Ambulance hit by missile from an Israeli tank shell on 4 January 2009 while picking up wounded men in Beit Lahya, Gaza ©Amnesty International
Tuesday, 27 January: Under the Geneva Conventions, medical personnel searching, collecting, transporting or treating the wounded should be protected and respected in all circumstances. Common Article 3 of the Conventions says that the wounded should be collected and cared for, including combatants who are hors de combat.
These provisions of international law have not been respected during the recent three-week conflict in the Gaza Strip. Emergency medical rescue workers, including doctors, paramedics and ambulance drivers, repeatedly came under fire from Israeli forces while they were carrying out their duties. At least seven were killed and more than 20 were injured while they were transporting or attempting to collect the wounded and the dead.
Continue reading ‘Attacks on ambulance workers’
A flechette embedded in a wall in a Bedouin villlage in Gaza © Amnesty International
Monday, January 26: The Israeli army’s use of white phosphorus in densely populated civilian areas of Gaza has captured much of the world’s media interest. However, the Israeli forces also used a variety of other weapons against civilian residential built-up areas throughout the Gaza Strip in the three-week conflict that began on 27 December.
Among these are flechettes - tiny metal darts (4cm long, sharply pointed at the front and with four fins at the rear) that are packed into120mm shells. These shells, generally fired from tanks, explode in the air and scatter some 5,000 to 8,000 flechettes in a conical pattern over an area around 300 metres wide and 100 metres long.
Continue reading ‘A bloodstained wall full of flechettes’
Boy in a bomb crater in central Jabalia, north Gaza ©Amnesty International
Sunday 25 January: Today, the first day back to work for Gazans after the weekend and a full week after the beginning of the ceasefire. The streets are busy again and, on the surface, life seems almost normal – except that people are mostly busy trying to repair the damage caused during the three-week long war that began on 27 December.
People are clearing up the debris of windows and walls smashed by Israeli bombardments and running around trying to find material to make the repairs. But the acute shortage of building material resulting from the Israeli blockade of Gaza makes the task particularly difficult. Since glass is virtually impossible to find, plastic sheeting is used to repair broken windows, but even that is in short supply.
Continue reading ‘Back to work amid the destruction’
Amnesty International mission delegates examine shrapnel marks in Khuza'a, Gaza, 24th January 2009 ©Amnesty International
Saturday 24 January: Nearly a week after the ceasefire, there are small signs of Gaza struggling to get back on its feet after the three-week trauma of the conflict. UN schools reopened today and there are long queues at the ATMs that have cash.
On a cold and misty morning, we travelled to the south-east of the Gaza Strip, to the town of Khuza’a, east of Khan Younis, only a stone’s throw from the fence that separates the Gaza Strip from Israel.
Continue reading ‘A stone’s throw from the fence with Israel’
Phosphorous shell cases found in Khuza'a, Gaza, 24th January 2009 ©Amnesty International
Friday 23 January: Wherever we have been here in Gaza we have found various fragments from Israeli munitions. We have observed a quite staggering array of shrapnel from the military hardware used by the Israeli Army during the three week long conflict that began on 27 December.
They include pieces of shell casing, mortar fins, phosphorus-impregnated felt wedges, an assortment of bits of artillery, tank and gunboat shells along with a wide range of live and spent bullets of various calibres - including 7.62 mm, 5.56 mm and the larger 50 calibre.
Continue reading ‘Weapons and their devastating effect on the people in Gaza’
