The following is an eyewitness report from the Gaza Strip by Vittorio Arrigoni writing for the world, witness to GENOCIDE by Zionist gunmen indiscriminately murdering unarmed men, women, and children while the world stands by doing nothing.
After the Gaza Witness Reports of the terror of human beings trapped, dying, bleeding, and screaming in pain from attack by a merciless killing machine manned by Zionist gunman, I am posting a letter from Zev Reichman of New Jersey, who is in Israel, singing and dancing for joy with the bloody Israeli killing machine.
The juxtaposition of the two eyewitnesses from suffering Gaza and celebrating Israel is the history of war crimes in real time.
Zev Reichman posted his account on Tony Karon’s Rootless Cosmopolitan comment section.
_http://tonykaron.com/2009/01/09/the-battle-isnt-over-but-israel-has-lost-the-war/
Vittorio Arrigoni’s account is from Information Clearing House.
_http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21768.htm
After the Gaza Witness Reports of the terror of human beings trapped, dying, bleeding, and screaming in pain from attack by a merciless killing machine manned by Zionist gunman, I am posting a letter from Zev Reichman of New Jersey, who is in Israel, singing and dancing for joy with the bloody Israeli killing machine.
The juxtaposition of the two eyewitnesses from suffering Gaza and celebrating Israel is the history of war crimes in real time.
Zev Reichman posted his account on Tony Karon’s Rootless Cosmopolitan comment section.
_http://tonykaron.com/2009/01/09/the-battle-isnt-over-but-israel-has-lost-the-war/
Vittorio Arrigoni’s account is from Information Clearing House.
_http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21768.htm
Vittorio Arrigoni said:Gaza Witness Reports
The following the on-scene first-person witness reports by Vittorio Arrigoni and Ewa Jasiewicz, are absolutely riveting! Their work is primarily available on the Free Gaza Website. But they've also been published in the Palestine Chronicle, ICH, Counterpunch, The Guardian, and a number of other places.
Al Naakba 2009
By Vittorio Arrigoni;
January 15, 2009 "FreeGaza.org, " --- They parade in fear, their eyes looking upwards, surrendering to the sky showering terror and death upon them, fearing the earth that keeps shaking under every step they take, opening craters where there were houses, schools, universities, markets, hospitals, and burying their lives within them forever. I've seen caravans of desperate Palestinians evacuate Jabalia, Beit Hanoun and all the refugee camps in Gaza, crowding the United Nations' schools like earthquake survivors, like victims of a tsunami which is eating into the Gaza Strip day by day, along with its civilian population, without pity or compliance with human rights and the Geneva Conventions. Most of all, without a single Western government stirring a finger to stop this massacre, or sending medical staff out here, or stopping the genocide that Israel is smearing its hands with in these hours.
The indiscriminate attacks against the hospitals and medical staff continue. Yesterday, after having left the Al Auda hospital in Jabalia, I received a call from Alberto, a Spanish colleague at the ISM – a bomb had been dropped there and Abu Mohammed, a nurse, had been seriously injured to his head. Just moments before, in front of a café, I'd been listening to his stories of the heroic deeds of Communist Abu Mohammed's heroes, the leaders of the Popular Front: George Habbash, Abu Ali Mustafa, Ahmad Al Sadat. His eyes lit up when he heard that the first notions of what Palestine and its immense tragedy were, had been passed onto me by my parents, both Communists through and through. By my mother, a "raissa", or Mayor of a town in Northern Italy. He asked me who had been the truly revolutionary leaders of the Italian left from the past, and I said Antonio Gramsci. For those of today I took my time, telling him I'd have replied to that question today. But Abu Mohammed now lies in a coma, in the same hospital where he works. He spared himself my disappointing reply.
Towards midnight I received another call, from Eva this time – the building she was in was under attack. I know that building well, in the centre of Gaza City. I've spent a night there with some Palestinian photojournalist friends of mine. They try to capture through images and words something of the unnatural catastrophe we're enduring in the last ten days. Reuters, Fox News, Russia Today and many, many other local or foreign agencies were under fire by seven rockets shot by an Israeli helicopter. They managed to evacuate everyone on time before anyone was seriously injured – all those cameramen, photographers, reporters – all Palestinian, considering Israel won't allow any international journalists to set foot in Gaza. There are no "strategic" targets around that building, nor a resistance fighting off the deadly armoured Israeli vehicles, which can be found a way away towards the North. Clearly, someone in Tel Aviv cannot bear the images of the massacres of civilians clashing with the ones that the Israeli officers' briefings provide while offering the mercenary journalists their aperitif. Through these press conferences they're declaring to the world that the bombs' targets are only the Hamas terrorists, not those atrociously mutilated children we pull out of the rubble every day.
At Zetun, about ten kilometres from Jabalia, a bombed building crumbled over a family, leaving about ten victims. The ambulances had to wait several hours before they could reach the spot, as the military persist in shooting at us. They shoot at ambulances and bomb hospitals. A few days ago, while I was on the air with a well-known Milanese radio station, an Israeli "pacifist" clearly spelt out to me that this was a war where both sides used all the weapons at their disposal. I thus invite Israel to drop one of its many atomic bombs upon us, those they keep secretly stashed away, defying all treaties against nuclear proliferation. Why not just drop that decisive bomb of theirs and put an end to the inhuman agony of thousands of bodies, lying in tatters in the overcrowded hospital wards I visited?
I took some black and white photos yesterday, the caravans of mule-drawn carts, overloaded beyond belief with children waving white drapes pointing skywards, their faces pale and terrified. Looking through those snaps of fleeing refugees today, I felt shivers down my spine. If they could only be superimposed with those witnessing the Nakba of 1948, the Palestinian catastrophe, they would be a perfect mirror image of them. The cowardly passiveness of self-styled democratic states and governments are responsible for a new catastrophe in full swing right now, a new Nakba, a brand new ethnic cleansing befalling the Palestinian population.
Until a few moments ago we counted 650 dead, 153 murdered children, in addition to 3,000 injured, and innumerable missing. The number of civilian deaths in Israel has thankfully stopped at 4. But after this afternoon the death toll on the Palestinian side requires an urgent recount since the Israeli Army has started attacking the United Nations schools. The very same that had been offering shelter to the thousands evacuated under threat of an imminent attack. They chased them off the refugee camps, the villages, only to collect them all in one place, an easier target. Three schools were attacked today, the last being at Al Fakhura, in Jabalia, which was hit full on its head. Over 80 dead. In a heartbeat, men, women, elderly people and children were wiped away, believing themselves to be safe within those blue-tinted walls adorned with a UN logo. The other 20 UN schools are now shaking in fear. There's no way out anywhere in the Gaza Strip. This isn't Lebanon, where the civilians in the Southern villages targeted by the Israeli bombs could flee to the North, or to Syria or Jordan. From one enormous open-air prison, the Gaza Strip has become a deadly trap. We look at one another in bewilderment and ask ourselves whether the UN Security Council will finally unanimously condemn these attacks after their own schools have been targeted. Someone out there has really decided to turn this place into a desert, and then call it peace.
A long night on the ambulances awaits us now, even after dawn has become an illusion around here. Antenna towers for our mobile phones all along the Strip have been destroyed and we've stopped relying on them. I hope I may one day be able to see all the friends I can no longer contact, but I'm under no illusions. Everyone bar none in Gaza is a walking target.
The Italian Consulate has just contacted me, saying that tomorrow they shall evacuate a fellow Italian, an elderly nun who'd lived near the Catholic church in Gaza for the last twenty years, and had by now been adopted by the Palestinians in the Strip. The consul gently urged me to seize this last opportunity and escape this hell with the nun. I thanked him for the offer, but I'm not moving from here – I just can't. For the sake of the losses we endured, before being Italian, Spanish, British or Australian, right now we are all Palestinian. If only we could do that for just one minute a day, the way we were all Jewish during the Holocaust, I think we would have been spared this entire massacre.
Stay human
Vittorio Arrigoni
In Gaza, Hippocrates is Dead
Written by Vittorio Arrigoni for Il Manifesto, January 12, 2009
In Gaza, a firing squad put Hippocrates up against a wall, aimed and fired. The absurd declarations of an Israeli secret services' spokesman, according to which the army was given the green light in firing at ambulances because they allegedly carried terrorists, is an illustration of the value that Israel assigns to human life these days – the lives of their enemies, that is. It's worth revisiting what's stated in the Hippocratic Oath, which every doctor swears upon before starting to practice the profession.
The following passages are especially worthy of note: "I solemnly pledge myself to consecrate my life to the service of humanity. I will practice my profession with conscience and dignity. The health and life of my patient will be my first consideration. I will cure all patients with the same diligence and commitment. I will not permit considerations of religion, nationality, race, party politics, or social standing to intervene between my duty and my patient."
Seven doctors and voluntary nurses have been killed from the start of the bombing campaign, and about ten ambulances were shot at by the Israeli artillery. The survivors are shaking with fear, but refuse to take a step back. The crimson flashes of the ambulances are the only bursts of light in the dark streets of Gaza, bar the flashes that precede an explosion. Regarding these crimes, the last report comes from Pierre Wettach, chief of the Red Cross in Gaza. His ambulances had access to the spot of a massacre, in Zaiton, East of Gaza City, only 24 hours after the Israeli attack.
The rescue-workers state they found themselves faced by a blood-curdling scenario. "In one of the houses four small children were found near the body of their dead mother. They were too weak to stand on their feet. We also found an adult survivor, and he too was also too weak to stand up. About 12 corpses were found lying on the mattresses." The witnesses to this umpteenth massacre describe how the Israeli soldiers, after getting into the neighbourhood, gathered the numerous members of the Al Samouni family in one building and then proceeded to repeatedly bomb it. My ISM partners and I have been driving around in the Half Red Moon ambulances for days, suffering many attacks and losing a dear friend, Arafa, struck by a howitzer shot from a cannon. A further three paramedics, all friends, are presently inpatients at the hospitals they worked in until a few days ago. Our duty on the ambulances is to pick up the injured, not carry guerrilla fighters. When we find a man lying in the street in a pool of his own blood, we don't have the time to check his papers or ask him whether he roots for Hamas or Fatah. Most seriously injured can't talk, much like the dead. A few days ago, while picking up a badly wounded patient, another man with light injuries tried to hop onto the ambulance. We pushed him out, just to make it clear to whoever's watching from up above that we don't serve as a taxi to usher members of the resistance around. We only take on the most fatally wounded – of which there's always a plentiful supply, thanks to Israel.
Last night at Al Qudas hospital in Gaza City, 17-year-old Miriam was carried in, with full-blown labour pains. Her father and sister-in-law, both dead, had passed through the hospital in the morning, both victims of indiscriminate bombing. Miriam gave birth to a gorgeous baby during the night, not aware of the fact that while she lay in the delivery room, her young husband had arrived in the morgue one floor below her.
In the end, even the United Nations realised that here in Gaza, we're all in the same boat, all moving targets for the snipers. The death toll is now at 789 dead, 3,300 wounded (410 in critical conditions), 230 children killed and countless missing. The death toll on the Israeli side has thankfully stopped at 4. John Ging, chief of UNRWA (UN agency for the rights of Palestinian Refugees) has stated that the UN announced they shall suspend their humanitarian activities in the Gaza Strip. I bumped into Ging in the Ramattan press office and saw him shake his finger with disdain at Israel before the cameras. The UN stopped its work in Gaza after two of its operators were killed yesterday, ironically during the three-hour truce that Israel had announced and as usual, had failed to comply with. "The civilians in Gaza have three hours a day at their disposal in which to survive, the Israeli soldiers have the remaining 21 in which to try and exterminate them," I heard Ging state two steps away from me.
Yasmine, the wife of one of the many journalists waiting in line at the Erez pass, wrote to me from Jerusalem. Israel won't grant these journalists a pass to let them in and film or describe the immense unnatural catastrophe that has befallen us in the last thirteen days. These were her words: "The day before yesterday I went to have a look at Gaza from the outside. The world's journalists are all huddled on a small sandy hill a few km from the border. Innumerable cameras are pointed towards us. Planes circle us overhead – you can hear them but you can't see them. They seem like illusions, like something in your head until you see the black smoke rising from the horizon, in Gaza. The hill has also become a tourist site for the Israelis in the area. With their large binoculars and cameras, they come and watch the bombings live."
While I write this piece of correspondence in a mad rush, a bomb is dropped onto the building next to the one I'm in now. The windowpanes shake, my ears ache, I look out the window and see that the building gathering the major Arabic media agencies has been struck. It's one of Gaza City's tallest buildings, the Al Jaawhara building. A camera crew is permanently stationed on the roof, I can now see them all bending around on the ground, waving their arms and asking for help as they're covered by a black cloud of smoke.
Paramedics and journalists, the most heroic occupations in this corner of the world. At the Al Shifa hospital yesterday I paid Tamim a visit – he's a journalist who survived an air raid. He explained how he thinks that Israel is adopting the same identical terrorist techniques as Al-Qaeda, bombing a building, waiting for the journalists and ambulances to arrive and then dropping another bomb to finish the latter two off as well. In his view that's why there've been so many casualties among the journalists and paramedics. As he said this, the nurses around his bed all nodded in agreement. Tamim smilingly showed me his two stubs for legs. He was happy he was still around to tell the story, while his colleague, Mohammed, had died with a camera in his hand when the second explosion had proved fatal. In the meantime I asked about the bomb that was just dropped on the building next door, where two journalists, both Palestinian, one from Libyan TV and the other from Dubai TV, were injured. This is a harsh new reminder that this massacre must in no way be described or recorded. All that's left for me to hope is that among the Israeli military summit no one reads Il Manifesto, or habitually visits my blog.
Stay human
Vittorio Arrigoni
Zev Reichman said:Dear Friends,
I am writing to you at the end of a day that was truly thrilling and inspiring. On my flight to Israel , I read the edition of Time Magazine with the picture of the Star of David on the cover. It was more than merely depressing. The magazine strongly implied it believed that Israel would not survive. The article claimed that there was no solution to Israel ’s problems.. Between terrorists like Hamas who try to attack us wherever we are and the fact that there are more than five million Arabs in the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan , the magazine claimed that Israel cannot survive as a democracy. Today I experienced why the article is wrong. I began the day in Alon Shvut. Rav Rimon and I joined Gabi Nachmani from Livnot Ulihibanot and we set out to go south to give some love to our soldiers who are fighting so bravely in Gaza . Rav Rimon has invested tens of hours in this project. For the last week he has constantly been on the phone with soldiers to try and determine what they really need. He has heard from many units that they are cold. Israel has historically waged its wars in the summer. The last war in Lebanon was in July. The Six Day War was in June. Even the Yom Kippur War was in October. Israel is not conditioned to a war during winter. The soldiers in Gaza are reporting that they are very cold at night Rav Rimon then found out that pairs of thermal, polartec gloves and undershirts, as well as thermal neck warmers would really make a difference for the soldiers. He found the manufacturer and it turns out that the maker of these products has a son who is serving in Gaza . This man, Aharon Gantz, was so moved by what we wanted to do that he provided the products to us at cost. Our shul sponsored the purchase, and Rav Rimon and I went with Gabi this morning to pick up 1,000 pairs of thermal gloves, (the army typically only buys these gloves for the most elite units), 1,000 pairs of thermal neck warmers, 80 thermal socks, and 80 thermal undershirts. Aharon was most moved by the fact that a shul in New Jersey would subsidize a gift of such utility for soldiers. He said to me, “This is the nice part of our nation. In times of crises we all come together. Nothing can stand in the way of this unity. This strength is what will defeat all our enemies.”
We then headed down to Gaza . Gabi found a way for us to avoid the military police and through back roads we arrived at a base about a kilometer away from Gaza ..
When we arrived there we found the officer in charge of logistics and we told him that we had brought gifts for the soldiers - gloves, neck warmers, special cards with chapters of Tehillim on them and packages that the children in our shul packed. He was very happy with the gifts. He told us to follow him and he actually took us to the staging grounds where the soldiers are entering and leaving Gaza , about 400 meters from the fence that Israel has broken through to enter Gaza city. We spent almost 4 hours with the hundreds of soldiers who are entering and leaving Gaza .
As we arrived, a group of thirty soldiers returned from Gaza . They had been inside for 10 consecutive days. That is ten days with no showers or changes of clothing. Ten days dodging mortars and snipers. Ten days conquering territory and avoiding mines. For the tankists it is ten days of not leaving a tank. Imagine what it would be like to spend ten days in a row in a car without the ability to leave it. Now imagine ten days in a tank. These soldiers were dirty with sweat and mud. Many had battle paint on. The officer gathered them and Rav Rimon and I spoke to the troops. The Rav gave them words of encouragement. He pointed out that each of them is engaged in a mitzvah activity protecting the Jewish people from enemies. He pointed out how many miracles our nation is receiving. For example think of the story of the soldier who woke up in the middle of the night in a school and noticed a chord and saved 150 of his friends and so many other stories that we must be thankful for. He then introduced me to the soldiers. He pointed out that I had come from the US in order to convey our community’s love for the troops. I spoke with the soldiers about the great unity that now fills our nation. How in Englewood , New Jersey , in our shul our kids gathered on Shabbat and each child prayed for one soldier. I told the soldiers how we all bless them and pray that Hashem send his angels to protect them and lead them to success. I told the soldiers how God is one and whenever we become one here below we merit feeling the presence of the One above. Finally we hugged each soldier and thanked him for protecting all of us through his service. We then started to hand out all our goodies. The soldiers were ecstatic. They were so thankful for the gloves and the neck warmers. They eagerly took our tehillim cards and chocolates, which now helping to sweeten a very difficult time for thousands who are fighting for our state. Undoubtedly, the favorite gift of all was the packages from our kids. The handwritten cards were the most precious item. Each handwritten letter meant so much. Soldiers told me they treasure those simple displays of caring. As one told me, “The most wonderful thing is the handwritten note. When we see that Jews elsewhere in the world care and are writing to us it warms our hearts.. This gives us the strength and support.” We could not leave. We spent hours with the soldiers talking and davening, learning with them and giving out thousands of thermal items, but we also were receiving a great deal, more than words can ever describe.
We then went to Sderot. In Sderot, two officers came to meet us. These soldiers are with a unit of paratroopers of very young soldiers. They are still in their first year of army service. They never expected to be sent into hostile territory. However, they are deep inside Gaza and this unit of eighty soldiers has already had five wounded members. One of their members, their commander, was wounded by a mine. When the others went in to evacuate him, one of the soldiers was hit with a sniper’s bullet from a hamas terrorist. The bullet penetrated his ceramic bullet proof vest and entered his chest. They thought they had to do a surgery on him in the field because they did not think he would survive long enough to arrive at a hospital. In the end he was airlifted to Tel Hashomer and operated on there. There was a great miracle. While the bullet broke through the vest, it ended up flying through his body and missing his heart and lungs. The bullet left his body and he is recovering nicely. These boys are very young and are having a difficult time. For them we got gloves, neck warmers, socks, and undershirts. Since they still have two years of army service they wil certainly use these gifts well after this war ends. They repeated their invitation to Rav Rimon and me. When the war ends they plan to make a large party of thanks to Hashem. They want us to come and speak at that meal when the warriors will be honored.
We met with other units and we helped them as well.
Finally we loaded the car with fifty pies of pizza and headed back to the front. We arrived at a base of paratroopers and tankists who were returning from Gaza . By now it was dark out. We started to distribute the pizzas to the soldiers; it became a yom tov. There was such joy! Soldiers, who are really just kids, they are nineteen and twenty years old, surrounded us and asked us to sing and dance with them. They all had tehillim they had taken from Breslov chassidim and they wanted to dance and declare that “Yisrael betach bahashem, Israel trust God, ezram umaginam hu, He is their help and protector, anachnu maaminim bney maaminim, we are believers sons of believers, viain lanu al mi lihisha’ain elah al avinu shebashmayim, and we have no one to rely on, we can only rely on our father in heaven.” Rav Rimon then jumped on a van and gave the soldiers a short talk of encouragement. He then introduced me. I turned to the soldiers and told them, “Today was Rav Rimon’s birthday, he did not even realize it but when he did, he said to me, ‘my present was getting to spend an entire day running from group of soldiers to group of soldiers to give them gifts and encouragement!’” When the soldiers heard that they all burst into song. They pulled Rav Rimon into a circle and from their depths of their being they sang together, “Yisrael betach behashem ezram umainam hu anachnu maaminim bney maaminim viain lanu al mi lihisha’ain ela ela al avinu avinu shebashamayim!”
So let Time Magazine claim that Israel has no future. They have not experienced Jewish unity. When Am Yisrael is together, when soldiers are singing and dancing of their faith, we will survive, we certainly will.
Posted by Zev Reichman |
