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Monday 28 July 2014

Clean Sheets

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This man made one last trip back to his house in Beit Hanoun to save his bird, Zooba: photo by Kristen Chick via Twtter, 26 July 2014

Mustafa al-Masri carried a yellow birdcage as he struggled to create a path between chunks of concrete, steel rebar, and downed electricity lines. He had just returned from making one last trip to his home to save his canary, named Zooba. Inside his home, one of few in the area left intact, he found signs that Israeli troops had used it as a base. Packaging from American military rations lay on the ground, with a bottle of bug spray with writing in Hebrew, and an intravenous line apparently used by a wounded soldier. There was evidence that the soldiers had used the house during clashes with militants. Spent bullet casings littered the floor under a window in his parents' bedroom, which had been ransacked. And on the roof were more spent bullet casings under an opening in the wall, as well as the launchers of two used light anti-tank weapons.
 

Kristen Chick: Amid cease-fire, Gaza residents return home to find widespread destruction, Christian Science Monitor, 26 July 2014

Your family's gone,
home gone,
your history, memories,
your humanity
and your canary
O let us hope
has flown away

your dignity theirs
to take at will
your life
fleeting
on the wing
and on the next roof
a slight lifting of the wind
no more than a whisper

the blast
itself
the white sheets
flapping

in the moment before





 A Palestinian man cries in front of his destroyed house in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza Strip: photo by Oliver Weiken / EPA, 26 September 2014

Gaza residents who returned back to devastated border found large-scale destruction: scores of homes were pulverized, wreckage blocked roads and power cables dangled in the streets.

 Gaza residents who returned back to devastated border town of Beit Hanoun found large-scale destruction: scores of homes were pulverized, wreckage blocked roads and power cables dangled in the streets: photo by Hatem Moussa / AP, 26 July 2014



  More than 160,000 Palestinians have been displaced during the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip: photo by Oliver Weiken / EPA, 26 September 2014



  In Beit Hanoun, the streets were filled at midmorning with frantic residents, many of whom had walked several miles from temporary shelters to inspect the damage to their homes and retrieve belongings: photo by Oliver Weiken / EPA, 26 September 2014

4 comments:

tpw said...

Dear Tom: Your posts on the Israeli-Gaza conflict have been so vivid and powerful, and painful to absorb. This side of the story, as you know, is mostly invisible in this country. Thanks for helping to provide it.

Jonathan Chant said...

The poetic response is especially moving. The accompanying images painful. A yellow birdcage of all things vividly illustrates the scene.

TC said...

Terry and Jonathan, many thanks, wish things were a bit cheerier here -- that is, in the world.


Those of us who may have had the temerity to assume the horrors inflicted by Israel upon Gaza might dissipate with the latest brief respite in the agony have been fooled again -- the result of projecting a human mentality upon an inhuman aggressor.

So today they're back at it. The grounds of Al-Shifa Hospital have become a de facto refugee camp. There's a park. This morning kids were playing on swings, the first day of Eid -- the equivalent of Christmas morning, a joyous time. Kids on swings, others awaiting their turn. When a missile struck, killing nine.

Bombing and shelling from land, sea and air intense throughout the day.

__


‘Israel doesn’t understand – we’re a nation that can’t be crushed’ -- Paul Mason (Channel 4 News), Gaza, 28 July 2014
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Those of us who have been doing everything in our power either to deny/block out what's happening in Gaza, or to lie to ourselves that in a moment Civilization is going to step in and say "Nada mas", ought to consider a reality check.

Let's face it. These murderers will stop at nothing.
Here is their idea of a pep rally.

"Gaza is a graveyard!" sing joyful Israeli youths (7/26/14)

__

This video shows an Israeli mob actually singing in celebration of children’s deaths in the style of a soccer fans’ song: “In Gaza there’s no studying, No children are left there, Olé, olé, olé-olé-olé.”

The mob also incites directly against Ahmed Tibi and Haneen Zoabi, two prominent Palestinian citizens of Israel who are members of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament.

Tibi – Ahmed Tibi
I wanted you to know
The next kid to be hurt will be your kid
I hate Tibi
I hate Tibi the terrorist.
Tibi – is dead!
Tibi – is dead!
Tibi – is dead!

Tibi is a terrorist.
Tibi is a terrorist.
Tibi is a terrorist.

They’ll take their papers away.
They’ll take their papers away.
They’ll take their papers away.
Olé, olé, olé-olé-olé
In Gaza there’s no studying
No children are left there,
Olé, olé, olé-olé-olé,

[Three lines, not entirely clear]

Who is getting nervous, I hear?
Zoabi, this here is the Land of Israel
This here is the Land of Israel, Zoabi
This here is the Land of the Jews
I hate you, I do, Zoabi
I hate all the Arabs.
Oh-oh-oh-oh
Gaza is a graveyard
Gaza is a graveyard
Gaza is a graveyard
Gaza is a graveyard

Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore said...

Don't know if you've seen this extremely heartening brave public statement by Chris Hedges:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1zsuTpczu0&feature=youtu.be