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Israel should stop using white phosphorus in military operations in densely populated areas of Gaza, Human Rights Watch said today. On January 9 and 10, 2009, Human Rights Watch researchers in Israel observed multiple air-bursts of artillery-fired white phosphorus over what appeared to be the Gaza City/Jabaliya area.
Israel appeared to be using white phosphorus as an “obscurant” (a chemical used to hide military operations), a permissible use in principle under international humanitarian law (the laws of war). However, white phosphorus has a significant, incidental, incendiary effect that can severely burn people and set structures, fields, and other civilian objects in the vicinity on fire. The potential for harm to civilians is magnified by Gaza’s high population density, among the highest in the world.
“White phosphorous can burn down houses and cause horrific burns when it touches the skin,” said Marc Garlasco, senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch. “Israel should not use it in Gaza’s densely populated areas.”
Human Rights Watch believes that the use of white phosphorus in densely populated areas of Gaza violates the requirement under international humanitarian law to take all feasible precautions to avoid civilian injury and loss of life. This concern is amplified given the technique evidenced in media photographs of air-bursting white phosphorus projectiles. Air bursting of white phosphorus artillery spreads 116 burning wafers over an area between 125 and 250 meters in diameter, depending on the altitude of the burst, thereby exposing more civilians and civilian infrastructure to potential harm than a localized ground burst.
Since the beginning of Israel’s ground offensive in Gaza on January 3, 2009, there have been numerous media reports about the possible use of white phosphorous by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). The IDF told both Human Rights Watch and news reporters that it is not using white phosphorus in Gaza. On January 7, an IDF spokesman told CNN, “I can tell you with certainty that white phosphorus is absolutely not being used.”
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White phosphorous can burn down houses and cause horrific burns when it touches the skin. Israel should not use it in Gaza’s densely populated areas.
from: www.hrw.org
As the number of casualties continues to mount, civilians in Gaza are in increasingly dire need of food, medical and other emergency assistance, Amnesty International said on Wednesday.
International humanitarian and human rights workers, as well as journalists, have not been allowed into Gaza by the Israeli army since the beginning of November, with the exception of a few journalists who were allowed in for a couple of days earlier in December.
"Humanitarian workers, journalists and human rights monitors are urgently needed to assess needs, report violations and publicise the reality of the situation on the ground," said Amnesty International.
Amnesty International believes that risk to civilians is increased by artillery attacks on Gaza launched from Israeli gunboats off the coast. In the past, such artillery fire into densely populated areas has been inaccurate, causing Israel to desist from such firing after attacks caused high numbers of civilian casualties.
As attacks continue, Amnesty International called on the Israeli authorities, the Hamas de-facto administration and all other Palestinian armed groups to stop all unlawful attacks. They must not target civilians and buildings not being used for military purposes, whether through air or artillery strikes or home-made rockets, and must take all precautions necessary to protect civilians from the dangers caused by military operations.
Amnesty International also expressed great anxiety that a ground incursion into Gaza by Israeli forces could greatly increase civilian casualties.
"Israeli forces must bear in mind that there are no ‘safe’ places in Gaza for civilians to seek shelter. They know how densely populated the Jabalia Refugee Camp is and that the homes are mostly light structures with flimsy asbestos roofs and not able to withstand the effect of strikes. Strikes are virtually sure to kill and injure civilians” said Amnesty International. "The Israeli army must not carry out attacks which pose a disproportionate risk to civilians. They must always choose means and methods of attack that are least likely to harm civilians.”
"We urge all parties not to target civilians and not to carry out indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks that put civilian lives in danger.”
Examples:
On 27 December seven students from a school run by the United Nations were killed outside the school, just after lessons finished as they were trying to get home. The Israeli bombardment had first started at about 11.30 am on a Saturday, a day and time when the streets are very busy, particularly as children finish school just after midday, just as the initial bombardment was at its most intense. Seven students from a UNRWA school were killed outside the school just after lessons finished and they were trying to get home.
On 27 December Muhammad al-Awadi finished his exam and left the al Carmel School in the Rimal district of downtown Gaza City, a school located near the al-Abbas police station in a residential district, at about 11.30 am to return to the orphanage where he lived with his brother Ahmed. He was fatally wounded when a bomb was dropped on the Police station, just as he came out of the school. Muhammad was treated in the ICU unit of Gaza City Hospital but died in the evening of 30 December. This happened at the very beginning of the bombing campaign and was totally unexpected.
On 28 December five sisters from the Baalousha family aged four to 17, (Jawhir, 4; Dina, 8; Samar, 12; Ikram, 14; and Tahrir, 17) were killed in their home in Jabalia Refugee Camp, located north of Gaza city in Gaza’s most densely populated area. Four other children siblings were injured when the mosque near their home was bombed, and theirs and several other homes were destroyed and damaged.
In the night of 28-29 December three bothers from the al-Absi family aged three to 14 yrs (Sedqi, 3; Ahmad, 12; and Muhammad, 14) were killed along with their mother while several other siblings were injured when their home was destroyed by a strike in a refugee camp in Rafah, south Gaza.
Since the beginning of the offensive on 27 December, more than 360 Palestinians have been killed, including scores of unarmed civilians, including some 70 women and children. Some 1,700 Palestinians have also been injured.
Four Israeli civilians have also been killed and scores injured as all Palestinian armed groups in Gaza, including the armed wing of the Palestinian Authority’s President Mahmoud Abbas’ al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, have continued to launch rockets from Gaza into southern Israel.
source:amnsty.org
Jerusalem, the Old City
An Introduction
Is a history of Jerusalem or Al-Quds possible? How many of the hundreds of books and tourist guides really inform us? The real accumulation of humanity in Jerusalem over millennia, the diversity of its life and the variety of its architecture, are constantly being overshadowed by single narratives. People have always needed mythic narratives to sustain them. But when a narrative subverts or attempts to erase real history to serve political ends, it verges on moral abuse. This introduction is intended to make some observations and cautions for readers to consider when reading other sources.
Writing any "history"-especially a history of Jerusalem-is problematic. Current scholarship is questioning ancient and modern narratives, including those records of Greek or Roman or other times that have been assumed to be accurate. With Jerusalem, the lenses of observation remain more distorted than elsewhere. The city is subjected to processes of enlarged focus or of blurring that are affected by multiple narratives and past or present claims. Available descriptions of the "Holy Land" have been filtered through cultural and political agendas, as well as conflicting monotheistic traditions.
Sometimes, these descriptions were written by "absent" travelers who relied on second-hand accounts. A 14th-century account by John Mandeville , for example, has only recently been shown to be a fabrication copied from earlier crusader and other reports. In 1607, George Sandys produced a more factual description but portrayed Palestine as a neglected land (a logic intended to justify that it should be conquered), despite his own mention of productive farming in many areas. Thomas Fuller wrote an entire geography of Palestine in 1650, without ever visiting the country. Later 19th-century travelers, many fundamentalist clergy, created portraits of the land and its people as fossilized biblical remains rather than as living human beings. Today, tourist information and the media still perpetuate similar impressions and stereotypes.
The current mythology about the city's name and associations are typical examples. The "salem" or "shalim" in Jerusalem does not come from the word for "peace," as is circulated. "Shalim" is the god associated with the city's founding by the Canaanite Jebusites ("Uru-shalim," the city or foundation of the god Shalim, cited in ancient Egyptian texts). There are systematic efforts, however, to link Jerusalem with David (thus the recent Israeli "3000" anniversary celebrations). However, as Thomas L. Thompson has noted, there are three different biblical accounts involving the "conquest" of Jerusalem. The efforts to connect the city with David are intended to formalize connections between present Jews or Israelis and that idealized biblical community called "Israelites." The city's archaeological and other documentation, however, demonstrates actual habitation by the Jebusites about 5000 years ago.
Even biblical scholars now acknowledge that the reported conquest by David did not result in any changes in population or religion. Others confirm that David never existed as a tribal chief-except in the huge realm of legend. What is called the "Tower of David" in Jerusalem (made into a showcase museum by Israel) has nothing to do with David. Meron Benvenisti, among others, has deflated the mythic creations about the Tower, which was built in more recent centuries. Jerusalem has no trace at all of a person called "King David."
The work of many scholars (Philip R. Davies, Marc Zvi Brettler, Keith W. Whitelam , Thomas L. Thompson, Lester Grabbe, Donald B. Redford , Israel Finkelstein, Ze'ev Herzog, to name a few) has cast irreversible doubts about the actuality of other characters and events. The "conquest" as described in "Joshua" never occurred. The Exodus story is nothing more than Canaanite cultural memory appropriated by "Israelites" as their tradition. Initially, Canaanite-derived gods were both male and female, including the pairs 'Asherah (Mother of Gods) and El (Father of Gods), 'Anat and Ba'al, and also later 'Asherah and Yahweh. Such information is shaking certain monopolies on religious truth. This scholarship has filtered into discussions among Israeli academicians, but some are afraid it is a threat to the legitimacy of Israel's creation.
The key to clarifying the history of Jerusalem and Palestine lies in distinguishing between literary tradition and recorded history, between imagined memory and material evidence. It is equally important that an effort be made to establish a history based on people and their continuity rather than a history based on which political power or religious ideology was present in the land and then left it.
Palestine was conquered in times past by ancient Egyptians, Hittites, Philistines, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Romans, Muslim Arabs, Mamlukes, Ottomans, the British, the Zionists. These are recorded conquests (not literary legends), whose facts and remains are documented. Meanwhile, another development was the evolution of monotheistic faiths that followed the "pagan" religions. It is crucial to keep these two developments as distinct as possible, for the sake of not confusing issues and identities. The people of Palestine may have become more mixed with each consecutive conquest, or may have changed religions, but essentially (especially in villages) the population remained constant-and is now still Palestinian, though many villagers were tragically dislocated in the 1948 Nakba .
Old Jaffa (1936), now vacant of its Palestinian inhabitants, deserted except for the occasional Isreali "artist" gallery
The Dome of the Rock is a focus of veneration for hundreds of millions of Muslim worshippers. It is also a visible and impressive work of architecture, around which much lore has developed. It was built in times of recorded history, on previously unoccupied ground, though the spot probably had ancient associations impossible to trace today. The Muslim caliph, as Christians and Jews at the time mention, had avoided harming Christian or Jewish sensitivities. Both Christian and Jewish responses to the coming of Islam in 638 AD indicate that Jews, Christians, and Muslims lived in Jerusalem together as "people of the book"-despite any biases one may cite.
Karen Armstrong points to the irony that, upon capturing Jerusalem, the Muslims "invited the Jews to return to the holy city and left the Christian shrines and residences undisturbed" (The New York Times, 16 July 2000). Though Armstrong's work shows a strong attraction to biblical lore, she maintains that the history of persecution in Jerusalem is largely connected to Christian and Jewish movements (often imported), with considerably fewer instances of Muslim intolerance. As Jewish historian Moshe Gil mentions, it was not until 638 that a Jewish quarter was assigned in the city, when Muslims invited Jewish families to reside there.
No one today is discrediting or diminishing Jewish freedom to venerate the Wall and to worship there. No one is making calls and threats against the Wailing Wall similar to those continuously being directed, over the past three decades, against the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque. An attack by an extremist destroyed portions of the mosque in 1969, and several recent attempts have been foiled. Extremist groups are now calling for the destruction the Dome and mosque, in order that a "third temple" can be built there instead. Such planned actions could have real apocalyptic consequences. (See the web site of the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz for special features on this issue). On the other hand, the Israeli government destroyed many old Jerusalem buildings to expand the area near the Wailing Wall, and evicted all their Palestinian occupants. Extensive Israeli excavations have only threatened the foundations beneath the Dome complex but produced none of the desired links.
Israel also continues to impose other changes in demography and geography, altering facts that took millennia to accumulate. Populations are imported and local inhabitants dislocated. Throughout all of Palestine, place names have been changed to coincide with locations transmitted in the Bible or other names hypothesized by pseudo-archaeologists. In fact, because of linguistic continuities, modern Arabic place names are much closer to the ancient Canaanite names than those transcribed in biblical texts. Such forced actions by Israel are premised merely on theorized connections to the ancient past, though they are also politically expedient. They create a situation and a logic that could be compared, say, to Afghani Muslims deciding to claim sole ownership of Mecca.
In short, what is happening to the picture of Jerusalem today points to an increase in extremist, exclusivist interpretations that are neither historically nor religiously justifiable. The atmosphere of claims and intolerance creates, unfortunately, a counter-effect and an increase in reactive fundamentalism.
Until recent decades, religions had developed and were passed on from age to age without affecting the continuity of indigenous people in Palestine, who inherited a composite religious understanding. All the three monotheistic religions have traditions of mercy and sympathy for the oppressed-which one hopes could be revitalized. It is only when uses and appropriations are politicized that religious feelings are exasperated and polarized, that tolerance is diminished or destroyed.
We should all be respectful of traditional sensitivities. Though not necessarily very accurate from a historical perspective, traditions obviously shape present emotions and mental states of populations. These mental conditions should be tolerated for what they are and what they represent, but should by no means be allowed to consolidate exclusivity and conflict.
A time of tranquility, at the 'Oujeh stream, 1935
Credits: Two postcards by Noel Jabbour; postcard "Shepherd's Field" from Star Cards; black and white photos by Elia Kahvedjian (courtesy Elia Photo Service, Old City); black and white photo of Jerusalem with palm tree, 1907, by Kerkor Kevorkian (courtesy Studio Varouj, Old City); text by Basem Ra'ad
source:
The Arab University In Jerusalem
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Comment by ahmed 1
on Israel: Stop Unlawful Use of White Phosphorus in Gaza
jerusalem
thanks for your offer, it may be appropriate in the future .
best regards.