The Gaza Strip, December 2015: Life amidst the ruins

[Jefferson23]

The following photographs were taken by Muhammad Sabah, B’Tselem’s field researcher in the northern Gaza Strip. This is his account of the story behind the images: “The fighting during Operation Protective Edge made it practically impossible to get around Gaza to document events as they unfolded. It would have meant risking life and limb. For the past three months, B’Tselem’s three field researchers in Gaza – Khaled al-‘Azayzeh, Muhammad Sa’id and I – have been carefully going through the Gaza Strip, following up on reports one neighborhood at a time, one house at a time. We take pictures of formerly vibrant, densely populated neighborhoods that have been reduced to rubble. We meet people living amidst the ruins. They have nothing. They tell of their efforts to take shelter from the elements, to ward off the cold and the rain. They tell of their despair and helplessness. The extent of devastation defies the imagination. It is nightmarish. The only ray of hope is the sight of children playing, playing in the rubble.”











http://www.btselem.org/photoblog/201412_gaza_strip

[The Shredder]

1. Gee.. where's the funds?

Its currently not much to write home, and certainly not to fix these....

Get rid of Hamas.

[COLGATE4]

2. Just think of all the good uses the cement diverted

to build the attack tunnels could be put to. But you know that's not going to happen.

[azurnoir]

3. Gaza child whose home was bombed by Israel dies in freezing weather

A Palestinian infant fell ill and died due to severe cold in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on Friday, as winter storm Huda pummeled the region for a third day.

Gaza Ministry of Health spokesman Ashraf al-Qidra said that two-month-old Rafah Ali Abu Assi died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease as a result of the severely cold weather affecting the region.

Ashraf al-Qidra said that the infant was taken to the Gaza European Hospital early Thursday for treatment but was pronounced dead at noon on Friday.

The infant's family lives east of Khan Younis in an area that was heavily damaged during Israel's offensive on Gaza over summer.

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=752684

[Jefferson23]

4. Just another day..as the saying goes.

Thank you for adding that info.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

5. Palestinian prisoners face slow death from freezing temperatures in Israeli jails

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/middle-east/16262-palestinian-prisoners-face-slow-death-from-freezing-temperatures-in-israeli-jails

Head of the Palestinian Prisoners' Committee, Issa Qaraqe, has confirmed that Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails are facing "very difficult" conditions because they are denied proper clothes and cover for the extreme winter weather, Qudsnet reported.

"The Israeli occupation is using the extremely cold weather to kill the Palestinian prisoners as its interrogators expose them to the cold weather in order to extract confessions," he said.

Qaraqe said that the Israeli Prisons' Services categorically refused to allow clothes and covers for the prisoners; they have instead obliged them to buy only light covers from prisons' canteens for high prices.

On the measures to sort out the problem, Qaraqe said that his committee met the International Red Cross, who attempted to send the needed clothes and covers for the prisoners, but the Israeli authorities refused.

There's plenty of warmth in Israel, but not for Palestinian prisoners.

This is torture pure and simple.