gaza with ground forces which would cause more harm to the holed-up civilians in Gaza City. President Morsi of Egypt was hailed for getting a cease fire deal on the table after days of negotiations, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was present to lend his support. Qatar, Turkey and the Arab Union had representatives on the ground in Gaza as the Israeli attack by air, sea and land continued. The rockets fired by Hamas, Salafist and Al-Qaeda groups continued also causing two deaths on Israeli side. The number of civilian deaths only in Gaza reached 80, many of them children or whole families wrongly targeted. Two Israeli targeted strikes on local and foreign media killed four yesterday.
In the opening press conference, it was astounded to see Hillary Clinton standing by the side of Netanyahu and in full understanding and support of the Jewish people of Israel. Clinton spared some words as lipservice for the rights of the Palestinian people. Benyamin Netanyahu used the press conference as a platform to reach out with pure propaganda and his talking points for domestic purpose only. The coalition formed by Likud with the far-right religious parties are putting pressure on him to go ahead with a ground invasion, larger number of troops than Iron Lead four years ago. He is urged to smash the Hamas terrorist organization once and for all by any means necessary. The citizens of the surrounding cities near Gaza are demanding it, or he will be punished by the coming parliamentary election in January 2013.
Clinton on U.S. interests that protects and enhances Israel’s security and regional stability
Inside Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital – A Living Hell
(The Lancet) Jan. 17, 2009 – From our arrival in Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City on the afternoon of Dec 31, 2008, until this morning, we have witnessed the most horrific war injuries in men, women, and children of all ages in numbers almost too large to comprehend. The wounded, dying, and dead have streamed into the overcrowded hospital in endless convoys of ambulances and private cars, and wrapped in blankets in the caring arms of others. The endless and intense bombardment from Israeli air, ground, and naval forces have missed no targets, not even the hospital.
When we arrived, nearly a week ago, we saw two graphic scenes that should come to symbolise the situation for Gaza’s hospitals and health care: the shattered windows of the hospital caused by a blast from a bomb that hit the mosque across the street the previous day, and a long stretch of mourning family members and colleagues carrying the dead body of Ihab Madhoun–a 30-year-old doctor–who had been fatally wounded by Israeli rocket attacks on the ambulance that he and his paramedic partners were driving to collect war casualties on Dec 31, 2008. One of the paramedics died immediately, while Madhoun died after a few hours in Al-Shifa hospital.
These scenes sum-up our core experience in Gaza: a shattered, attacked, and drained health-care system trying to help an overwhelming amount of casualties in a war between clearly unequal powers, where the attacker spares no civilian lives–be it man, woman, or child–not even the much-needed health workers of all professions.
Casualties
As of Jan 12 at 4 pm, Israeli attacks on Gaza have injured more than 4250 people and killed 910–50% of these deaths are women and children (see figure). 1781 children (younger than 18 years) have died in the conflict, 626 of whom have been killed, and 1497 of whom have been wounded, by Israeli military forces.
UN Security Council must not fail civilians caught in Gaza conflict
