Madison Rafah Journal

Hello everyone,

We are sorry and angry to report that the building housing the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme in Gaza City, one of the agencies we work with, has been severely damaged. The building is reported to be still standing but totally unusable, with all contents destroyed. See this commentary and then the article:

Stephen Soldz
Director, Center for Research, Evaluation, and Program Development
Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis

This morning brings the awful news, via the Toronto Star, that the Gaza Community Mental Health Center was bombed and destroyed by Israeli planes. The article asserts that it stands not far from a police station. But a picture I saw the other day had no buildings nearby. The attack raises the question if the Israelis are now targeting the civilian infrastructure, such as health facilities, so as to make life in the Gaza concentration camp even more unlivable than it has been over the several years of blockade. Given the paucity of detailed information coming out of Gaza, it will be a while till we can get an accurate picture of the nature of the targets and the devastation occurring in Gaza. As I posted in February 2007, the staff of the Center had no compunctions criticizing the fratricidal conflict among Palestinians that was tearing Gaza apart. They were certainly no front for Hamas. I am beside myself with this news. As usual, tragedy becomes horror when you feel some personal connection. A proposal as been made for psychologists to take up a collection to rebuild the Center. We shall see where that will go. Of course, I will report here any developments.

Below is the latest release from Al Mezan Center for Human Rights and a previous one from PCHR (so far as we know, both are still standing).

Barb

Reference: 117/2008
Date: 31 December 2008
12:30pm Gaza Time (+2hrs GMT)
Press Release

IOF Continues to Perpetrate War Crimes in Gaza; Targets an Ambulance Crew and Other Civilian Objects

Number of Palestinian Casualties Rises to 315 (41 Children) & the Injured 939 (85 Children)

The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) has continued its military operation in the Gaza Strip for the fifth day. Today, it targeted an ambulance and its medical crew with a missile, killing a doctor and an orderly and critically injuring its driver. According to Al Mezan Center's monitoring, the number of Palestinian casualties since the start of Israel's Operation Cast Lead at 11:30am on 27 December 2008 has risen to 315, of whom 41 were children and 9 women. At least 939 people have been injured, including 85 children and 52 women. The number of civilian objects that have been destroyed is as follows:

- 112 houses have been destroyed completely and approximately 3,500 houses damaged;

- 7 mosques have been completely destroyed from direct air strikes;

- 38 private industrial and agricultural enterprises have been completely destroyed;

- 16 schools have been damaged;

- 9 CBO offices were completely destroyed;

- 8 private vehicles were destroyed;

- 16 governmental facilities were destroyed.

Moreover, 20 security installations were targeted and destroyed. All of these targets were struck from the air. Hundreds of heavy missiles have been fired on the Gaza Strip, some of which on open fields.

Today, at approximately 1:50am, an Israeli aircraft fired a missile at an ambulance that arrived in the Jabal Al-Rayis neighborhood in northeast of Gaza City after a call to rescue injured people. The crew, a doctor, driver and orderly, were targeted just after they stepped out of the ambulance. As a result, the orderly, 30-year-old Mohammed Sa'eed Abu Hasira, was killed immediately. The doctor, 33-year-old Ihab Al-Madhoun, died from the wounds he sustained in this attack later in the morning. The driver, 30-year-old Hishmat Ajour, sustained critical wounds and is still at hospital.

Meanwhile, the health sector in Gaza has continued to suffer from the very high number of casualties and injuries it has been forced to deal with under severe shortages in medical necessities, which is the result of the Israeli prolonged siege on the Gaza Strip. Many health facilities have little materials and dozens of wounded people face greater threats on their life as a result.

Al Mezan Center for Human Rights asserts, according to its monitoring of the situation on the ground, that the IOF has perpetrated grave breaches of the International Humanitarian Law (IHL), amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity, in the course of its military actions in Gaza. The Center also asserts that the vast majority of IOF's targets in Gaza are civilian targets that must not be deliberately targeted. This includes houses, mosques, police stations and at least one ambulance. Most of the casualties are not combatants and were not involved in any hostilities when they were targeted by IOF. This behavior reflects a blatant disregard of civilian life and of the international law that is supposed to protect it.

Al Mezan Center condemns the IOF's violations of international law rules applicable in times of belligerent occupation and armed conflict. In particular, the violations by IOF of the Fourth Geneva Convention and its Protocol I have caused extreme suffering as well as loss of civilian life. Articles 15-19 of the Convention prohibit the disruption of the working of health facilities during times of conflict. Article 20 requires respect and protection of the persons who are involved in the search for civilians, the sick, the wounded, the elderly and mothers and care for them. IOF violates IHL by imposing a strangulating blockade that disrupts, and sometimes prevents, the provision of humanitarian aid to the population of the Gaza Strip.

As such, and as the silence of international community continues to allow for such violations of IHL and human rights standards; including the perpetration of war crimes in Gaza, Al Mezan Center calls upon the international community to uphold its legal and ethical obligations by taking effective measures to ensure Israel's compliance with the applicable rules of international law, and to ensure the protection of civilians and civilian objects in Gaza. Al Mezan finds it ironic that international community continues to call for such compliance while it must act to ensure it, to protect and aid civilians, and to prevent the perpetration of grave breaches of IHL.

Al Mezan Center welcomes the popular protests against the Israeli violations of human rights and IHL in Gaza, and the worldwide solidarity with its people. The Center calls on civil societies to double their efforts to exert pressure of their governments so that they act in conformity with their human rights and humanitarian obligations.

PCHR
Palestinian Centre for Human Rights LTD (non profit)
Press Release

Ref: 118/2008
Date: 29 December 2008
Time: 14:15

9 Palestinian Children Killed Raising the Number of Children Killed Since the Beginning of the Current IOF Offensive against the Gaza Strip to 31

Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) have continued to launch an open war against the Gaza Strip for the third consecutive day. IOF have continued to attack children, women and old people in disregard to their lives, humanitarian appeals and international humanitarian law and human rights law. PCHR's investigations indicate that IOF have used excessive lethal force throughout the Gaza Strip, which is the most densely populated area in the world. They have launched dozens of heavy missiles from the air and the sea on houses, civilian facilities and mosques in densely populated areas. In a very horrible crime, last night and this morning, 22 Palestinian children were killed or wounded while they were sleeping at homes. Five sisters were killed in Jabalya refugee camp; 3 brothers were killed in Rafah refugee camp; and a 9th child was killed in Gaza City . Thus, the number of children killed in the past three days of the IOF offensive against the Gaza Strip has mounted to 31 out of 280 Palestinians who have been killed so far. The victims also include 9 women. Additionally, at least 140 children have been wounded.

According to investigations conducted by PCHR, at approximately 23:50 on Sunday, 28 December 2008, IOF warplanes bombarded 'Emad 'Aqel Mosque in Block 4 in the densely populated Jabalya refugee camp. The mosque and a neighboring house belonging to Anwar Khalil Ba'lousha were destroyed. The house was destroyed over the family, killing 5 of Ba'lousha's female children: Jawaher, 4; Dunia, 8; Samar , 12; Ikram, 14; and Tahreer, 17. Ba'lousha, his wife and another three of their children were also wounded. Additionally, 17 civilians in neighboring houses, including 5 children, were wounded.

Earlier on the same day, at approximately 19:00, an IOF warplane fired a missile at a two-storey house belonging to 'Abdullah Tawfiq Kishku in al-Zaytoun neighborhood in the east of Gaza City . The house was destroyed killing Kishku's daughter, 8-year-old Ibtihal, and his daughter-in-law, 22-year-old Maisaa'. Kishku himself and 13 members of his family were also wounded.

At approximately 01:00 on Monday, 29 December 2008, IOF warplanes fired two missiles at a house belonging to Ra'ed al-'Attar, a leader of the 'Izziddin al-Qassam Brigades of Hamas, in Yebna refugee camp in Rafah. One of the missile hit and destroyed the house that had been already evacuated. The other missile hit and destroyed a house belonging to Zaid al-'Absi, which is located nearly 500 meters away from the targeted house. As a result, three of al-'Absi's children were killed: Sidqi, 3; Ahmed, 12; and Mohammed, 14. Al-'Absi himself, his wife and another three of their children were also wounded. Additionally, 7 civilians living in neighboring houses, including two children, were wounded.

PCHR is gravely concerned for the situation in the Gaza Strip, and:

1. Condemns these crimes, which are part of a series of continuous crimes committed by IOF in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) with total disregard for the lives of Palestinian civilians, considering them a form of collective punishment against the Palestinian civilian population in violation of article 33 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War.

2. Holds Israel responsible for the lives of Palestinian civilians in all circumstances. Under the international law, the existence of armed resistance does not in any case justify the use of such excessive force disproportionately and indiscriminately.

3. Calls upon the international community to immediately intervene to stop such crimes, and calls upon the High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Convention, Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, to fulfill their obligation under article 1 of the Convention to ensure respect for the Convention in all circumstances, as well as their obligation under article 146 to search for and prosecute those who are responsible for perpetrating grave breaches of the Convention, as such breaches constitute war crimes according to article 147 of the Convention and the Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and Relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I).

For more information please call PCHR office in Gaza , Gaza Strip, on +972 8 2824776 – 2825893

PCHR, 29 Omer El Mukhtar St., El Remal, PO Box 1328 Gaza, Gaza Strip. E-mail: pchr (at) pchrgaza.org, Webpage http://www.pchrgaza.org