"I Will Never Walk Again"

[Antaletriangle]

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Jan 23, 2009

GAZA CITY — Guns might have gone silent, bodies buried, rubbles lifted, but Israel's 22-day onslaught is leaving many Gazans with life-long scars, both physical and psychological.

"I will never walk again," Ruba Hamid, 8, said from her bed in Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City.

Her tears rolled down her cheeks as she watched on TV the many young children whose legs have been blown out in Israeli bombing.

"I will never play again," Ruba said before she stopped talking abruptly as her voice chocked with deep emotion.

Ruba's legs were amputated after being shattered by Israeli shelling of the Gaza Strip.

According to medics, thousands of Gazans, many of them children, had their bodies shredded and their limbs amputated due to the severe damage caused by Israeli shells and shrapnel.

"Most of the cases coming here were suffering from amputated limbs, four of them in some cases," doctor Mo'aweya Hasanein, chief of ambulance and emergency in Gaza, told IOL.

He estimates around 14 percent of the 5000 people injured in Gaza have become disabled for life.

"And the numbers keep rising, every day some one is losing an eye, an arm or a leg."

Arab and foreigner doctors who have been to Gaza recently have concluded that the abnormal injuries seen suggest Israel's use of unconventional weapons during its three-week onslaught.

Norwegian doctor Mads Gilbert, who worked in Gaza's main Shifa hospital during the first weeks of the Israeli blitz, accused Israel of using the Dense Inert Metal Explosive (DIME) that shreds the victims' bodies in pieces.

Shattered Lives

Walking though Shifa rooms, the screams of those who wake up to the pain of their ravaged bodies echo every few minutes.

But at Hani's room, the silence is deafening.

The 23-year-old has lost both legs in an Israeli missile strike that also left his house in tatters.

Since then, he has been laying in his hospital bed, his eyes gazing into the nowhere.

Sometimes tears roll down his face but he never speaks.

"He does not want to talk to anyone," his mother told IOL. "The doctors say he is suffering from psychological distress.

"Just look at him," said the grief-stricken mother, "he is ruined. What's to become of him now?"

Unlike Hani, Amgad has not stopped weeping and crying for hours.

"He suffers from a severe nervous breakdown," one doctor said.

Amgad who is now confined to a wheelchair after Israeli shrapnel hit his neck and left him paralyzed for life.

Psychiatrists are warning that Gazans would bear severe psychological scars for the rest of their lives.

Rehabilitation centers have already launched a campaign to scarred victims.

"We will visit the disabled in their homes and help them cope with their injuries," Mustafa Abed, spokesman of the confederation of rehabilitation centers, told IOL.

But for Ruba, the 8-year-old who lost both her legs, there is only one question that burns her mind.

"What did I do to Israel to take my legs?"

Reminds me of Pollyanna.

Might be a good time to play the glad game.

[Dantheman62]

nevermind

It rubbed my fur the wrong way in several directions.

I hate what's happened on every turn. But we need to
read it or we won't know. It is wrong what has been done. It is also wrong to incite more hatred and revenge
with propaganda cloaked as a human interest story.
More violence will not bring her legs back.

Everyone concerned would benefit from taking a deep
breath and playing the glad game. Like Pollyanna said;
I can be glad that I had legs.

The real tragedy is the likelihood that it was mossad/cia
assets who fired the bottle rockets that provided the
excuse for the entire campaign. Is the entire event staged? Is it a magicians distraction to allow other events
to unfold like the economic collapse right under our noses? Is it a prelude and excuse for a wider conflict?

A passionate young miltant will read this story. His heart
will be inflamed with anger and hatred. From there it shall all flow, blood will run in the streets, and the women in black shall weep once again.

I'd rather find something to be glad about.

[Dantheman62]

thanks for putting my quote up, I should've figured I edited it too late.................

Is that better?

Afghan president: US forces killed 16 civilians
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Jan 25, 7:13 AM (ET)

By JASON STRAZIUSO and RAHIM FAIEZ

(AP) Afghan villagers shout slogans against the U.S. and Afghan government during a demonstration...
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KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - President Hamid Karzai condemned a U.S. operation he said killed 16 Afghan civilians, while hundreds of villagers denounced the American military during an angry demonstration Sunday.

Karzai said the killing of innocent Afghans during U.S. military operations "is strengthening the terrorists."

He also announced that his Ministry of Defense sent Washington a draft technical agreement that seeks to give Afghanistan more oversight over U.S. military operations. The same letter has also been sent to NATO headquarters.

Karzai in recent weeks has increasingly lashed out at his Western backers over the issue of civilian casualties, even as U.S. politicians and a top NATO official have publicly criticized Karzai for the slow pace of progress here.

The back-and-forth comes as the new administration of President Barack Obama must decide whether to support Karzai as he seeks re-election later this year as part of the United States' overall Afghan strategy.

Karzai's latest criticism follows a Saturday raid in Laghman province that the U.S. says killed 15 armed militants, including a woman with an RPG, but that Afghan officials say killed civilians.

Two women and three children were among the 16 dead civilians, Karzai said in a statement.

In Laghman's capital, hundreds of angry demonstrators denounced the U.S. military Sunday and demanded an end to overnight raids. U.S. military leaders, victims' relatives and Afghan officials - including two top Karzai advisers - met at the governor's compound to discuss the issue, Gov. Latifullah Mashal said.

"The U.S. military said 'We are sorry for this incident and after this we are going to coordinate our operations with Afghan forces,'" Mashal said.

Civilian deaths during U.S. operations have been a huge point of friction between the Afghan government and U.S. and NATO militaries. Many of the deaths happen on overnight raids by U.S. Special Forces who launch operations against specific insurgent leaders.

A U.S. investigative team that had planned to travel to the village - 40 miles (60 kilometers) northeast of the capital, Kabul - was canceled Sunday because of bad weather. U.S. military spokesman Col. Greg Julian said American officials hoped to visit the site on Tuesday, weather permitting.

"We do want to find out what the bottom line is, and we're kind of in a hands-tied position until we can get out there," Julian said. "And even when we get out there, it's based on what people say rather than being able to do a full forensic-type investigation."

Julian said that the U.S. military has photos showing militants fighting the U.S. coalition forces, but that the photos cannot be released to the public. He said the photos would be shown to Afghan officials.

Karzai last week told parliament that the U.S. and NATO have not heeded his calls to stop airstrikes in civilian areas. Karzai has recently sought to have more control over what kinds of activities U.S. and NATO forces can carry out. According to a copy obtained by The Associated Press last week, the draft technical agreement Karzai's government sent to Washington and NATO headquarters calls for:

- The deployment of additional U.S. or NATO troops and their location carried out only with Afghan government approval.

- Full coordination between Afghan and NATO defense authorities "at the highest possible level for all phases of military and ground operations."

- House searches and detention operations to be carried out only by Afghan security forces.

Civilian deaths are an extremely complicated issue in Afghanistan. Afghan villagers have been known to exaggerate civilian death claims in order to receive more compensation from the U.S. military, and officials have said that insurgents sometimes force villagers to make false death claims.

But the U.S. military has also been known to not fully acknowledge when it killed civilians.

After a battle in August in the village of Azizabad, the U.S. military at first said no civilians were killed. A day later it said about five died, and eventually a more thorough U.S. investigation found 33 civilians were killed. The Afghan government and the U.N. said 90 civilians were killed.


Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All right reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Jan 23, 2009

John Stuart Mill described war as an ugly thing and it does not come much uglier than the digital photograph Mahmoud Abu Halima has on his mobile phone. It was taken this week and shows the body of his 15-month-old sister, Shahed, burned by white phosphorus, bloated through decomposition and without any feet or legs.

Mr Halima explained what happened to the lower limbs.

"There were about 12 bodies from the village that had to be left out in the open when the Israeli soldiers came. By the time we got back she had been partially eaten by wild dogs," he said.

After Israel ended its ban on foreign journalists in Gaza it was a week of piecing together such stories, trying to clarify exactly what happened during the three-week military assault by Israel's armed forces.

The Israeli government has accused people like the Halima family of being coached by Hamas to spout fiction.

Investigation of the Halima family began in the burns unit at Shifa, the largest hospital in Gaza. During its military operations Israel had denied using white phosphorus shells improperly, meaning it was not used against civilians or in civilian areas. But the case of Sabbah Abu Halima, 45, suggested otherwise.

She had been brought into the hospital with what appeared to be mild burns to her right forearm, left lower leg and feet. Without experience of white phosphorus, the staff, led by the unit's director, Nafiz Abu Shabaan, wiped the wounds, bound them and sent her on her way. "But two days later she came back, complaining of pain and when we opened the bandages we found her wounds still smoking and much, much bigger. Her arm was down to the bone and tendons, that is all that is left," he said.

Sitting on her hospital bed and wincing with pain when her bandages pinched, Mrs Halima gave an initial account of what happened. She described how her family had gathered to eat in a first-storey room at the family home in the village of Atatra. It lies on the northern edge of Gaza and while it was never likely to be a target during the air assault phase of Israel's operation Cast Lead, its proximity to the fence with Israel meant it was in the front line for the ground offensive.

"The first shells landed outside and we all stood up and went into the hall and a bedroom because we thought it was safe. That was when a shell came through the roof and exploded. My husband, Saadallah, was holding some of the children but his head was cut off. There was fire and smoke everywhere and the baby Shahed fell to the ground. I heard her cry 'mama, mama, mama', and then she stopped," Mrs Halima said. The house should be a 20-minute drive from Shifa but the conflict has turned roads into slow obstacle courses with cars having to slalom round craters, heaps of rubble and bloated carcasses of livestock. The Halima house lies just off a main road in Atatra up a muddy alley leading to fields of hothouses.

Outside the house lay evidence of the shelling Mrs Halima described. Two white phosphorus shell cases, originally painted light green but burnt by detonations with the metal bent back like tulip petals, were on the ground.

One still had the four tell-tale angle-irons inside to indicate a 155mm white phosphorus shell and was packed with unburned chemical. A poke with a stick to expose the chemical to oxygen was enough to set it burning again, sending out white smoke.

Mr Halima, 20, was next door in the house of his uncle, Hikmat, 42, when the barrage struck and he remembered the smell of the smoke as he rushed up the open stairwell at his home.

"It was a bad smell, a smell that made you choke," he said. "I came upstairs but there was smoke everywhere. I ran to get water from the bathroom but when I put the water on them the water did not stop the fire."

White phosphorus fires are resistant to water.

As well as his infant sister and father, Mr Halima lost two brothers - Zaid, 10, and Hamza, eight - in the blast and subsequent fire.

Mr Halima explained how the killing did not end there. As the wounded, including his mother, were dragged down the stairwell, his cousin, Mohammed, 16, the son of Hikmat, ran to the fields to fetch a tractor and trailer to take the injured to safety. According to witnesses, Mohammed was shot dead by Israeli soldiers.

The Atatra case is one of many in Gaza for which human rights activists have demanded an investigation. Navi Pillay, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, has suggested that there is at least one case with "the appearance of war crimes". But Israel does not have a good record of co-operating with those investigating atrocities in Gaza. In 2006 after Israeli artillery killed 18 members of the Athamneh family in Gaza, Israel cleared itself of wrongdoing in an internal inquiry and blocked Desmond Tutu, the Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town and Nobel peace prize laureate, from reaching Gaza to investigate the incident for the UN.

This time round, after denying any improper use of white phosphorus, Israel has launched an internal inquiry. In some ways full-scale investigations of alleged atrocities by the Israeli army are academic.

With the two sides in the conflict so far apart, Israeli hard-liners will not shift from their faith in the probity of its armed forces, nor will Palestinians budge from the view that their people were innocent victims. But unless they are dealt with, the cycle of enmity that has fuelled this conflict for decades will continue and the loss of life - 13 Israelis and over 1,300 Palestinians - will have been for nothing.

When Israel launched its attack its stated aim was to reduce Hamas rocket fire from Gaza into Israel. At one level the mission has been successful: the militants' rockets have all but stopped. But before the Israeli government unfurls a Mission Accomplished banner there remains one important point of business: the smuggling tunnels are open again.

Much of the tunnelling under the Egyptian border is surprisingly visible, taking place out in the open in the south Gazan town of Rafah clearly within sight of nearby Egyptian watchtowers. The area was pitted with craters from Israeli air strikes but during a visit I saw several of the tunnels open or being repaired.

Further north in the town of Beit Hanoun was the house of Angham al Masri, a 10-year-old girl who was killed in an Israeli air strike after it began its ceasefire in the early hours last Sunday. Her father, Rafat, 44, explained how his daughter thought the ceasefire made it safe to venture out of the house for the first time in days to check on the family farm that had been evacuated during the fighting. "She had only gone a few hundred metres when the missile struck," he said. "I ran to her and picked her up but she died in an hour." Israel said it attacked a rocket firing position.

Amid claim and counter-claim about Israel's war aims and achievements, Mr Masri then indicated how operation Cast Lead has done nothing but harden Palestinian resolve against Israel.

"Israel said this was a war on Hamas but when they kill people like my daughter it becomes clear it is a war on the Palestinian people," he said. "Until they change this war will never end."

US troops used white phosphorus as a weapon in last year's offensive in the Iraqi city of Falluja, the US has said.

"It was used as an incendiary weapon against enemy combatants," spokesman Lt Col Barry Venable told the BBC - though not against civilians, he said.

The US had earlier said the substance - which can cause burning of the flesh - had been used only for illumination.

BBC defence correspondent Paul Wood says having to retract its denial is a public relations disaster for the US.

Col Venable denied that white phosphorous constituted a banned chemical weapon.


White phosphorus is an incendiary weapon, not a chemical weapon
Col Barry Venable
Pentagon spokesman
US military interview

Washington is not a signatory to an international treaty restricting the use of the substance against civilians.

The US state department had earlier said white phosphorus had been used in Falluja very sparingly, for illumination purposes.

Col Venable said that statement was based on "poor information".

'Incendiary'

The US-led assault on Falluja - a stronghold of the Sunni insurgency west of Baghdad - displaced most of the city's 300,000 population and left many of its buildings destroyed.

Col Venable told the BBC's PM radio programme that the US army used white phosphorus incendiary munitions "primarily as obscurants, for smokescreens or target marking in some cases.

"However it is an incendiary weapon and may be used against enemy combatants."


WHITE PHOSPHORUS
Spontaneously flammable chemical used for battlefield illumination
Contact with particles causes burning of skin and flesh
Use of incendiary weapons prohibited for attacking civilians (Protocol III of Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons)
Protocol III not signed by US

Rai interview

And he said it had been used in Falluja, but it was a "conventional munition", not a chemical weapon.

It is not "outlawed or illegal", Col Venable said.

He said US forces could use white phosphorus rounds to flush enemy troops out of covered positions.

"The combined effects of the fire and smoke - and in some case the terror brought about by the explosion on the ground - will drive them out of the holes so that you can kill them with high explosives," he said.

San Diego journalist Darrin Mortenson, who was embedded with US marines during the assault on Falluja, told the BBC's Today radio programme he had seen white phosphorous used "as an incendiary weapon" against insurgents.

However, he "never saw anybody intentionally use any weapon against civilians", he said.

'Particularly nasty'

White phosphorus is highly flammable and ignites on contact with oxygen. If the substance hits someone's body, it will burn until deprived of oxygen.

Globalsecurity.org, a defence website, says: "Phosphorus burns on the skin are deep and painful... These weapons are particularly nasty because white phosphorus continues to burn until it disappears... it could burn right down to the bone."

A spokesman at the UK Ministry of Defence said the use of white phosphorus was permitted in battle in cases where there were no civilians near the target area.

But Professor Paul Rogers, of the University of Bradford's department of peace studies, said white phosphorus could be considered a chemical weapon if deliberately aimed at civilians.

He told PM: "It is not counted under the chemical weapons convention in its normal use but, although it is a matter of legal niceties, it probably does fall into the category of chemical weapons if it is used for this kind of purpose directly against people."

When an Italian TV documentary revealing the use of white phosphorus in Iraq was broadcast on 8 November it sparked fury among Italian anti-war protesters, who demonstrated outside the US embassy in Rome.