Death Stalks the People of Khan Younis

RAFAH TODAY

31 December 04

http://rafah.virtualactivism.net/news/todaymain.htm

It is pitch dark in the al Nimsawi neighborhood of Khan Younis refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip, an area of this city of a quarter-million close to the Israeli settlement of Neve Dakalim. Suddenly the black sky is red with flames, automatic fire from the circling Apache gunships, then eerie white fire from the tank shells and mortar fire from state-of-the-art tanks invading the crowded streets. The white and red flares give momentary glimpses of wave after wave of men, women, toddlers, children, and elderly people fleeing the destruction.

The methods are familiar to everyone in Gaza after four years of intifada—the loudspeaker announcements from the Israeli army ordering people to leave their houses, the machinegun fire from circling Apaches, even the deaths and injuries are, sadly, very familiar by now. Only the names of the incursions—the Israeli army always assigns names to prolonged attacks—and the reasons given for them, change. This one is called Operation Orange Iron, and, according to the official announcements, this is a "response" to a Qassam rocket fired by the militants at Neve Dakalim settlement that injured an Israeli soldier.

This is the deadliest incursion since the death of Yassir Arafat on 11 November. So far, there have been 11 civilian fatalities and 71 injuries—and this attack, now in its third night, started only hours
after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told the international media of the prospects for peace.

Watching the destruction from a somewhat safe distance sears nightmare images into the memory—an older man, not really able to hurry but running nonetheless, carrying his sandals in his hand as he tries out-run the tanks over broken pavement; a little girl, perhaps 10 years old, winter jacket thrown over her nightclothes, clutching her schoolbag. She probably knows that very shortly, her home will be a pile of rubble, and her schoolbooks are what she decided to save. Close to her is a harried woman holding a baby, calling to her four children to hurry along. It's hard to know which is more haunting—the elderly people telling their grown sons and daughters to see to the grandkids and let them manage alone, or the toddler clinging to his mother with one hand, his toy truck in
the other.

Watching a house demolition is harrowing too. The background rumble of the massive American-made bulldozer is almost drowned out by the groans of the concrete and rebar houses. There is so much noise as the walls, floors and roofs slowly buckle and finally fall that it seems the houses themselves are protesting their destruction.

In the cold, rainy winter night, this small ocean of humanity surging toward the center of Khan Younis can find few safe harbors. Some of the families took temporary refuge in a classroom of the UNRWA school. "This must be what it was like in when the Israelis forced us out of our homes in El Nakba," said one father about 30 years old.

"El Nakba"—"the catastrophe"—was the 1948 attack on Palestinian towns and villages that turned millions of Palestinians into refugees. The man who said this is obviously not old enough to have lived through El Nakba himself, but no doubt heard about it from his parents. Indeed, any school child in Gaza or the West Bank can explain El Nakba in detail. And now, even children like Ahlam, a girl of 11, are asking surprisingly adult questions: "Why," you hear from Ahlam and many other kids, "why are the soldiers in our land? Why are they doing this to us? Why do they kill us? What did we do?"

In last night's attack, the third night of Operation Orange Iron, some 300 civilians had to flee their
homes. Tens of houses were destroyed, leaving hundreds homeless, but the exact numbers will be hard to get for a few days. Only a local resident can walk around and know exactly which pile of rubble was a one-storey or multi-storey dwelling. Early reports say 30, even 40 or more houses flattened, but no one can be sure till the Israeli Army stops the shelling and aerial bombardment. The official Israeli Occupation Forces announcement says Operation Orange Iron will continue for several days more, "as long as necessary" to stop the militants' launching Qassam rockets from the Al Nimsawi neighborhood.

Many of the adults in Khan Younis, however, suspect the ferocity of the attack on their city has been
sparked by last Sunday's militant coup against an Israeli watchtower at the Rafah Terminal crossing.
After digging an 800 meter tunnel over several months, the militants emplaced some 3000 lbs of explosives under an Israeli military post that is part of the Egypt/Gaza border crossing. The Israeli media confirmed that the explosion killed 6 Israeli soldiers and wounded 8 more. Two Palestinian gunman were then killed in the firefight that was phase two of the militant attack.

In a press release soon afterward, the Fatah Hawks, the militant wing of the Fateh Party, and Hamas,
claimed joint responsibility for the successful operation. Ahlam's father told me, "The Israeli army
always seeks a big revenge when the militants kill their soldiers. We heard they are killing people in
Rafah too, but they can send their tanks and Apaches against us easily enough."

The militant groups in Khan Younis have been retaliating, though vastly outnumbered and outgunned.
So far, one Israeli soldier has been wounded by anti-tank fire.

Hospitals and Ambulances Targeted

Khan Younis's Nasser Hospital is crowded with casualties, along with families finding a bit of
floorspace in the hallways and lobby. In the orthopedic surgery department, ambulance driver Hassan
Abu Samrah, 45, lies face-down on a gurney while a doctor treats a gunshot wound in his leg. Abu Samrah was trying to rescue two civilians injured by Israeli tank fire near the hospital, and ended up needing rescue himself. "Before I got within sight of the tanks," he explained, "I turned on the flashing red lights on the ambulance roof and had the siren going as loud as possible." The ambulance is also marked "AMBULANCE" in huge letters on every flat surface. "They had to see and hear me," he said, "but they fired on the ambulance. Still, I thought I might get the injured people loaded inside and get away, but suddenly my face was on the ground and I saw my leg was bleeding—they'd shot me." Another ambulance crew finally got all three back to Nasser Hospital.

The hospital itself—contrary to all internationally-accepted rules of engagement—has also become a target. The Israeli army bulldozers destroyed the western part of the hospital in the first few hours of the incursion and has periodically been shooting at the hospital. The hospital director, Dr. Mohia Al Deen Al Faraa, explained, "The shelling directed at us is ongoing. Some of our patients are in danger of being hurt all over again in their hospital beds. So far, we have had 11 fatalities arrive, plus another 71 injured. Most of the injured are civilians with wounds in the head and chest." The Israeli army snipers have a well-deserved reputation for accuracy, so all these upper-body injuries suggest
they have orders to shoot to kill.

Journalists Targeted

Journalists and photographers covering these incursions take all possible pains to identify themselves very obviously. A group of five photographers and journalists were nonetheless targeted by an Israeli tank. Despite their helmets and vests marked "TV" and "PRESS" with big phosphorescent letters, the tank fired a shell directly at them, injuring Mahmoud Al Hums of the AFB, Mohammed Saber of ABI, and Hatem Mussa of the Associated Press. Said one of their group who escaped unharmed, "There's no possible way this was an accident, no way the tank gunner didn't know we were press. Our vests and helmets are all marked in glow-in-the-dark letters. But they fired straight at us, we scattered, but my three colleagues were caught by the shrapnel." Two have serious facial and head injuries and are in guarded condition, the third is stable, said medical sources.

City-wide Shortages

Although the Al Nimsawi neighborhood has come in for the worst of Operation Orange Iron, all of Khan Younis's quarter-million citizens are suffering from electricity and water shortages. Almost all the city has been with without electricity and running water since the first hours of the three-day-old attack. As families run out of bottled water, they cannot be resupplied by the Red Crescent/Red Cross and other relief groups due to the Israeli army cordon sealing off the city. And there seems to be no end in sight: "The Forces are prepared to stay in the refugee camp for as long as it takes to secure quiet in the Israeli communities," Lieutenant Colonel Ofer Vinter said on the Israeli Army radio station.

There is an unsettling sense of deja vu throughout Gaza at these latest incursions. Just as happened
during "Operation Rainbow" in Rafah, the attack that killed 40 last May and prompted an international
outcry, besieged Khan Younis is even running out of space for the dead. In May, the morgue refrigerators in Rafah's Al Najjar Hospital were full, the bereaved families were under fire and could not leave their homes to bury their dead, and the bodies had to be stored in commercial vegetable refrigerators. Now, a few months later, the same gruesome scenario is unfolding again, as the mortuary refrigerators in Nasser Hospital are full to capacity, and the Israeli attack is targeting the cemetery. So the bereaved families cannot bury their loved ones. In Gaza, even the dead can be homeless.

Israeli Prime Minister Sharon was talking about peace in the future mere hours before Operation Orange Iron started its carnage in Khan Younis. British Prime Minister Tony Blair is scheduled to arrive in the West Bank city of Ramallah this Wednesday to discuss re-starting the peace process with PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie—while, very possibly, the Apaches are still shelling Khan Younis. Predictably, the Palestinian Authority has condemned this latest attack on a civilian population. "This escalation of aggression will destroy any chance to proceed with the peace process," said PA spokesman Nabil Abu Rudinah.

Diplomats in comfortable conference rooms issuing measured statements while Palestinian civilians die in the streets is an all-too-familiar situation for the people of Gaza. As one elderly man put it, "Sometimes our fighters kill a soldier or an Israeli settler—then they kill 10, 20, even a hundred of us.

Is this justice? Can they imagine for a moment this makes us less angry?" Another mother, huddling in the hospital hallway with her children, said, "We hardly dream of peace any more—just for a night when we can sleep till morning without hearing shelling and Apaches over our heads, without being afraid we'll be runing from the tanks."

Sadness after being homeless

Carnage

10 year old Abeer Abu Shlouf looking at the body of her father, killed by Israeli snipers during the heavy shelling in Rafah.