December 27, 2008"We don’t want any more condemnations. We want action. This is real, we are dying," says Amjad Al Shawa of the Palestinian Network of NGOs in Gaza City.
A building adjoining the school where his children attend was hit in one of today’s 40 simultaneous air attacks. It was in session. Dozens of children were rushed to Gaza City’s Al Shifa Hospital to join the 780 injured throughout the Strip.
"The US invited this massacre," Al Shawa said early this evening after attending initial services for the death of his one year old neighbor. "They say they are targeting police headquarters? This is the center of the city. We are all together. Gaza is overpopulated, there is no separate area for the police."
Without regular power for over a month of closure and a year and a half of siege, Gaza is now in darkness tonight after witnessing a day of intense killing. Two hundred and twenty-five people are dead now, with the number expected to continue rising as it has since noon when the air attacks started on the north to the south of the Strip.
"At first people just started running in the streets, looking for a place to be safe," Al Shawa described. "There is blood. Just blood everywhere."
Al Shifa Hospital, already without enough supplies or medicine due to the siege and closure, is now attempting to treat hundreds of people. Gaza City’s largest hospital has called for donations of blood. Egypt opened its border crossing with the southern Strip’s Rafah earlier today to begin taking some of the injured. This comes after an effective green light given to Israeli Foreign Minister Livni during a meeting in Cairo two days ago. A Hamas spokesperson warned of the danger of having the open Israeli threat levied against Gaza from a neighboring Arab country and in the presence of its officials. However the Egyptian role has been clear for some time as the country continued to support the siege by "enforcing its barriers" on Friday, stating it feared Gazans might break through in order to "stock up on food" before the expected Israeli attacks.
Although the Israelis had issued threats, the administration stated earlier that it would make its decision on Sunday about a major military operation. Al Shawa described this morning in the Strip as quiet. "It came out of nowhere. The explosions. There are limbs, body parts. My children are doing better than so many other people’s, but how will they sleep after this." An Israeli military official said today that "more than 100 tons of bombs were dropped on Gaza by mid-afternoon."
Hundreds of families are mourning their losses in the dark tonight, without electricity, adequate food or clean water. There is no security under this occupation that answers to none. The United Nations condemned today’s massacre, but what of it; when the UN human rights envoy suggested a war crimes tribunal because of the siege, the Israelis simply denied his entry to Palestine.
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