Merry Christmas from Israel
Sunday, December 28, 2008

by Safa Joudeh writing from the occupied Gaza Strip,
Live from Palestine, 27 December 2008

It was just before noon when I heard the first explosion. I rushed to
my window and barely did I get there and look out when I was pushed
back by the force and air pressure of another explosion. For a few
moments I didn't understand but then I realized that Israeli promises
of a wide-scale offensive against the Gaza Strip had materialized.
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzpi Livni's statements following a meeting
with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak the day before yesterday had
not been empty threats after all.

What followed seems pretty much surreal at this point. Never had we
imagined anything like this. It all happened so fast but the amount
of death and destruction is inconceivable, even to me and I'm in the
middle of it and a few hours have passed already passed.

Six locations were hit during the air raid on Gaza City. The images
are probably not broadcasted on US news channels. There were piles
and piles of bodies in the locations that were hit. As you looked at
them you could see that a few of the young men were still alive,
someone lifts a hand, and another raises his head. They probably died
within moments because their bodies were burned, most had lost limbs,
some of their guts were hanging out and they were all lying in pools
of blood. Outside my home which is close to the two largest
universities in Gaza, a missile fell on a large group of young men,
university students. They'd been warned not to stand in groups as it
makes them an easy target, but they were waiting for buses to take
them home. Seven were killed, four students and three of our
neighbors' kids, young men who were from the Rayes family and were
best friends. As I'm writing this I can hear a funeral procession go
by outside; I looked out the window a moment ago and it was the three
Rayes boys. They spent all their time together when they were alive,
they died together and now they are sharing the same funeral
together. Nothing could stop my 14-year-old brother from rushing out
to see the bodies of his friends laying in the street after they were
killed. He hasn't spoken a word since.

What did Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert mean when he stated that
we the people of Gaza weren't the enemy, that it was Hamas and
Islamic Jihad which were being targeted? Was that statement made to
infuriate us out of out our state of shock, to pacify any feelings of
rage and revenge? To mock us? Were the scores of children on their
way home from school and who are now among the dead and the injured,
Hamas militants? A little further down my street about half an hour
after the first strike, three schoolgirls happened to be passing by
one of the locations when a missile struck the Preventative Security
Headquarters building. The girls' bodies were torn into pieces and
covered the street from one side to the other.

In all the locations, people are going through the dead, terrified of
recognizing a family member among them. The streets are strewn with
their bodies, their arms, legs, feet, some with shoes and some
without. The city is in a state of alarm, panic and confusion, cell
phones aren't working, hospitals and morgues are backed up and some
of the dead are still lying in the streets with their families
gathered around them, kissing their faces, holding on to them.
Outside the destroyed buildings old men are kneeling on the ground,
weeping. Their slim hopes of finding their sons still alive vanish
after taking one look at what had become of their office buildings.

And even after the dead are identified, doctors are having a hard
time gathering the right body parts in order to hand them over to
their families. The hospital hallways look like a slaughterhouse.
It's truly worse than any horror movie you could ever imagine. The
floor is filled with blood, the injured are propped up against the
walls or laid down on the floor, side by side with the dead. Doctors
are working frantically and people with injuries that aren't life-
threatening are sent home. A relative of mine was injured by a flying
piece of glass from her living room window and she had deep cut right
down the middle of her face. She was sent home; too many others
needed more urgent medical attention. Her husband, a dentist, took
her to his clinic and sewed up her face using local anesthesia.

More than 200 people dead in today's air raids. That means more than
200 funeral processions, a few today, most of them tomorrow,
probably. To think that yesterday these families were worried about
food and heat and electricity. At this point I think they -- actually
all of us -- would gladly have had Hamas forever sign off every last
basic right we've been calling for the last few months if it could
have stopped this from ever having happened.

The bombing was very close to my home. Most of my extended family
live in the area. My family is OK, but two of my uncles' homes were
damaged, We can rest easy, Gazans can mourn tonight. Israel is said to have
promised not to wage any more air raids for now. People suspect that
the next step will be targeted killings, which will inevitably means
scores more of innocent bystanders whose fates have already been
sealed.

===
Safa Joudeh writing from the occupied Gaza Strip, Live from Palestine
28 December 2008

The longest night of my life
by Safa Joudeh

The scene of an Israeli missile strike in Rafah refugee camp,
southern Gaza Strip, 28 December 2008. (Hatem Omar/MaanImages)

Here's an update on what's happening here from where I am, the second
night of Israeli air (and sea) raids on Gaza.

It's 1:30am but it feels like the sun should be up already. For the
past few hours there's been simultaneous, heavy aerial bombardment of
Gaza City and the northern Gaza Strip. It feels like the longest
night of my life. In my area it started with the bombing of workshops
(usually located in the ground floor of private/family residential
buildings), garages and warehouses in one of the most highly
condensed areas in Gaza City, "Askoola."

About an hour ago they bombed the Islamic University, destroying the
laboratory building. As I mentioned in an earlier account, my home is
close to the university. We heard the first explosion, the windows
shook, the walls shook and my heart felt like it would literally jump
out of my mouth. My parents, siblings and cousins, who have been
staying with us since their home was damaged the first day of the air
raids, had been trying to get some sleep. We all rushed to the side
of the house that was farthest from the bombing. Hala, my 11-year-old
sister stood motionless and had to be dragged to the other room. I
still have marks on my shoulder from when Aya, my 13-year-old cousin
held on to me during the next four explosions, each one as violent
and heart-stopping as the next. Looking out of the window moments
later the night sky had turned to a dirty navy-gray from the smoke.

Israeli warships rocketed Gaza's only sea port only moments ago; 15
missiles exploded, destroying boats and parts of the ports. These are
just initial reports over the radio. We don't know what the extent of
the damage is. We do know that the fishing industry that thousands of
families depend on either directly or indirectly didn't pose a threat
on Israeli security. The radio reporter started counting the
explosions; I think he lost count after six. At this moment we heard
three more blasts. "I'm mostly scared of the whoosh," I told my
sister, referring to the sound a missile makes before it hits. Those
moments of wondering where it's going to fall are agonizing. Once the
whooshes and hits were over the radio reporter announced that the
fish market (vacant, of course) had been bombed.

We just heard that four sisters from the Balousha family were killed
in an attack that targeted the mosque by their home in the northern
Gaza Strip.

You know what bothers me more than the bangs and the blasts, the
smoke, the ambulance sirens and the whooshes? The constant, ominous,
maddening droning sound of the Apache helicopters overhead that has
been buzzing in my head day and night. It's like I'm hearing things,
which I'm not, but I am.

Safa Joudeh is an master's candidate in public policy at Stony Brook
University in the US. She returned to Gaza in September 2007 where
she currently works as a freelance journalist.

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10059.shtml