Gaza Update: Israel Says No to Restraint

Posted by Siun , Firedoglake at 7:13 PM on January 11, 2009.

Prime Minister Olmert "slammed international calls for restraint by IDF forces in Gaza" during today's Israeli Cabinet meeting:

"For many years we've demonstrated restraint. We reined our reactions. We bit our lips and took barrage after barrage," said Olmert ...

Olmert called the war "an unprecedented national effort that restored the spirit of unity to the nation..."

Restraint was certainly not in evidence as Israeli forces entered Gaza City itself in a new escalation of the ground war. Israeli bombs also hit across the Gaza border in Egypt hurting two policemen and two children. Egyptian sources say that there is talk of more injured.

In Gaza itself, conditions are desperate. The WHO stated 4 days ago that "health services in Gaza, already depleted and fragile, are on the point of collapse if steps to support and protect them are not taken immediately" yet no relief is in sight. They note that there "is now a serious risk of outbreaks of communicable disease, such as acute respiratory infections, measles and acute watery diarrhoea, all of which have potential for high mortality among children." As markfromireland wrote in pointing to this report, "there's all sorts of things that kill the vulnerable during a war."

The ICRC (Red Cross/Red Crescent) notes in their latest Operational Update that ...

The ICRC is still receiving dozens of calls from people in such areas a asking for help. "Yesterday, we received a call from a family of 40 people, including 20 children, staying in a house in the Netzarim area. They told us they had not had drinking water for almost six days because the well supplying water to their house had been damaged," said an ICRC employee in Gaza, who is herself staying at her aunt's house, together with 17 other family members who have fled insecure areas near Gaza City.

And that

ICRC staff remain on standby awaiting authorization from the Israeli authorities to escort Palestine Red Crescent ambulances to Al-Atartra in Beit Lahya, to Zaytun and to an area east of Jabalia in order to search for and evacuate the wounded.

While Israel continues to block all outside reporters from Gaza, accounts from residents are reaching us.

Sameh Habeeb's report for today now lists over 70 incidents including: www.gazatoday.blogspot.com

5-A-25-woman killed in Khoza'a area due to Phosphorous bombs in Khan
Yonis. Around 50 wounded according to medical sources.
20-Five children killed in Bait Lahia due to Israeli bombings. Two of
them are sisters and 7 from others family. The killed ones are,
Haitham yaser Ma'rof 12, Jehan, 16, Fatima Ma'rof 16. Two others from
Ghaban family whose name are Khawla,16, Sahar,14.
23-Head of Emergency and Ambulances: Death toll 880 and injured 3620.
30-Local radios: A Palestinian woman who was going to deliver a baby
and two of her relatives killed in Bait Lahia City. Many wounded in
the place as an artillery shell targeted them.
47-More Phosphorous bombs are being used east of Gaza City and this is
so clear on the T.V footages going out of Gaza.
48-Humantarian Crisis still exacerbated as no access to water and bread.
49-Medical sector still paralyzed!
52-Many ambulances stop due to fuel shortages!
58-Egyptian Doctors who came to Gaza: "we are shocked about the
medical sector here. We have never seen such casualties."
61-United Nations Training center, SMETH, partially damaged in a
nearby bombing targeted a house near the culture ministry.

The writer at In Gaza gives us a sense of what those three hour truces are like: (the reporting here is very worth following - h/t markfromireland)

Yousef and I had discussed the violations of Israel's unilaterally-imposed 3-hour-ceasefire [which a Lebanese journalist summed up: "How would you like it if I was shooting at you and then told you I'd give you a minute to dance around before I kill you?" ]. John Ging, director of UNRWA in the Gaza Strip, sums it up more diplomatically: "For 3 hours, the people of Gaza have some safety. That's all it is." During the first day of the innapropriately-named time period between 1 and 4pm, Israeli forces killed 3 sisters (ages 2, 3, 10), one woman (31), 2 elderly men (60 and 87), and targeted paramedics, shooting one in the leg, as the explosions continued all over the Gaza Strip. At 6 pm, 2 hours after the 'cease-fire', the official killing did indeed continue: 5 dead in northern Gaza, returning from the bread lines with a prize bag of bread, bombed in their car, including ages 10, 12, 15, cousin 20, and father 45. And later, after 9pm, another medic shot in the leg while trying to perform his duties.

And Mohammed Ali, a Gazan Oxfam worker, provides one of the clearest views of what life in Gaza is like:

The air, the sea and the earth in Gaza City are now occupied by the Israeli military. They occupy Gazans' minds, nerves and ears too.

In a bid to stop my children twitching, jerking, trembling and waking at every sound of an attack during their few hours of sleep and their many waking hours, I put cotton wool in their ears - it has not worked.

I wonder what damage is being done to my children's tiny hearts. Theirs are not as big as mine, they can cope less with the stress that is being put on them.

We ran out of fuel for our generator, which meant that we were confined to a small room filled with eleven people, with little light for three days.

We have not had water either; our well can only pump water if it has electricity which most of the Gaza Strip has been denied since this nightmare started...

What is the international community waiting for - to see even more dismembered people and families erased before they act? Time is ticking by and the numbers of dead and injured are increasing. What are they waiting for?

What is happening is against humanity, are we not human?

Tagged as: war, israel, palestine, middle east, attacks, gaza, eygpt

Siun is a regular blogger for FireDogLake.