by Kawther Salam
29-12-2008

Horror, fear, hysteria, weeping , involuntary urinating, fever and trauma affect the children of Gaza due to the death of their friends, parents, relatives and seeing the blood covering the streets and the ruins of the destroyed houses. Trauma spreads across the children of Gaza due to the increased number of funerals in the streets, and the loud noise of the Israeli F16s flying over their heads, bombing everything around them.

It’s very difficult to hear the children talking about death, funerals, and searching a piece of the bread in the middle of the huge destruction around them. It is very difficult to hear the children talking about war, F16s, politics, and describing the death of father, mother or parents!

Yesterday, seven children were killed overnight in Gaza, after the Israeli air forces dropped a GBU-39,  a new bunker-buster bomb at a mosque in the central residential district of Jabalia refugee camp in the northern part of Gaza Strip.

Among the dead children were five young sisters aged between one and 12 years from the Ba’losha family. Three young boys from Al Absi family from Rafah Refugee Camp were also killed by the same GBU-39 bomb. The Israeli State of occupation bought  from the US 1000 of the GBU-39 bunker-buster bomb which the air force recently use in their strikes against the population of Gaza Strip.

Israel won congressional approval for the purchase of the missile in September 1000 (September) 2008, and officials said Israeli Defense Ministry and the first shipment arrived earlier this month and used it successfully to penetrate underground launchers for the missiles “Qassam” in the Gaza Strip during air strikes Intensive infrastructure “Hamas” movement on Saturday. And also used yesterday (Sunday) in the bombing of tunnels in Rafah.

During the day, the children watch and see the scenes of horror. The parents try to calm their children, but their fear is bigger than their capacity to calm them. During the day the parents try to put children in bed to sleep, but the loud noises of the bombs of F16s, destroy both the parents and the children. In Gaza, children are murdered while sleeping in bed, so the Gaza people say. The children are too scared to sleep, they all remember how their friends were murdered in their beds.

In Gaza, the terror is the same during day and night. The Israeli terror does not differentiate between day and night. The people live the tragedy of death each moment. Nobody is safe in Gaza. At night, the children urinate and tremble in their beds.

The UNRWA relief and works agency in Gaza requested today, Monday, an international investigation of murder of the students and children while getting out from the UN vocational training Institute in the Gaza Strip. The UN spokesman, Sami Mishasha, said that at least 51 Palestinian civilians, including women and children, were confirmed to be among those killed in the Gaza Strip.

After the funeral of the eight students who were killed during air strikes on Gaza, Sami Mishasha said that the figure, which was based on visits to hospitals and medical centers in Gaza, was “conservative” and “certainly rising”. The UN calls upon the international community to protect the civilian population from the Israeli aggression.

Mishasha explained that the policy of closure of border crossings leading to Gaza made it impossible to carry out humanitarian tasks entrusted to UNRWA. He pointed out that more than 750 thousand people in Gaza are dependent on UNRWA food aid alone, and that there are hundreds of thousands more who rely on other medical and relief aid to survive. More than 200 thousand of the population are dependent on food aid of the worldwide organization. He added that it has become impossible to do massive humanitarian under the policy of “drip”, where Israel allows only a few trucks to enter the sector.

The High Commissioner-General of the UNRWA, Karen Abu Zeid, expressed her fear of the destruction of Gaza and the large number of casualties. She demanded that the Israeli authorities end the Israeli Air Force bombing, and reminding Israel that it had signed international conventions that protect civilians.

The Palestinian medical sources from Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza stated that during the three consecutive days of Israeli bombardment in the heavily-populated territory, over 345 Gazans have been killed and over 1500 wounded, among them hundreds who are in critical conditions. There were also growing fears that a ground offensive was being planned after Israel declared a “closed military zone” around the Gaza Strip, said Dr. Muawia, the director of Al-Shifa hospital.

As of my last information, Gaza has been declared a “military zone”, what normally means that the IDF will have free hand to murder anybody and commit whatever atrocities they want. Journalists are now effectively isolated, and anybody conveying information is at risk of death.

Mr. Sameh Habeeb sent me some new information from Gaza. He wrote that Israeli army moves from targeting governmental offices into civic ones. It has targeted  some of Hamas leaders’ houses. Israeli navy bombed the Gaza seaport, destroyed many fishing boats.

Palestinian civilians in Gaza received more threats by phones, specifically to Khan Younis. The Israeli air force bombed Al Sideeq Mosque in Jabalia Camp. The Israeli Chief of Intelligence Yuval Diskin, stated that “the worse in Gaza is coming”. There are severe shortages in medical supplies in Gaza hospitals. Burn and birth units were transformed into emergency surgery units. The Al-Shifa hospital has also announced its inability to receive more cases.