Severe Attack on the Gaza Strip
by Kristen Ess
Writing from
Occupied Gaza
Dissident Voice
March 10,2003
(Posted March 7, 2003)
Gaza
Strip hospitals are urgently requesting blood and medical supplies that under
constant Israeli closure they are unable to get. They have run out of space for
all of the dying Palestinians. Israeli occupation forces have injured 100s of
Palestinians in the Gaza Strip over the past week alone.
This week has been
particularly brutal in the Gaza Strip. Under the violent Israeli occupation
Palestinians are held hostage, unable to get away from invading Israeli
soldiers shelling from tanks, firing from Apaches in the sky, and shooting guns
at any Palestinian who is here. Last night Israeli soldiers invaded the Al
Buriej Refugee Camp in the central Gaza Strip. Israeli soldiers murdered eight
Palestinians and wounded 29. They destroyed five houses, using dynamite on
four.
Israeli soldiers killed one
33 year old pregnant woman inside her home as they blew up the house next door.
Israeli soldiers also invaded the Namsawi area of Khan Younis in the southern
Gaza Strip, killing two Palestinians and wounding 40. The Israeli military
would not allow ambulances to reach the injured, as is common Israeli military
practice. They destroyed nine residential buildings, six shops, and part of
Nasir Hospital.
Day before yesterday when
Israeli occupation soldiers invaded the Jabalyia refugee camp in the north of
the Gaza Strip, a man died who sustained injuries when Israeli soldiers fired
missiles from a US donated Apache helicopter into a Gaza City hospital, killing
two nurses.
As the Israeli military
finished its nine-hour attack on the Jabalyia Refugee Camp yesterday at 8 am,
they shot a tank shell into a small crowd that had gathered near an ambulance
to help put out a fire. A family was trapped inside and two fire-fighters were
spraying the building with water. Israeli soldiers shot the tank shell at the
fire-fighters and the people standing around.
The ambulance driver was
just on one leg trying to help a boy off the ground, many others were lying on
the ground, dead. Two men came running to help the ambulance driver lift the
boy and it was only then that we could see he had no face left, just blood on
the street and a small body.
Two journalists were
targeted as well in the morning. None were allowed in to report on the killings
throughout the night. Over 140 Palestinians were injured in this one nights
attack. Israeli soldiers killed 11, three were children. Attacks like this are
occuring every night here in the Gaza Strip at the brutal hands of the Israeli
military government.
It is nearly impossible for
people here to keep up with the number dead and the horror they are witnessing.
Israeli soldiers prevented Palestinian ambulances from reaching the people
throughout most of the night. Some people in the camp tell me that Israeli
soldiers were taking the ambulances and using them to sneak themselves into the
camp in order to more easily shoot the people.
Israeli soldiers have
murdered over 80 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in this week alone. This
massacre is expected to continue as the US openly plans its military invasion
and occupation of Iraq.
A friend who is exiled to
Gaza City asked his 4 year old son, who is not allowed by the Israeli military
government to visit his father, "Do you want to come to see me?"
The four year old boy asked,
"Will the Israelis shoot me?"
His dad replied, "No, I
don't think so."
The boy said, "Oh, they
only kill the big people, not the little ones, right?"
His dad said,
"Right."
The boy said, "Okay,
I'll come."
A man here told me that there's even less future now than before. There is nothing to plan for, although today President Arafat, in an attempt to find someone the butcher Sharon is willing to speak with, is speaking seriously about Abu Mazen (Mahmud Abas) as Prime Minister. A guy here just told me, "The US loves him."
Kristen Ess is a political activist and freelance
journalist from New York City, who has lived in the West Bank and Gaza since
March 2002, where she does solidarity work and reports for Free Speech Radio news and Left Turn magazine.