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News Release - Update: August 16, 2006
Since our summary of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, "Statement of Concern for the Public Health Situation in Gaza", signed by ninety-seven Canadian health professionals and sent as a press release to all media and to all members of Parliament, Israel has invaded Lebanon and continues to hold the Occupied Territories in siege. We are sending this additional information to further document
the humanitarian situation. As Canada plays an active role in supporting
Israel, it is incumbent on the public and on members of government
to have access to accurate reporting. At the Nuremberg Tribunal
after World War II, "I didn't know" was a frequent defense.
*Gaza* * As of August 1'st , UNICEF reports that of 1.44 million people
living in Gaza, 838,000 are children. "Having just returned
from Gaza, it is clear that children are living in an environment
of extraordinary violence, fear and anxiety. An August 3^rd statement
by UN Humanitarian Agencies reports being "deeply alarmed by
* Defence for Children International Palestine Section lists the
names of 31 children killed in the Gaza Strip in July, stating that
their deaths "expose anew the degradation of the principles
of international humanitarian law. The death of these children implicates
both the parties to the conflict as well as those States not directly
involved, but who, as third parties are legally bound to enforce
these principles." * B'Tselem (The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in
the Occupied Territories) as of August, 2006, reports that almost
half the fatalities in the Gaza Strip were civilians not taking
part in the hostilities. They found that in four cases they investigated,
there were no armed Palestinians or weapons stored in the four locations.
"Furthermore, according to the principle of proportionality,
it is forbidden to carry out an attack, even against a military
object, with the knowledge that it is liable to cause injury to
civilians that is excessive in relation to the military advantage
anticipated from the attack." * The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) states that "the
complacency of the international community and the High Contracting
Parties of the 4^th Geneva Convention and their failure to take
effective steps to stop Israeli war crimes has been a supporting
and encouraging element for Israel to continue perpetrating additional
war crimes against Palestinian civilians." The PCHR documents
attacks on civilians * A petition filed by Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (July
19, 2006) calls upon Israel to: 1) cease the policy of closure and
curfew that is dismantling the different Palestinian civil services
- particularly the health service; 2) forward tax revenue due to
the PA promptly and without delay; 3) facilitate work of international
bodies and encourage them to continue to support and finance Palestinian
civil infrastructures and systems; 4) provide free medical services
for the residents of the occupied territories in fields that are
not available in the * B'Tselem July 21, 2006: Israeli soldiers use civilians as human shields in Beit Hanun. "During an incursion by Israeli forces into Beit Hanun, in the northern Gaza Strip, l7 July 2006, soldiers seized control of two buildings in the town and used residents as human shield" including two minors. "The soldiers also demanded that one of the occupants walk in front of them during a search of all the apartments in one of the buildings, after which they released her." International humanitarian law forbids using civilians as human shields.**
* Before the Israeli invasion, the national unity government in
Beirut formed a committee to negotiate the disarmament of the bases
outside the refugee camps and to control the arms inside them. The
aim was to create a "united delegation and ensuring that this
issue isn't dealt with just from a security point of view, but that
the outcome will advance our political rights and improve the humanitarian
situation in the camps." Ein al-Hilweh in southern Lebanon
has a refugee population of 45,000 and is even more impoverished
than the occupied territories; since Oslo, UNRWA and other UN agencies
have drastically reduced allocations to Palestinians within Lebanon.
There are 404,000 Palestinians and half live in a dozen camps around
the country. According to UNRWA, 60% live in poverty and as many
as 70% are unemployed. Until recently, there were 72 jobs they were
unable to practice outside the camps; they were not allowed to bring
construction material into the camps and cannot leave or re-enter
Lebanese territory without a visa which lasts * As reported in the /Christian Science Monitor/ August 2, the
UN estimates that there are 700,000 displaced people in Lebanon;
in its scale, this resembles the mass exodus from Rwanda in 2004,
Kosovo in 2000 and for years from Sudan and Central Africa. 70%
to 80% of the people south of the Litani River have gone. "The
scale of human misery inflicted by just three weeks of war is creating
new stress on a society that is being forced to resurrect survival
instincts honed by fifteen years of civil war in the 1970s and 1980s
"The fighting, during which Israel has shelled fleeing civilian
vehicles, relief convoys, and ambulances, has complicated aid efforts."
Israel does not allow UN vehicles a safe corridor. Access by sea
and by air is blocked, and on August 4 Israel blocked access through
Syria. Lebanon faces a severe fuel shortage, which aid workers * Hospital closures: the American University Hospital in Beirut and the Hammoud hospital in Sidon will accept only emergency cases because of lack of fuel to run generators and because of critically low medical supplies. In central Beirut, the concern is that vital supplies of food, clean water, and fuel will soon begin to run dangerously low. George Tomey, acting president of the University of Beirut, sid "We have reached a very critical stage. "It's very sad. We have never had to close the hospital, not even during the worst days of the civil war."(August 5, /Toronto// Star/). The American University Hospital issued a press release stating that there was only enough oil to fuel generators for a maximum of 20 days or as little as 7 days. Dr. Nadim Cortas, Dean of the medical program, stated "We see no reason why there should be a blockade on fuel delivery. It could be conditional, only going to hospitals, and it can be monitored . . . The blockade has no benefit to Israel except to inflict more suffering on the civilian population." * Human Rights Watch report August 3, 2006: A 50 page report details an investigation of nearly two dozen cases of IDF attacks in which a total of 153 civilians, including 63 children, were killed in homes or motor vehicles. "In none of the cases did HRW researchers find evidence that there was a significant enough military objective to justify the attack, given the risks to civilian lives, while in many cases, there was no identifiable military target. In still other cases cited in the report, Israeli forces appear to have deliberately targeted civilians. 'The pattern of attacks during the Israeli offensive in Lebanon suggests that the failures cannot be explained or dismissed as mere accidents; the extent of the pattern and the seriousness of the consequences indicate the commission of war crimes." The report called for the US to immediately suspend transfers to Israel of arms, ammunition, and other material credibly allege to have been used in such attacks until they cease. HRW also condemned Hezbollah of indiscriminate attacks which have killed 19 civilians. Amnesty International accused Israel of trying to convert southern Lebanon into a "free-fire zone" which is "incompatible with international humanitarian law."
There have been increasing reports of the possible use of non-conventional
weapons by Israel in Gaza and Dr. Jom 'a Al Saka, spokesperson for Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza
and Dr. Muawiya Hassanein said in a report published by Ma'an news
agency, that "The Israeli forces are using internationally
prohibited missiles that contain chemical materials and burning
metals and in addition, have shrapnel in the shape of nails."
He pointed out that the injuries received in the hospitals as a
result of these missiles are very dangerous because the human tissues
and muscles are torn and in addition, the injured suffer from severe
bleeding, loss of limbs and broken bones. Several doctors working
in different hospitals confirmed the use of non-conventional weapons:
Dr. Saeed Jodah says "When the shrapnel hits the body, it burns
and destroys internal organs, like the liver, kidneys, the spleen
and other organs, and makes saving the wounded impossible. As a
surgeon, I have seen thousands of wounds during the Intifada, but
nothing was like this weapon." Dr. Bashir Sham of Southern
Medical Center near Saida, Lebanon, member of the French Association
of Cardiovascular Surgeons,
* In Israel, militarism and Israeli brutalization of Palestinians
is connected with a violent society. Israeli police recorded a 36%
increase in violence among minors in 2004, a 55% increase of violence
against children in the past ten years. A rehabilitation center
(Kfar Izun) that opened in 2001 found that most problems resulted
from experiences that addicts had while in the military. A photograph
circulated widely on the Internet shows young Israeli girls writing
"greetings" on artillery shells fire into Lebanon, such
as "may you die", "I've waited so long for this."
http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=15257 * Eloquently and prophetically, DCI/PS states that "At a time
when international political actors are calling for a return to
the logic of 'durable solutions' to stop the current escalation
in violence, DCI/PS asserts that nations at war remember no injuries
as acutely as they remember the death of their children." * Dr. Nurit Peled-Elhanan lost her only daughter to a suicide bomber
in Jerusalem. With Israeli and Palestinian mothers, she has been
a voice for peace. In a speech to the European Parliament June,
2005, she describes the daily psychological torment for children
and women in the occupied territories: "It is true, unfortunately,
that the local violence inflicted on Palestinian women by the government
of Israel and the Israel army, has expanded around the globe. In
fact, state violence and army violence, individual and collective
violence, are the lot of Muslim women today, not only in Palestine
but wherever the enlightened western world is setting its big imperialistic
foot. It is violence which is hardly ever addressed and which is
half heartedly condoned by most people in Europe and the USA. .
. . I have never experienced the suffering Palestinian women undergo
every day, every hour, I don't know the kind of violence that turns
a woman's life into constant hell. This daily physical and mental
torture of women who are deprived of their basic human rights an
needs of privacy and dignity, women whose homes are broken into
at any moment of day and night, who are ordered at a gun-point to
strip naked in front of strangers and their own children, whose
houses are demolished, who are deprived of their livelihood an of
any normal family life. This is not part of my personal ordeal.
But I am a victim of violence against women insofar as violence
against children is actually violence against mothers." Federico Allodi M.D.
See also: Sources |