Gaza: Human Shields

As shells, bombs and rockets laid waste to Gaza, both sides were engaged in a propaganda battle while the civilian death toll continued to rise.

The Israeli government repeatedly claimed that Palestinian groups were to blame, accusing them of using women and children as human shields as they fired rockets into Israel.

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Gaza: Witnessing The War And Destruction

HEROINES: Here are 6 women trying � against all odds � to build a future for Gaza

 

Madeleine Kulab grew up by Gaza�s glistening blue sea, watching the waves crash into the strip�s 25-mile Mediterranean coastline. But at 13, when her father, who suffered from a form of palsy, could no longer fish, Kulab took the helm and became her family�s breadwinner.

Now 21, she says becoming Gaza�s first and only fisherwoman was not easy, both because she is a women and because she lives in a society whose dysfunctional relationship with Israel takes a daily toll. �Even the sea isn�t free here,� Kulab says. �People always looked at me and teased or scolded my dad � they didn�t take me seriously. But we ignored them.�

Today, one year after last summer�s war with Israel in which 2,100 Palestinians were killed � most of them civilians � vast devastation can still be seen across the Gaza Strip�s scarred landscape.

For many, Gaza is a cemetery of aspirations never realized. It is one of the most densely populated areas in the world � home to about 1.8 million Palestinians, roughly a third of whom live in UN-funded refugee camps. The territory is riddled with poverty and its local economy strangled by a blockade which Israel imposed in 2007 to weaken the Islamist Hamas government.

UN figures show about 80 percent of the population receives aid. According to the World Bank, unemployment in Gaza is the highest in the world at 43 percent. Youth unemployment hovers over 60 percent. Few ever obtain the proper permits to travel through the territory�s tightly controlled borders.

Since Israel imposed its land and sea blockade, families have suffered. On the water, if fishermen exceed a six-mile limit imposed by Israel, they risk being shot at by the Israeli Navy. �We are given small swimming zones to fish where there isn�t any good fish,� Kulab says, noting her boat has been shot at in the past. �It�s a cage.�

Zakaria Bakr, head of Gaza�s Union of Agricultural Workers, says Kulab is one of the best on the sea. �Living in Gaza taught her to be brave,� he says. �Both physically and mentally. This isn�t always easy here � few men are as strong.�

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Israel�s decision to close Gaza beach attack probe angers Palestinians

The living martyr, a visit to the Bakr family in Gaza

 

I recently visited the Bakr family in their home in Gaza�s Shati refugee camp. Sharifa Mustafa Bakr, 48, is the mother of 9-year-old Zachariah and grandmother of Ahed, two of the four boys killed.  �Zachariah was my favorite because he was the youngest one,� she said pointing to the poster above her that commemorates his brief life. �He was the sweetest � so innocent and playful,� she told me as tears began to stream down her cheeks.

Sharifa Bakr suffers from heart problems and had just returned from the hospital on that fateful day. �Zachariah asked for a shekel to use the internet, and I promised I would give it to him when he returned,� she said. That was the last time Sharifa Bakr would see her beloved grandson. �When he left, I felt that my soul went with him,� she stammered as she collapsed into tears.

After lying down to watch the news, Sharifa Bakr read on the ticker that four children had been killed on the nearby beach. She knew that the children typically play soccer on the beach because the refugee camp has no parks or open spaces. Upon seeing the news, she ran to Al-Shifa hospital where she encountered a friend who informed her that the dead children were in fact from the Bakr family.

12-year-old Muntasir Bakr was one of the four boys who narrowly survived the airstrikes.

�We call him the living martyr,� Sharifa Bakr told me.

Muntasir was hit with shrapnel which still remains in his head and causes him headaches. He has severe trauma that remains undiagnosed and untreated, and has violent episodes which have caused him to attempt suicide and attack his siblings. I sat with Muntasir in his family�s home. He was polite and good-natured but the trauma from last summer was visible on his young face and audible in his voice. He spoke like a man who had lived many lifetimes � not like a child nearing his teenage years.

�Everyday someone dies. I went to play at the beach yesterday and I couldn�t because I was overwhelmed with fear. It�s a life full of sadness,� he said. �Netanyahu destroyed life.�

Unbeknownst to me, his father had told him to recount the massacre on the beach. �We barely started playing when the first missile exploded right next to my cousin Ismael,� he said. �We started running away and then I told them �lets go back and get Ismael then we�ll run away again.� When we did that another missile exploded right next to us. My brother and my nephew died because they let go of my hand. Two missiles exploded around me. It was foggy when we were running, I turned around and saw my nephew and brother lying on the ground.�

�Before the war, I wanted to be a fisherman like my father,� Muntasir told me. �Now I want to be a fighter so that I can avenge my brother, my nephew and my cousins. Imagine if you were a child and a missile exploded right beside you. What would you do?�

Muntasir became despondent and silent as he looked down. His father, 55-year-old Subhei Fares Bakr, told me Muntasir had not slept in 24 hours. He attempted to medicate his son but Muntasir was not responsive and the pill fell out of his mouth. Subhei Bakr called a cousin over to help put the pill down his throat, but Muntasir began shaking violently. His cousin restrained him from injuring himself, and finally Muntasir passed out. His cousin lifted Muntasir�s limp body into his arms and ran down the stairs and outside into Shati camp�s dusty alleyways. I ran closely behind as they hailed a taxi. We crammed inside and the car sped through the streets of Gaza City. �Get out of the way,� another cousin in the front seat screamed at traffic.

We arrived at a barebones medical facility where Muntasir was laid down on an examination table. A doctor administered smelling salts, immediately waking Muntasir. Still dazed, his cousin helped him walk to a sink where he washed his face. Muntasir was weak and his cousin once again carried him out.

�There�s no medicine or treatment for him here. We have to get him out of Gaza,� Muntasir�s cousin told me as he carried him away. We hailed another taxi and headed back to the Bakr�s home in Shati camp.

- See more at: http://mondoweiss.net/2015/06/living-martyr-family#sthash.my7x0diV.dpuf

Dalia Khalifa: Gaza's 'unbreakable' girl

Nine-year old Dalia Khalifa was in the living room of her family home in the Zaytoun district of the besieged Gaza Strip when an Israeli strike hit their house during last summer's Operation Protective Edge.

On the dawn of 1 August, 2014, she was rushed to Gaza's Shifa Hospital, where other members of her family � and many compatriots � were being treated.

Covered in blood and unable to open her eyes, with her younger sister clinging to her crying out "I love you," she wasn't aware where she was and what her surroundings were until she gradually recovered.

Her story was narrated by Mohammed Asad, a photojournalist from Gaza, who happened to be in the same hospital documenting civilian casualties of Israel's military offensive.

"When I saw her, the image of the Afghan girl Sharbat Gula came to my mind," Asad told MEE, in a reference to the famous photo by Steve McCurry published in the National Geographic.

Asad took a photo of Dalia on 9 August, 2014, noting that despite the shrapnel wounds to her face, she did not cry. The name given to the photo was "Assiyat al-Damea," which translates to "the one who does not cry easily". The English name given to the photo was simply "unbreakable".

The photo has recently become the Grand Jury Winner in a photography competition organised by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Middle East and North Africa (OCHA).

Asad met Dalia again on Tuesday, taking new photos of her with family and classmates.

"She is still strong-willed today," said Asad, adding that her question to the Israelis remains: "What have we done to you to deserve this?"

Her mother, Um Zuhair, and father, Rizk, recalled to Asad the events of that tragic night.

"A tank-shell fell on our house at around 3am without any prior warning. We were all sleeping in the middle of the house and the will of God dictated that we'd all survive," she said.

"But the children had been injured and the neighbours came to their aid and took them to hospital," she added.

Dalia's father said that while some of the traces of shrapnel on her face are vanishing, her body remains riddled with shrapnel scars. What's worse, he added, is the more serious medical case of her younger sister Remas, whose skull was injured as a result of the Israeli strike.

Both girls need medical attention as well as cosmetic surgery, but the shut borders with Egypt and Israel means that they can't travel to receive treatment in Turkey nor receive specialist doctors who are willing to travel to the besieged Gaza Strip.

- See more at:

Banksy�s Grim Tour of Gaza: Watch a Mini Documentary by the Shadowy Street Artist

The world�s most mysterious street artist released a 2-minute documentary online Wednesday that details the horrors of Gaza�allegedly shot by the man himself.

�Make this the year YOU discover a new destination.�

That welcoming tagline serves as the opening title card to a 2-minute documentary that the legendary U.K. street artist Banksy posted to his website Wednesday evening. But in typical Bansky fashion, what follows is a an eye-opening short film, Welcome to Gaza.

A man�presumably Banksy�is seen traveling by car and then climbing through what he calls �a network of illegal tunnels� before entering Gaza. The camera homes in on children playing in the rubble.

�The locals like it so much they never leave,� text says over the screen, �(because they�re not allowed to),� followed by shots of IDF soldiers.

The �tourism� video includes a statistic on Operation Protective Edge, a military operation launched by Israel in 2014 that it claims leveled 18,000 homes. Also included is footage of drone strikes�accompanied by American voices�locals voicing their disapproval at the state of things, and footage of the notoriously mysterious street artist stenciling several works on rock walls in Gaza. Banksy�s publicist Jo Brooks has confirmed that the video, as well as the four new graffiti works unveiled in Gaza, are all authentic.

�Gaza is often described as �the world�s largest open air prison� because no one is allowed to enter or leave. But that seems a bit unfair to prisons�they don�t have their electricity and drinking water cut off randomly almost every day,� Banksy wrote on his website.

The video ends by focusing on a message graffiti�d in red letters on a wall:

�If we wash our hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless we side with the powerful�we don�t remain neutral.�

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Life In Gaza Explained

Chetan Bhagat's tweet on killings in Gaza leads to outrage on Twitter: Sick, inhuman comment or just his view!

Chetan Bhagat's shocking tweet about the killings by Israel in Gaza, led to outrage on social networking website Twitter on Wednesday.

Bhagat tweeted, "What is happening to Gaza isn't fair but sadly that is the only way sometimes terrorist organizations and their supporters learn to behave".

The tweet just when Israel has killed over 200 Palestinians, many of them innocent children, in cold blood, angered Twitterati.

A twitter user with the handle@Homer2bart tweeted, 'Chetan bhagat probably doesnt' have a kid. He knows nothing about how families feel when they lose their kids in such tragic incidents".

They expressed shock and surprise that how he could write with such indifference about civilian deaths in Palestine.

Twitter uses termed Bhagat's tweet as reflecting his 'insensitivity', 'sick mind', 'inhumanity' and 'cheap thinking' for his apparent justification for the killings of innocents. Bhagat, who has written a few novels, later tweeted, that his three tweets should be read together.

"Anyone posting them selectively quoting them out of context", he wrote. But there were angry responses. Another user Vishakha wrote, "kisi apne ka khoon jab dekhte hai tab ye intellectual thoughts koi kaam nahi aate'. [When you see the blood of your near and dear ones, intellectual thoughts don't work]

But there were some tweeples who supported him too. Many said that though his statement might be inhuman or condemnable, he had a right to express his views. And that, at least, one knew where our 'celebrity author' stood on the issue of Israel-Palestine, especially, the humanitarian crisis that it has become. 

Check Chetan Bhagat's twitter account AT THIS LINK.

ISIS Now Openly Operating in Gaza � Flags Seen Waving at Funeral

"Israeli and other western intelligence services have warned that the group�s influence is spreading and may have set down roots in the coastal enclave."

Algemeiner � June 29, 2014

ISIS military convoy in Iraq. (Photo: Twitter-nayelshafei)

Mourners in Gaza were seen carrying black flags of the bloody Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terror group at a funeral on Sunday for one of two terrorists Israel targeted in an airstrike on Friday, Israel�s Ma�ariv daily reported.

Analysts said this was the first such open sign of local support for the group (also known as the �Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant�), which is engaged in fierce battles for control of Iraq, and in Syria, in order to create a unified Islamic caliphate.

Israeli and other western intelligence services have warned that the group�s influence is spreading and may have set down roots in the coastal enclave.

The Israeli Air Force struck Osama Has sumi, 29, and Mohammad Fatzih, 24, with a direct missile, as they traveled in a vehicle along the Gazan shore.

�Militants, like Hassumi and Fatzih, attacking Israel from Gaza, are not safe, do not have immunity, and will not be free to plan, plot and operate,� IDF Spokesman Lt.-Col. Peter Lerner said on Friday.

�We will continue to strike the instigators and agitators with patience, determination and precision. Gaza rocket terrorism does not pay,� he said.

Defense Minister Moshe (Bogie) Ya�alon said in Friday that the IDF would foil �rocket fire on Israel or attempted attacks on our civilians or troops. We will hunt down those who carry out or plan [these attacks], like we did today.�

While it is unclear if either of the two were, in fact, directly backed by ISIS, the IDF said the two were behind volleys of rockets fired into Israel over the last two weeks, and belonged to the �Salah e-Din Brigades� of the Popular Front.

Meanwhile, Hamas, which controls the strip, �categorically denied Egyptian security claims that ISIS terrorists infiltrated Sinai through Gaza tunnels,� according to the al-Kassam website.

On Saturday, Iyad Bazam, a spokesman for the terror group, called the claims, �blatant lies,� and said they were �part of the ongoing Egyptian smear campaign against the Gaza Strip.�

On Saturday night, six rockets fired from Gaza struck Israel, with two hitting a populated building.

�Over the course of the weekend 12 rockets hit Israel and over the past two weeks 25 rockets hit Israel. Approximately 50 rockets were launched at Israel over the past two weeks,� the IDF said in a statement.

�In response to the rocket attacks that hit Israel earlier this evening and in order to prevent further attacks on Israeli civilians, an IAF aircraft targeted three terror activity sites and three concealed rocket launchers in the southern Gaza Strip, a weapon manufacturing site in the northern Gaza Strip and a terror activity site and weapon manufacturing site in the central Gaza Strip,� the statement read.

More here, with video...