umkahlil

Unconfirmed: Gaza Children Murdered by Israeli Soldier in Front of Mother

Barbara Lubin and all of us at the Middle East Children's Alliance believe that we should have confirmed the story about the Gaza woman who was told by an Israeli soldier to choose which five of her ten children should die, and then witnessed their murder. We are doing everything we can now to verify the story, but have been unable to do so. We ask that you do not publish or post this story on the Internet. If you have already done so, please post this statement, as well.

Barbara Lubin went to Gaza to deliver four tons of medicine and other aid to the people there. When she arrived in the immediate aftermath of the Israeli assault the scene she encountered was chaotic and the people traumatized. She heard and retold many horrifying accounts, and saw for herself the devastation to homes, schools, businesses, land and lives. In these catastrophic circumstances, it’s not difficult to see how Barbara would find this story credible. Unfortunately, we sent it out before taking the time to verify it.

We know that several hundred children lost their lives in the assault, and that some appear to have been shot at close range. There are reports of family members being shot in front of each other. Israeli forces entered Gaza homes and apparently used people as human shields. Israel is now being investigated for using unconventional weapons like white phosphorous and dense inert metal explosive (DIME). (See links below.)

All of us at MECA are committed to accuracy as we relate the stories of what we see when we travel to Palestine. We will keep you informed about what we learn.

Doctors at a hospital near Gaza are almost overwhelmed by the number of Palestinian children needing treatment for bullet wounds to their heads.http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/ palestinianauthority/4279102/Bullets-in-the-brain-shrapnel-in-the- spine-the-terrible-injuries-suffered-by-children-of-Gaza.html

Israel accused of executing parents in front of children in Gazahttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/ 4309611/Israel-accused-of-executing-parents-in-front-of-children-in- Gaza.html

Gaza 'human shields' criticised
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7818122.stm

Outcry Over Israel's War Crimes
http://www.jkcook.net/Articles2/0361.htm#Top

Gaza family recounts day of horror
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-zeitoun26 -2009jan26,0,7849544.story?page=2

'Tungsten bombs' leave Israel's victims with mystery wounds
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/tungsten-bombs- leave-israels-victims-with-mystery-wounds-1418910.html

Deborah Agre
Middle East Children's Alliance
1101 Eighth Street, Suite 100
Berkeley, CA 94710
ph: (510) 548-0542
fx: (510) 548-0543
www.mecaforpeace.org
FOR GAZA:GAZA CHILDREN'S VIGIL AND MEMORIAL
HELP MECA SEND MEDICINE: https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?aid=1171

For Immediate Release
January 25, 2009
Help Rebuild Gaza Community Mental Health Program

Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition, is seeking financial donations to assist the Gaza Community Mental Health Program (GCMHP), which has suffered massive damage to its headquarters during the recent Israeli bombardment.

Help is needed urgently. At this moment in the Gaza strip, the destruction caused by the recent murderous Israeli assault has resulted in patients being out of touch with health care professionals. The victims of the recent military action are in dire need of medical assistance to deal with the consequences of war-induced trauma.

Concern has been raised among health care professionals world-wide. These professionals have called for immediate actions of solidarity to help combat the lasting impacts of murderous bombardment, ground invasion and carnage in Gaza. Those most affected in the Gaza Strip are the elderly, women and children who are at the greatest risk of long term mental health problems.

While the number of people in need of help is increasing fast there are little resources to help. As a consequence of the continued bombardment and blockade, the Gaza Strip has witnessed a terrifying growth in mental health problems with victims suffering from stress related conditions including Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Medical sources have even noted how some mental health workers have needed to receive counseling themselves to enable them to cope with the terrors which have been imposed upon their patients. Mental health services within the Gaza strip are "over-stretched"and lack substantial funds. Without a properly functioning Gaza Mental Health Program in the Gaza Strip, patients will continue to suffer and will remain at a great risk.

The staff of The Gaza Community Mental Health Program provide crucial and irreplaceable mental health services to thousands of Gaza residents with aspecial emphasis on vulnerable groups such as children, women, and victims of torture and human rights violations. For more information about the program, see http://www.gcmhp.net/

How you can help: To help with the reconstruction of the Gaza Community
Mental Health Program, please donate online at http://www.al-awda.org .

Alternatively please address your check or money order to:

Al-Awda, PRRCPO Box 131352
Carlsbad, CA 92013, USA

Thank you for your support.

In 2009? Lina Hassan (2000-2009)

From 2000-2008?

1050 Palestinian Children Killed

In 1987 when the Prime Minister ordered Israeli soldiers to "break the bones" of Palestinian demonstrators?

In 1982? Sabra and Chatila

In 1967?
Approximately thirty-five percent of the Palestinian population of the West Bank, eastern Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip were expelled during the 1967 war.

Or was it in 1956?

Kafr Qasem massacre?

Was it as early as 1948?

When "more than 500 Palestinian villages were depopulated and later destroyed to prevent the return of the refugees"?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2009/jan/25/readers-editor

The readers' editor on ... the important line between argument and insult

The reason this comment will have come down is because it directly compares Israel with Nazi Germany," a moderator told me. "Though it may not be intended as such, this sort of comment is deeply offensive to Jewish readers of all political stripes and alienates them from discussion in a way that undermines the conversation all round. Our aim is to make space for constructive and inclusive dialogue, so we take such references down in line with our community standards, which state, 'We understand that people often feel strongly about issues debated on the site, but we will consider removing any content that others might find extremely offensive or threatening.' " read more

My response to the editorial above:

Dear Mr. Pritchard:

It is four AM in the morning, and I am plagued by images of Palestinian children bandaged from head to toe and with injuries the likes of which doctors have never seen before. And when I see Palestinians living in tents today, I recall images of Palestinians in tents in 1948. I read reports of Palestinian children shot at close range with bullets through their brains in 2009, and I am reminded of reports of Palestinian children shot at close range through their brains in 2002. And I remember the order of Yitzak Rabin to break the bones of Palestinian kids who picked up rocks in 1987. And I recall kids trapped for days in their houses in 2002 in Nablus watching their parents bleed to death as I read in January 2009 about a father trapped in his car for twenty hours helpless as his son bled to death, while the other son was dead in the street. And I read how a soldier defecated in a Palestinian lady's cooking pot in 2002, and I am reading today how soldiers urinate and defecate in the houses in Gaza that they comandeered. And I remember that Sderot is built on the village lands of Najd, a defaced and depopulated Palestinian village, one of over four hundred destroyed and depopulated Palestinian villages from 1948. And I see poor refugees, some of whom may originally be from Najd, some originally from Jaffa, some originally from Ashkelon, some originally from Bir Saba, picking through the rubble of their destroyed village today so kindly bear with me if the furthest thing from my mind is the sensibilities of the perpetrators of these outrages against God and humanity.

Nancy Harb Almendras

When I saw the photos of the slaughtered Palestinian children in the Guardian's photo gallery and when I read Rory McCarthy's story,
I thought of Samia Halaby's MEMORIAL on the 50th Anniversary of the Kafr Qasem Massacre.

Update: This story is unconfirmed

The sickening horrors to which the Zionists have subjected the Palestinians for more than sixty years defy credulity. I received this message from Barbara Lubin, founder of Middle East Children's Alliance today:

I entered the Gaza Strip on Wednesday night with my friend and fellow activist Sharon Wallace after waiting ten hours at the Egypt/Gaza. The destruction and trauma is even greater than I expected. In just two short days I met with families who were given minutes to evacuate their homes and are now living in overcrowded UN schools; I saw the ruins of bombed greenhouses; I looked out the window at fields and roads torn up by the tread of Israeli tanks; and I visited two universities where MECA supports students with scholarships-severely damaged by Israeli bombs.

Out of all the devastation I have seen so far, there is one story in particular that I think the world needs to hear. I met a mother who was at home with her ten children when Israeli soldiers entered the house. The soldiers told her she had to choose five of her children to "give as a gift to Israel." As she screamed in horror they repeated the demand and told her she could choose or they would choose for her. Then these soldiers murdered five of her children in front of her. The concept of "Jewish morality" is truly dead. We can be fascists, terrorists, and Nazis just like everybody else.

I spent the first morning visiting Rafah then drove north to Nuseirat Refugee Camp where our partner organization Afaq Jadeeda Association is buying food a delivering cooked meal to displaced families with funds MECA provided. Then to Gaza City.

Today I visited Jabaliya Refugee Camp and the Zaytoun neighborhood of Gaza City, two of the areas hardest hit by Israel's brutal attacks. Pharmacies, schools, and homes were indiscriminately hit in Jabaliya. Mohammed, one of our volunteers in Gaza, and his family were forced to evacuate their home because of intense bombing in their area. In Zaytoun, I saw families gathering wood from charred trees. The almost two-year blockade of Gaza has deprived people cooking gas, so these terrified families build fires to keep warm and cook the little food they can get.

I talked to people on the street who told stories of wild dogs coming to eat their dead neighbors, relatives bleeding to death because Israel would not allow emergency workers into the area, and Israeli soldiers entering homes to beat and kill.

But despite the immense mourning and devastation, people are starting to put their lives back together. Sabreen, a young woman from Rafah, told me, "We are a strong people. No matter how many times Israel bombs us we are not leaving. We will keep trying to live as normal a life as possible."

Sincerely, Barbara Lubin
Gaza City, Gaza, Palestine

web: http://www.mecaforpeace.org/

Also see Bullets in the brain, shrapnel in the spine: the terrible injuries suffered by children of Gaza

Doctors at a hospital near Gaza are almost overwhelmed by the number of Palestinian children needing treatment for bullet wounds to their heads.

Mark Regev, Zionist Minister of Propaganda Loses it

Channel 4's compelling evidence of flechettes, white phosphorus, and dime bombs

The Guardian's Comment is Free commentators take on the Zionist hasbarists. My comment below on an odious post by one of Israel's apologists. a

Sderot, established in 1951 and Or ha-Ner, established in 1957, sit atop the village lands of Najd. According to Village Statistics from the 1945 Mandatory government, Palestinians own 12,669 dunums of land (ninety-five percent of which was cultivated before their expulsion) to which the Israeli government forbids them to return, while Jews owned 495 dunums of uncultivated land.
The villagers were expelled on 13 May 1948. Many villagers who attempted to return to their lands were shot.

In 1596, according to Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi in All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948, Najd had 215 inhabitants. In 1945, 620 Palestinian Arabs were living in 82 houses.

Zaid Nabulsi in his precise and humorous "Zionism is an incurable disease" pegs the attitudes of the usurpers:

"To deny the orchestrated eradications of hundreds of Palestinian villages in 1948 and then denounce the Israeli historians who later exposed this truth as self-hating Jews is compulsive forgery.

"To claim that having escaped the horrors of the Nazis is a justification for the murder, expulsion and occupation of another, guiltless, people is moral incapacity.

"To legislate that any resident of Poland, New York or Brazil, who happens to be blessed with a Jewish mother (yet cannot point to Palestine on the map), has a right to 'return' and settle in Palestine, unlike someone who has been expelled from his own land, confined to a squalid refugee camp and still holds the keys to his house, is racism."

http://www.jordantimes.com/?news=13464

By Zaid Nabulsi

I lost my gloves one day in a coffee shop in Geneva, and I tell you, it's difficult to ride without them when it's really cold. So as I was paying for a new pair with a credit card, the salesman, whom I knew was from Israel, tried to start some small talk by asking me what my family name means. I told him that it relates to the city of Nablus where my family is originally from.

Suddenly, the most bewildered look was plastered on his face. "Where is Nablus?" he asked, "I've never heard of it." Then, after realizing that I knew he was bullshitting me, he pretended to remember, "Ah, Shkheim you mean?"

With my insistence not to learn these ugly names that the deranged Zionists have dug up from oblivion to erase our identity, that name certainly didn't ring a bell. But now it was my turn. Although I knew where he was from, I asked "And you're… from?" As he smiled while reminding me, I replicated the same look on his face moments ago. "Israel? Where is that?"

Then after a brief pause, "Ah, the land of Canaan you mean. Palestine".

You see if you want to get biblical on me, there is no such thing as Israel either, and I made that clear to this smartass. Here we were all of a sudden; my family descended from a place called Shkheim, and this guy a Palestinian. God does work in mysterious ways, but I still thanked Him for His small mercies that at least my name was not Zaid Shkheimy. "Have a nice day", I told my Israeli friend. It was in fact a very cold, but still magnificently sunny day to hit the roads. The gloves warmed up my grip on the bike, but my heart was still frozen. I just cannot stand thieves who steal your gloves, or any other kind of thieves.

It was then that it finally occurred to me. Zionism is a sickness, for it takes much more than just a twisted ideology to make people think like that. It requires a profound leap of immorality of a higher order to instill this mentality in your followers. Zionism is not merely a political movement, but in its essence represents a deeply disturbed view of the world, which is a reflection of a terrible disease of the mind.

Indeed, to deny the existence of a vibrant community such as the Palestinian society in the early twentieth century and describe Palestine as "a land without a people for a people without a land" is a disease of the mind.

To assert property claims over real estate after the lapse of more than 2000 years with the same certainty of title as if one resided there yesterday is a disease of the mind.

To describe the colonial immigration to Palestine of a European people with no proven historical link to the ancient Israelites – and whose great, great recorded ancestors have never set foot there – as some kind of a "return" to that land is indicative of a perverted misunderstanding and misapplication of the verb to "return" and can only be a result of a disease of the mind.

To blame the Palestinians for being unreasonable in rejecting a partition plan in 1947 which gave the Jews, who only owned 7 percent of the land, an astonishing half of Palestine, is a disease of the mind.

To demand of the Arabs at the time to peacefully succumb to such partition, where 86 percent of the land designated for the proposed Jewish state was Palestinian-inhabited and owned land, is a disease of the mind.

To eventually grab 78 percent of Palestine through war and to force the flight of the population through deliberate massacres and then call it a war of independence is a disease of the mind.

To deny the orchestrated massacres and eradications of hundreds of Palestinian villages in 1948 and then denounce the Israeli historians who later exposed this truth as self-hating Jews is a disease of the mind.

To claim that having escaped the horrors of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, and Dachau is a justification for the murder, expulsion, and occupation of another guiltless people is a disease of the mind.

To legislate that any resident of Poland, Hungary, New York, Brazil, Australia, Iceland, or even Planet Mars, who happens to be blessed with a Jewish mother (yet cannot point to Palestine on the map) has a superior right to "return" and settle in Palestine to someone who has been expelled from his very own land, confined to a squalid refugee camp, and still holds the keys to his house, is a disease of the mind.

To blame God for the theft and occupation of someone else's land by claiming that it was He who had pledged this land exclusively to the Jews, and to seriously promote the myth of a land promised by the Almighty to His favorite children as an excuse for this crime, is a disease of the mind.

To milk the pockets of the world for the atrocities of the Nazis, while stubbornly refusing a simple admission of guilt, let alone compensation or repatriation, for the catastrophe that befell the Palestinian people is a disease of the mind.

To keep reminding and blackmailing the world of the plight of the Jews under Hitler 70 years ago, while at the same time inflicting on the Palestinians today the same fate of the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto, is a disease of the mind.

To impose a collective guilt overshadowing Western civilization for the Holocaust and then to criminalize all legitimate historical debate of the nature and extent of that horrific event is a disease of the mind.

To virtually incarcerate the Palestinian people inside degrading cages, destroying their livelihoods, confiscating their lands, stealing their water and uprooting their trees, and then to condemn their legitimate resistance as terrorism is a disease of the mind.

To believe you have the right to chase the Palestinians into an Arab capital city in 1982 and to indiscriminately bombard its civilians for a relentless three months, murdering thousands of innocent people is a disease of the mind.

To encircle the civilian camps of Sabra and Chatila after evacuating the fighters and to unleash on them trained dogs (while providing them with night-illuminating flares for efficiency) and then deny culpability for the carnage is a disease of the mind.

To publicly declare a policy of breaking the bones of Palestinian stone-throwers to prevent them from lifting stones again and to enact this policy is a disease of the mind.

To have the sadistic streak of exacting vengeance on the innocent families of suicide bombers by punishing them with the dynamiting of their home is a disease of the mind.

To describe the offer of giving the Palestinians 80 percent of 22 percent of 100 percent of what is originally their own land as a "generous" offer is a disease of the mind.

To believe that you have the right to continue to humiliate the Palestinians at gun point by making them queue for hours to move between their villages, forcing mothers to give birth at check-points is a disease of the mind.

To flatten the camp of Jenin on its inhabitants and deny any wrongdoing is a delusional condition which is symptomatic of a serious disease of the mind.

To build a huge separation wall under the pretext of security, which disconnects farmers from their farms and children from their schools, while stealing even more territory as the wall freely zigzags and encroaches on Palestinian land is a disease of the mind.

To leave behind, in the last 10 days of a losing war in Lebanon, more than one million cluster bombs which have no purpose except to murder and maim unsuspecting civilians is a product of an evil disease of the mind.

To believe that the entire world is out to get you and to denounce any critic of the racist policies of the State of Israel as an anti-Semite, the latest victim being none other than peace-making Jimmy Carter, is an acute stage of mass paranoia, which is a disease of the mind.

To possess, in the midst of a non-nuclear Arab world, more than 200 nuclear warheads capable of incinerating the whole planet in addition to having the most advanced arsenal of weaponry in the world while continuing to play the role of a victim is a disease of the mind.

Yes, and for that salesman in peaceful Geneva to be so insecure as to refuse to acknowledge the name of the largest West Bank city under his country's brutal military occupation is, sadly, nothing but an infectious disease of the mind.

That's all what it is, ladies and gentlemen: Zionism is an incurable disease of the mind.



The writer is an attorney, partner in Nabulsi & Associates law firm. He contributed this article to The Jordan Times.

14 January 2009

http://www3.ndr.de:80/sendungen/extra_3/media/extra548.html

German TV video of young and old Israelis, enjoying refreshments and the burning of Gaza. One young woman with an American accent says: "It should be all be razed to the ground. I'm just a little bit facist."

Thanks to Claudia

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/16/gaza-middleeast/print

Sami Abdu-Shafi


I never imagined I would, but now I know what it feels like to be stalked by death. Last week, I had just arrived for an engagement at a media building in Gaza City only to find the studio crew huddled in fear and peering out of the window. An Israeli rocket had just landed, killing four pedestrians close to where the car that drove me had turned just minutes prior. On Thursday night, media offices in that same building were rocketed by Israel's air force. Later the same evening, I called on relatives who live about 100m from our house. On my way back, one of Israel's angry jets, which have covered Gaza's skies for more than 20 days now, seemed to release a bomb. Suddenly panicking, I let go of my torch and, unable to see anything in the dark, crouched on the sidewalk – even though I knew that would be no protection from an F-16's bomb if it landed nearby. I was lucky; the bomb never came – it was just my anxiety.

But for ordinary Gazans, this is a real fear; it is hard to take seriously Israel's claims that it is not deliberately targeting civilians. I am still alive, but I feel I am losing hope. How can we rebuild the Gaza Strip once this all ends when we fear even to raise ours heads? Our business and commerce had already been destroyed by the long blockade. Now, Gaza's public sector and civil institutions, as well as a hospital and several clinics and schools, have been reduced to rubble. Gaza's civilian population is left without any safety net or feasible means of subsistence.

While the world witnesses from afar the tragic destruction, death and injury visited on Gaza, with grim effects on its civilians, the international community is deliberately shielded from how it is carried out by Israel's refusal to admit foreign media to Gaza. It has been incredibly traumatising for ordinary people here to be subjected repeatedly to massive and simultaneous attacks from air, sea and land, in assaults that seem to target large areas at once. For the people of Gaza, it is a process of psychological torture – like being in prison and hearing a guard beating an inmate in the cell next door. It is only the Gaza Strip's community spirit that has come to the rescue. Those who have a generator running on benzene exchange a few extra litres of diesel, if they have it, with some excess benzene someone else may have. Those who run out of cash borrow from friends to buy basic necessities if they can find them. Friends and family offer their homes to each other when families evacuate their homes under fire. Incredibly, as I ran out of cash while banks are closed, a poor man I had helped for years offered to come to my rescue with a few hundred Israeli shekels – less than £100 – he had set aside for "dark days". Those days are here, and no friend or neighbour can now replenish our dwindling water supply or other necessities.With most of Gaza's deposed government officials forced into hiding for protection since the war began, and as the Palestinian National Authority, based in the West Bank city of Ramallah, is distant and so weakened as to be unable to help even if it wanted to, Gaza's ordinary people feel lost and abandoned. After having already endured siege and shortage, they are without resources to withstand Israel's onslaught.

As the war rages on, we wonder whether part of Israel's strategy is to engineer a reinstalled PNA presence in Gaza. But most believe that the PNA will not permit itself to reenter Gaza "on an Israeli tank", and hope instead for some kind of rapprochement with Hamas, particularly in Gaza.Israel's government created a much graver problem for itself than Palestinian rockets landing in southern Israeli towns. It is the profound disrespect of Gaza's population towards it for having slipped into what people clearly feel is a brutally disproportionate and deliberately abusive war, in the name of stopping rocket fire. It would not have escaped severe criticism from its own people either, had Israelis not been exposed to censored news as journalists and diplomats have been barred from entering war-torn Gaza.

On January 7, in what Gazans saw as a transparent manoeuvre to divert the attention of an increasingly critical international community from the scandal of its attack on a United Nations-run school in Gaza, the IDF announced a daily three-hour ceasefire, to allow residents to secure their basic needs in safety. It was also meant to facilitate the entry of trucks with limited supplies through a "humanitarian corridor" into the Gaza Strip. On the first day, during the period of its effect, three sisters were reportedly killed in Jabalia in northern Gaza. Unmanned surveillance drones and air force planes continued to patrol the skies, impatiently waiting to resume hammering Gaza after the brief respite.

What Israel's government seems not to understand is how the entire Gaza Strip is now united in resistance to protect its dignity and right to a peaceful and prosperous life. Despite what Israeli officials say, I see little evidence that ordinary people in Gaza have changed their position on the firing of rockets. What Israel continues to miss is that when people are harshly deprived of such basic needs, rights and simple hope, they become increasingly desperate. One unfortunate symptom of that has been the launching of rockets. We wish they would stop, and they had, until Israel broke the truce with Hamas on November 4 and tightened the grip of its blockade.It is an illusion that Palestinians can be beaten into submission; this will not bring long-term stability. Instead, a never-before-seen solidarity with Gaza's plight has emerged the world over. Surely this must shake Israel's policymakers awake.

Gazans eagerly await the success of Egypt's initiative to enact a ceasefire. However, they also see how complex and delicate Egypt's role is, especially as Gazans are suspicious that Israel would be eager to maintain control over Gaza by a policy of "divide and rule". We appreciate that Egypt is rightly wary of any move that would compromise the notion of a contiguous Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip, West Bank and East Jerusalem. For the same reason, many, like me, are anxious to see an early end to political divisions on the Palestinian side.

Once the war has ended, the US, UK and the other major European countries must challenge Israel's rogue policies and realign a misguided peace process. In the absence of a genuine and just peace with Israel, merely pouring vast funds in aid and development to rebuild Gaza's ruined infrastructure will only paper over a failed process and Palestinians' forgotten rights.

Palestine Center for Human Rights, Gaza

All Of Our Humanity Is At Stake


The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) has documented death and destruction across the Gaza Strip throughout the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) ongoing military operation in the Gaza Strip. Since December 27, 2008, the IOF have killed at least 983 Palestinians in Gaza. 85% of the victims are civilians, and 35% of them are children. In addition, more than four thousand Palestinians in Gaza have been maimed and injured by IOF. Thousands of civilian objects, including homes and schools have been destroyed. The UN estimates that 35,500 civilians are now being housed in shelters it is providing for internally displaced civilians across the Gaza Strip.

As thousands of IOF surge into Gaza City amidst intense bombardment and shelling, hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians are now sheltering in homes, schools and other buildings, in fear for their lives. Reports indicate that the headquarters of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) compound in Gaza city has been shelled, that Al Quds Hospital in Gaza city, which is within the compound of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) is now on fire, and that IOF are also surrounding the Al Aqsa Hospital in Gaza city. However, PCHR staff are unable to verify these reports as they too are now sheltering in their homes, and homes of friends and relatives in fear for their lives.

IOF are also continuing to use incendiary bombs in densely populated residential areas across the Gaza Strip. These weapons, which have not been formally identified, are causing horrific injuries to civilians, including second and third deep burns, suffocation and severe eye pains. Doctors at the Burns Unit in Al-Shifa hospital have been forced to carry out amputations on patients who have been maimed by these bombs. PCHR is gravely concerned these bombs may contain white phosphorous.

PCHR have published numerous press releases detailing IOF war crimes throughout this military onslaught, and have repeatedly demanded the international community act immediately in order to stop the bloodshed in the Gaza Strip. As the civilian death toll continues to rise, the Centre reiterates its repeated demand for international responsibility, and action, in order to the ongoing atrocities being inflicted upon the 1.5 million civilians of the Gaza Strip.
International Humanitarian Law represents a bare minimum, a threshold which, in the interests of humanity, must not be crossed. It is apparent that IOF have systematically and repeatedly violated this humanitarian threshold, and in doing so are committing war crimes against the civilian population of the Gaza Strip. The 194 High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions – virtually the entire international community – have a legal obligation to ensure respect for the Conventions in all circumstances. They have a further legal obligation to search for persons alleged to have committed grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, and to bring them to justice; before their own courts if necessary.

The civilian population of the Gaza Strip is entitled to enjoy the rights enshrined in international human rights and humanitarian law. But all of their lives are now in danger because of the relentless IOF military campaign in the Gaza Strip. The international community must act immediately in order to save the lives of civilians in Gaza. All of our humanity is stake if the world continues to stand aside and bear witness to civilians being slaughtered by the IOF in Gaza.

PCHR:

1. Calls for an immediate halt to the IOF offensive against the population of the Gaza Strip.

2. Calls upon the international community, in the interests of internationalpeace and security, and in accordance with their obligations underinternational law, to end this IOF military offensive immediately

3. Holds Israel responsible for the lives of Palestinian civilians who areprotected, by international law, against the use of such excessive,disproportionate and indiscriminate force

4. Calls for the prosecution of all political and military officials whoare suspected of committing war crimes

Gaza – Ma’an – Israeli snipers opened fire on families running to take shelter in a Red Crescent hospital in the Tel Al-Hawa area of Gaza on Thursday afternoon, witnesses said.

Sharon Locke, an Australian volunteer at Al-Quds Hospital said that when one family approached the hospital, ”Israeli snipers started firing at the family. They shot a young girl in the face and abdomen. She is now being operated on. The father of the family was shot in the leg and fell to the ground.”

“The mother was screaming that one of her daughters was still outside, behind a bush, too scared to move. Mohammed, a medic I have been working with, ran outside and carried her to the hospital," Locke said.

Locke later told Ma’an that some 600 Palestinians who had taken shelter in the medical facility have now been evacuated on foot to a nearby UNRWA school.On Thursday morning parts of the hospital went up in flames when Israeli artillery shells struck the buildings. At the time of writing, the operations building of the hospital was still burning.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/01/200911591418168902.html

At least 300 children are among the more than 1,000 Palestinians who have died since Israel began to bombard the Gaza Strip on December 27.Al Jazeera has obtained the names of 210 of the young victims, 44 of which were under five years old.

27/12/2008
Ibtihal Kechko
Girl
10

Ahmed Riad Mohammed Al-Sinwar
Boy
3

Ahmed Al-Homs
Boy
18

Ahmed Rasmi Abu Jazar
Boy
16

Ahmed Sameeh Al-Halabi
Boy
18

Tamer Hassan Al-Akhrass
Boy
5

Hassan Ali Al-Akhrass
Boy
3

Haneen Wael Mohammed Daban
Girl
15

Khaled Sami Al-Astal
Boy
15

alaat Mokhless Bassal
Boy
18

Aaed Imad Kheera
Boy
14

Abdullah Al-Rayess
Boy
17

Odai Hakeem Al-Mansi
Boy
4

Allam Nehrou Idriss
Boy
18

Ali Marwan Abu Rabih
Boy
18

Anan Saber Atiyah
Boy
13

Camelia Al-Bardini
Girl
10

Lama Talal Hamdan
Girl
10

Mohammed Jaber Howeij
Boy
17

Nimr Mustafa Amoom
Boy
10
29/12/2008
Ismail Talal Hamdan
Boy
10

Ahmed Ziad Al-Absi
Boy
14

Ahmed Youssef Khello
Boy
18

Ikram Anwar Baaloosha
Girl
14

Tahrier Anwar Baaloosha
Girl
17

Jihad Saleh Ghobn
Boy
10

Jawaher Anwar Baaloosha
Girl
8

Dina Anwar Baaloosha
Girl
7

Samar Anwar Baaloosha
Girl
6

Shady Youssef Ghobn
Boy
12

Sudqi Ziad Al-Absi
Boy
3

Imad Nabeel Abou Khater
Boy
16

Lina Anwar Baaloosha
Girl
7

Mohammed Basseel Madi
Boy
17

Mohammed Jalal Abou Tair
Boy
18

Mohammed Ziad Al-Absi
Boy
14

Mahmoud Nabeel Ghabayen
Boy
15

Moaz Yasser Abou Tair
Boy
6

Wissam Akram Eid
Girl
14
30/12/2008
Haya Talal Hamdan
Girl
8
31/12/2008
Ahmed Kanouh
Boy
10

Ameen Al-Zarbatlee
Boy
10

Mohammed Nafez Mohaissen
Boy
10

Mustafa Abou Ghanimah
Boy
16

Yehya Awnee Mohaissen
Boy
10

Ossman Bin Zaid Nizar Rayyan
Boy
3

Assaad Nizar Rayyan
Boy
2

Moaz-Uldeen Allah Al-Nasla
Boy
5

Aya Nizar Rayyan
Girl
12

Halima Nizar Rayyan
Girl
5

Reem Nizar Rayyan
Boy
4

Aicha Nizar Rayyan
Girl
3

Abdul Rahman Nizar Rayyan
Boy
6

Abdul Qader Nizar Rayyan
Boy
12

Oyoon Jihad Al-Nasla
Girl
16

Mahmoud Mustafa Ashour
Boy
13

Maryam Nizar Rayyan
Girl
5
01/01/2009
Hamada Ibrahim Mousabbah
Boy
10

Zeinab Nizar Rayyan
Girl
12

Sujud Mahmoud Al-Derdesawi
Girl
10

Abdul Sattar Waleed Al-Astal
Boy
12

Abed Rabbo Iyyad Abed Rabbo Al-Astal
Boy
10

Ghassan Nizar Rayyan
Boy
15

Christine Wadih El-Turk
Boy
6

Mohammed Mousabbah
Boy
14

Mohammed Iyad Abed Rabbo Al-Astal
Boy
13

Mahmoud Samsoom
Boy
16

Ahmed Tobail
Boy
16

Ahmed Sameeh Al-Kafarneh
Boy
17

Hassan Hejjo
Boy
14

Rajeh Ziadeh
Boy
18

Shareef Abdul Mota Armeelat
Boy
15

Mohammed Moussa Al-Silawi
Boy
10

Mahmoud Majed Mahmoud Abou Nahel
Boy
16

Mohannad Al-Tatnaneeh
Boy
18

Hani Mohammed Al-Silawi
Boy
10
01/01/2009
Ahmed Al-Meshharawi
Boy
16

Ahmed Khodair Sobaih
Boy
17

Ahmed Sameeh Al-Kafarneh
Boy
18

Asraa Kossai Al-Habash
Girl
10

Assad Khaled Al-Meshharawi
Boy
17

Asmaa Ibrahim Afana
Girl
12

Ismail Abdullah Abou Sneima
Boy
4

Akram Ziad Al-Nemr
Boy
18

Aya Ziad Al-Nemr
Girl
8

Ahmed Mohammed Al-Adham
Boy
1

Akram Ziad Al-Nemr
Boy
13

Hamza Zuhair Tantish
Boy
12

Khalil Mohammed Mokdad
Boy
18

Ruba Mohammed Fadl Abou-Rass
Girl
13

Ziad Mohammed Salma Abou Sneima
Boy
9

Shaza Al-Abed Al-Habash
Girl
16

Abed Ziad Al-Nemr
Boy
12

Attia Rushdi Al-Khawli
Boy
16

Luay Yahya Abou Haleema
Boy
17

Mohammed Akram Abou Harbeed
Boy
18

Mohammed Abed Berbekh
Boy
18

Mohammed Faraj Hassouna
Boy
16

Mahmoud Khalil Al-Mashharawi
Boy
12

Mahmoud Zahir Tantish
Boy
17

Mahmoud Sami Assliya
Boy
3

Moussa Youssef Berbekh
Boy
16

Wi'am Jamal Al-Kafarneh
Girl
2

Wadih Ayman Omar
Boy
4

Youssef Abed Berbekh
Boy
10
05/01/2009
Ibrahim Rouhee Akl
Boy
17

Ibrahim Abdullah Merjan
Boy
13

Ahmed Attiyah Al-Semouni
Boy
4

Aya Youssef Al-Defdah
Girl
13

Aya Al-Sersawi
Girl
5

Ahmed Amer Abou Eisha
Boy
5

Ameen Attiyah Al-Semouni
Boy
4

Hazem Alewa
Boy
8

Khalil Mohammed Helless
Boy
12

Diana Mosbah Saad
Girl
17

Raya Al-Sersawi
Girl
5

Rahma Mohammed Al-Semouni
Girl
18

Ramadan Ali Felfel
Boy
14

Rahaf Ahmed Saeed Al-Azaar
Girl
4

Shahad Mohammed Hijjih
Girl
3

Arafat Mohammed Abdul Dayem
Boy
10

Omar Mahmoud Al-Baradei
Boy
12

Ghaydaa Amer Abou Eisha
Girl
6

Fathiyya Ayman Al-Dabari
Girl
4

Faraj Ammar Al-Helou
Boy
2

Moumen Alewah
Boy
9

Moumen Mahmoud Talal Alaw
Boy
10

Mohammed Amer Abu Eisha
Boy
8

Mahmoud Mohammed Abu Kamar
Boy
15

Marwan Hein Kodeih
Girl
6

Montasser Alewah
Boy
12

Naji Nidal Al-Hamlawi
Boy
16

Nada Redwan Mardi
Girl
5

Hanadi Bassem Khaleefa
Girl
13
06/01/2009
Ibrahim Ahmed Maarouf
Boy
14

Ahmed Shaher Khodeir
Boy
14

Ismail Adnan Hweilah
Boy
15

Aseel Moeen Deeb
Boy
17

Adam Mamoun Al-Kurdee
Boy
3

Alaa Iyad Al-Daya
Girl
8

Areej Mohammed Al-Daya
Girl
3 months

Amani Mohammed Al-Daya
Girl
4

Baraa Ramez Al-Daya
Girl
2

Bilal Hamza Obaid
Boy
15

Thaer Shaker Karmout
Boy
17

Hozaifa Jihad Al-Kahloot
Boy
17

Khitam Iyad Al-Daya
Girl
9

Rafik Abdul Basset Al-Khodari
Boy
15

Raneen Abdullah saleh
Girl
12

Zakariya Yahya Al-Taweel
Boy
5

Sahar Hatem Dawood
Girl
10

Salsabeel Ramez Al-Daya
Girl
6 months

Sharafuldeen Iyad Al-Daya
Boy
7

Doha Mohammed Al-Daya
Girl
5

Ahed Iyad Kodas
Boy
15

Abdullah Mohammed Abdullah
Boy
10

Issam Sameer Deeb
Boy
12

Alaa Ismail Ismail
Boy
18

Ali Iyad Al-Daya
Boy
10

Imad Abu Askar
Boy
18

Filasteen Al-Daya
Girl
5

Kamar Mohammed Al-Daya
Boy
3

Lina Abdul Menem Hassan
Girl
10

Unidentified
Boy
9

Unidentified
Boy
15

Mohammed Iyad Al-Daya
Boy
6

Mohammed Bassem Shakoura
Boy
10

Mohammed Bassem Eid
Boy
18

Mohammed Deeb
Boy
17

Mohammed Eid
Boy
18

Mustafa Moeen Deeb
Boy
12

Noor Moeen Deeb
Boy
2

Youssef Saad Al-Kahloot
Boy
17

Youssef Mohammed Al-Daya
Boy
1
07/01/2009
Ibrahim Kamal Awaja
Boy
9

Ahmed Jaber Howeij
Boy
7

Ahmed Fawzi Labad
Boy
18

Ayman Al-Bayed
Boy
16

Amal Khaled Abed Rabbo
Girl
3

Toufic Khaled Al-Khahloot
Boy
10

Habeeb Khaled Al-Khahloot
Boy
12

Houssam Raed Sobeh
Boy
12

Hassan Rateb Semaan
Boy
18

Hassan Ata Hassan Azzam
Boy
2

Redwan Mohammed Ashoor
Boy
10

Suad Khaled Abed Rabbo
Girl
6

Samar Khaled Abed Rabbo
Girl
2

Abdul Rahman Mohammmed Ashoor
Boy
12

Fareed Ata Hassan Azzam
Boy
13

Mohammed Khaled Al-Kahloot
Boy
15

Mohammed Samir Hijji
Boy
16

Mohammed Fareed Al-Maasawabi
Boy
16

Mohammed Moeen Deeb
Boy
17

Mohammed Nasseem Salama Saba
Boy
16

Mahmoud Hameed
Boy
17

Hamam Issa
Boy
1
08/01/2009
Anas Arif Abou Baraka
Boy
7

Ibrahim Akram Abou Dakkka
Boy
12

Ibrahim Moeen Jiha
Boy
15

Baraa Iyad Shalha
Girl
6

Basma Yasser Al-Jeblawi
Girl
5

Shahd Saad Abou Haleema
Girl
15

Azmi Diab
Boy
16

Mohammed Akram Abou Dakka
Boy
14

Mohammed Hikmat Abou Haleema
Boy
17

Ibrahim Moeen Jiha
Boy
15

Matar Saad Abou Haleema
Boy
17
09/01/2009
Ahmed Ibrahim Abou Kleik
Boy
17

Ismail Ayman Yasseen
Boy
18

Alaa Ahmed Jaber
Girl
11

Baha-Uldeen Fayez Salha
Girl
5

Rana Fayez Salha
Girl
12

Rola Fayez Salha
Girl
13

Diyaa-Uldeen Fayez Salah
Boy
14

Ghanima Sultan Halawa
Girl
11

Fatima Raed Jadullah
Girl
10

Mohammed Atef Abou Al-Hussna
Boy
15

Palestinians line up for food at a UN school in Jabalya while the immigrants from all over the world picnic and watch the carnage.

BBC Video Palestinian doctors depicting children shot at close range by Zionist soldiers, a past time Zionist soldiers have enjoyed throughout their history in Palestine:

From Chris Hedges' 2001 Gaza Diary

"Yesterday at this spot the Israelis shot eight young men, six of whom were under the age of eighteen. One was twelve. This afternoon they kill an eleven-year-old boy, Ali Murad, and seriously wound four more, three of whom are under eighteen. Children have been shot in other conflicts I have covered – death squads gunned them down in El Salvador and Guatemala, mothers with infants were lined up and massacred in Algeria, and Serb snipers put children in their sights and watched them crumple onto the pavement in Sarajevo – but I have never before watched soldiers entice children like mice into a trap and murder them for sport."

Although we are proffered one self-righteous Zionist after another who assure us that there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza, the history of the inhumane actions with which the Zionists have plagued the Palestinians, who are a voiceless people in the words of the heroic Norwegian Dr. Mads Gilbert, belies the unctuous drivel their war criminal leaders and proponents in the media spew. Americans should be outraged that American born Steve Rubin is free to be a dual citizen of both the US and Israel. For him this privilege of dual citizenship, denied to just about anyone else in the world, is not enough. For him the privileges that a carrier of an American passport holds is not enough. He's got to get in a few Palestinian dead babies to warrant that jock smirk on his face.

"American-born Steve Rubin (left) said that making aliyah wasn't enough -- he had to join the Israel Defense Force to really feel like a sabra."

Sorry to break it to you, buddy, but you'll never be a so-called "sabra." A "sabra" is merely a Jew who was born in Palestine, i.e., the son or daughter of an immigrant from Poland, Russia, France, the US. We certainly didn't glorify the sons and daughters of Afrikaaners, who never even thought about inflicting upon the indigenous people of South Africa the horrors in the Zionists' arsenal of atrocities.

The true heirs of the land are the Palestinian people, which is why Zionists have gone out of their way to pulverize them either into subservience or when that doesn't work, non-existence. So if you want to call anyone Sabra, save it for the Palestinian Arabs. Immigrant Jews from the US, Europe, South America, in spite of the fact they've managed to raze 531 Palestinian villages to the ground, have no more "right" to Palestine than the Absynnians, who once ruled Palestine. Or the Egyptians. Or the Mamelukes. Most definitely not the American Jews from New Jersey. No matter how much hummus you appropriate as your own. No matter how many name changes from "Gruen" to Ben-Gurion you make.

Below are pictures of the devastation Zionists like American born Steve Rubin have wrought: refugees from 1948, 1967, and 2009. The sad and unique fate of the refugees in Gaza is that they have no where to flee; they are in the words of Israeli war criminal Rafael Eitan like "drugged cockroaches in a bottle." Although Steve Rubin and his fellow Zionists have no compunctions regarding their ongoing destruction of Palestinian life and culture and their wholesale theft of Palestinians' properties, it is clear that it is a matter of time before they will have to account for their egregious criminal inhumane actions against the Palestinian people before an international tribunal.

Comment left at the Guardian's Comment is Free in response to Hamas, Not My Idea of Heroes:

Israel has a history of knocking off Palestinian leaders and thinkers . . . Ghassan Kanafani ring a bell? Kamel Nasir, the poet shot by Ehud Barak in drag? Mubarak Awad advocated non-violent resistance during the first intifadeh, and he was expelled from the country. Dr. Hanan Ashrawi has faced bullets as has Dr. Mustapha Barghouti. Ever hear of the village of Beit Sahour? Well, it has a long history of non-violent resistance,but Israel still helps itself to its village lands. The villagers in Bil'in have non-violent protests every Friday, but that doesn't stop the Israelis from raiding their houses, intimidating their leaders, and shooting at the demonstrators. It really is morally repugnant to divert attention from the wholesale slaughter going on in Gaza right now, but that doesn't stop myriads of writers hoping to capitalize on Palestinian suffering . Hard at it is for many to fathom, Palestinians come in all shapes, sizes, and are of many different political persuasions. Hamas plays a very small part in the history of the Palestinian struggle. There was no Hamas when 531 Palestinian villages were razed to the ground by Israel between 1948-1960 and when half of its population was expelled in 1948 before any Arab army took part in the conflict. Look at the whole picture and the Zionists' plan for the land without the people is clear. Ashkelon, and Sderot are built on the ruins of Palestinian villages. Many of the refugees were expelled and ended up in Gaza; they still are the legal owners of the land. This is the root of the conflict; Palestinian refugees and their descendents have the right to return to their homes, just as I, although employed in Germany, have the right to return to my native California whenever I feel like it.

Associated Press Writers Ibrahim Barzak And Ben Hubbard

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – The medics who brave Israel's assault on Gaza have come under fire from tanks and faced days-long delays in getting to the scene of attacks, sometimes finding animals gnawing at corpses when they finally reach the dead and wounded.

Few are more exposed to the carnage of Israel's two-week military offensive than Gaza's medics, who number around 400 including volunteers. They work long hours, get little sleep and risk their lives daily. Many have lost friends and family, but the overwhelming workload leaves no time to process what they've seen.

Awaiting coordination with Israel often delays access to the injured, medics said. Some reported finding people stranded in their homes for days, or bodies lying in the streets uncollected.
"Disgusting is not the word," said Shawki Saleh, 24, a volunteer medic at Kamal Adwan hospital. "If it's not a dog, it's rats around the bodies. ... I've been doing this volunteer work for two years but I never imagined I'd see this. Who knows how many people are still under the rubble. We were carrying them out screaming."

In one long workday, medic Haitham Adgheir carried five corpses, saw six more at a Gaza hospital, and his medical convoy took Israeli tank fire that showered a driver with glass.

"My mind is like a video of body parts and injured people," said Adgheir, 33.
Israel launched airstrikes across the Gaza Strip on Dec. 27 and sent in ground troops a week later in an attempt to halt years of Hamas rocket fire on southern Israel. More than 800 Palestinians have been killed, about half of them civilians, according to Palestinians medical officials. Thirteen Israelis have also been killed.

Israel says it targets only Hamas sites, but has hit mosques and apartment buildings throughout the crowded seaside territory. Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of using civilians as human shields and launching attacks from schools, mosques and homes.

Since the fighting began, 21 Palestinian medical staff have been killed, 30 have been injured and 11 ambulances have been damaged, according to the World Health Organization.
The International Committee of the Red Cross made a rare public criticism of Israel this week, saying there were "unacceptable" delays in letting rescue workers reach the injured. And Gaza staff say soldiers sometimes fire on ambulance crews.

Earlier this week, after waiting four days for coordination, ambulance crews entered the Zeitoun neighborhood and found at least 12 bodies and four small surviving children next to their dead mothers, the Red Cross has said.

Ahmed Abu Sal, 26, a volunteer medic who responded to the scene, recalled finding a young girl still clutching her dead mother. The girl, who was perhaps 9, was unable to speak from dehydration, her lips shrunken and dry, he said Saturday. He carried her from the building.
Elsewhere in the rubble he found a woman quietly weeping and still holding the bodies of two young men who appeared to be her sons, he said.

Red Cross officials working with ambulance crews coordinate with the Israeli military by cell phone before moving, said Red Cross spokesman Simon Schorno in Geneva. At other times, fighting breaks out near authorized crews, putting them at risk.

The Red Cross has similar lines of communication with Palestinian militants, Schorno said, though they are less organized. He knew of no recent run-ins with Palestinian militants.
An army spokesman said Israel works hard to coordinate with aid crews and that soldiers don't fire at clearly marked medics.

"The area is a combat zone, and obviously the risk of any medic working in a combat zone is that there is fire from all sides," said Capt. Benjamin Rutland.

But many medics say they are deliberately targeted, though ambulances in Gaza are clearly marked.

Adgheir, a medic with the Palestine Red Crescent at al-Quds hospital, said Israeli soldiers fired toward him four times in the past week, despite Red Cross coordination.
On Tuesday, he waited more than 12 hours for coordination with Israeli forces before he could reach a car full of people who had been shot at by an Israeli tank along the beach road near the town of Khan Yunis.

The tank fire sent shards of glass into the driver's eyes. Only able to reach the car after dark, Adgheir said Israeli soldiers shot at his ambulance as he approached.

He also said an Israeli tank fired Thursday at an ambulance convoy that he was part of at the Netzarim crossing in central Gaza. One of the ambulance drivers, who was showered with glass, was lightly injured and the convoy aborted its mission.

The medics say they have no time to deal with the psychological toll of their job. They report nightmares, short tempers and feelings from numbness to rage.

The fighting allows little time to pause — even to pray. On Friday, doctors and medics at Gaza City's Shifa hospital joined relatives of the injured in a communal prayer outside the emergency room. In blood-spattered smocks, the medics prayed for the dead.

Moments later, an ambulance rushed in with the body of a man killed by shelling and the medics rushed back to work.

Mohammed Azayzeh, a central Gaza medic, said the hardest thing to handle is not seeing the dead but rescuing the wounded, some of whom have horrific injuries such as missing limbs that leave them screaming for help.

"What can you do?" he said. "I want to smash my head against a wall."
___
Hubbard reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press Writer Diaa Hadid in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

My comment:

Thank you for addressing the op-ed, which also demonized Palestinians. Let's also not forget Article 13, Section 2, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which says that everyone has the right to leave his country and return to his country, something the Russian immigrant Sharansky should ponder. My Palestinian friends and relatives may not return to the place that they were born. Evidently, the injustice, that he a Russian became an instant citizen upon immigration to historic Palestine while those born there and their desecendents are denied their right to return to their homes from where they actually come, is lost on him as he blames everyone for the refugees' plight except for Israel. Is it coincidental that his odious op-ed is published just before the Israelis attack two UNWRA schools in which Palestinians sought shelter?

by John Boonstra

The UN refugee agency occupies itself with over 30 million refugees across the world. In about the only words worth quoting positively from Natan Sharansky's otherwise galling op-ed in The Wall Street Journal today, the organization "works tirelessly to improve [refugees'] conditions, to relocate them, and to help them rebuild their lives as quickly as possible." However, in Sharansky's sickening formulation, the UN refugee program in Gaza is also responsible for perpetuating the vast suffering of Palestinian refugees.

Sharansky's problem, it seems, is that the UN program in Gaza, known as the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), has not been forceful enough in clearing the estimated 1 million refugees (out of a population of about 1.4 million) out of camps in Gaza. He takes particular umbrage at the perfectly legitimate question raised to him by Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas: "How can we move [the refugees] if we do not know where they will live?"

The Gaza strip, it bears reminding, is about one-seventh the size of the state of Rhode Island. With 1.4 million people. The job of a refugee agency is not to force people to their homes -- even presuming they have homes to return to. On the contrary, the UN operates under humanitarian law that explicitly upholds the rights of refugees not to face forced return to places where their lives are in danger. And while Sharansky may claim that leaving camps would not endanger refugees' lives, the situation in Gaza right now, coupled with Mr. Abbas' very pertinent question, makes this contention, at the least, deeply unsettling.

The UN is not abetting terrorists in Gaza. It is helping address what, by any account, is a dire humanitarian emergency, and it, unlike Mr. Sharansky, unequivocally considers every refugee's life -- Palestinian or Israeli -- equally.