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Israel's Genocide in Gaza - A Photoessay - Part 3 A Report by Amnesty International The Jewish Military Operation "Cast Lead" in Gaza

The text in this photo essay is a summary, edited for brevity, of an Amnesty International Report on Operation "Cast Lead" inficted by the Jews on Gaza in 2009. They photos attached to this article have been taken from various sources to better illustrate the savagery and mindless brutality inflicted by a savage and mindless people. They are graphic and sickening. They represent only a very small sample of our collection. To read Amnesty International's Full Report on Israel's Operation "Cast Lead" (.pdf 1.2 Mb), and to see the devastation and death inflicted on innocent civilians: Click here.

After the ICRC rescued the injured on 7 January the army bulldozed the house on top of the bodies of the dead, which the ICRC had had to leave behind because it had not been allowed to bring vehicles close enough to carry them away. When AI delegates visited the area on 18 January, the first day of the ceasefire, surviving members of the family were digging and pulling out the bodies of their dead relatives, most of them children or elderly men and women, from under the rubble of the house, which had been subsequently brought down on top of the bodies by Jewish soldiers.

Gaza Residents evacuate a large residential area destroyed by a Jewish air strike. "It was the last day of the war, and our home was full of relatives who had come to stay with us because this area was safe; we are right inside Jabalia town, far from the border. Everyone was downstairs, my wife was up here, washing the dishes in the back room and keeping an eye on the children who were playing here. How can anyone fire into civilian homes and kill innocent children like this?" A military expert who was part of the AI delegation in Gaza examined the fragments from the projectiles which had struck the house. He established that they came from 120mm Israeli tank shells, consistent with the pattern of impact in the room.

A direct line of fire was established to the location where the Israeli tanks had been stationed. In spite of incontrovertible evidence that the attack had been launched by Israeli tanks, Jewish army sources alleged in the media that Dr Abu al-‘Aish’s house might have been struck by a Palestinian rocket and that Palestinian snipers had been firing from the house.35 1.2 CLOSE-RANGE SHOOTINGS Most of the cases investigated by AI of close-range shootings involve individuals, including children and women, who were shot at as they were fleeing their homes in search of shelter. Others were going about their daily activities. The evidence indicates that none could have reasonably been perceived as a threat to the soldiers who shot them, and that there was no fighting going on in their vicinity when they were shot. Wilful killings of unarmed civilians are war crimes. "After Sabah’s house was shelled I ran over there. She was on fire and was holding her baby girl Shahed, who was completely burned. Her husband and some of the children were dead and others were burning. Ambulances could not come because the area was surrounded by the Israeli army.

Palestinian firefighters attempt to control flames at the site of a Jewish air strike in a residential area of Rafah. We put some of the injured in a wagon tied to the tractor to take them to hospital. My nephew Muhammad (Sabah’s son) picked up his wife, Ghada, who was burning all over her body, and I took her little girl, Farah, who was also on fire. My nephew Muhammad-Hikmat drove the tractor and my son and my nephews came with us and took the body of baby and two other bodies. Sabah and the other wounded were put into a car; other relatives were also leaving. We drove toward the nearest hospital. As we got near the school, we saw Jewish soldiers and stopped, and suddenly, the soldiers shot at us. My son Matar and Muhammad-Hikmat were killed. The soldiers made us get out of the wagon. I ran away with ‘Ali and ‘Omar, who had also been shot and were injured. Muhammad, Ghada and Farah were allowed to go on but only on foot and the soldiers did not allow them to take the dead."38 The bodies remained there for 11 days as the Jewish army did not allow ambulances or anyone else to approach. ‘Omar recounted the same event to AI. He said that he had been shot in the shoulder and that his cousins Matar and Muhammad-Hikmat had been shot in the chest and were too badly injured to move but that if someone had been allowed to reach them they might have been saved. His brother Mahmoud said that they were finally able to recover and bury the bodies of their relatives on 15 January with help from the ICRC but that by then, stray dogs had eaten baby Shahed’s legs. A photograph taken on a mobile phone by a family member shows baby Shahed’s charred body, with only the bare bones remaining of her legs.

"The evening before, on 12 January, at about 11pm, there was shelling nearby and nobody dared to go out. The shelling caused fires and now we know it was white phosphorus which caused the fire but at the time we did not know this. Then after a while people called to say that one of the fires was very near our house and my mother went out to put out the fire; she took a white flag to show that she was not a threat if there were soldiers in the area. She put out the fire and then came back inside. There was more shelling and then towards morning we heard bulldozers. At dawn we went up on the roof with white flags so soldiers would know that there were people in the houses. My mother told the neighbours to do the same.

Gaza Residents try to dig out the remains of a security officer from the rubble, following a Jewish missile strike on a residential building in Gaza City. Neighbours were screaming, some were fleeing and others were too scared to flee because people said there were special forces, in addition to the soldiers in uniform, in our areas. The army bulldozers were demolishing houses nearby and the women and children from those houses came over to us. By about 7.30am there were many assembled at our house. At about 8am we decided to leave and go to the centre of the village where we would be safe. My mother gave people white cloths to make flags and she also had a white flag and was at the front of the group. I was next to her, and Yasmine was next to her on the other side; Fatma was holding her child up. We walked a few steps and Yasmine said she saw soldiers in houses nearby.

My mother turned her head to talk to the neighbours, telling them not to be afraid and at that moment she was shot in the head, on the left side, and the bullet went through and out from the right side. She fell, and Yasmine tried to help her she was also shot in the leg. Everybody ran back. Nobody could go to help my mother or to recover her body and she lay there on the road till the evening, when the soldiers left." Yasmine al-Najjar, aged 23, told AI that she was standing next to Rawhiya when she was shot and had seen an Israeli soldier in a nearby house. She was also herself shot in her right leg, as she tried to rescue Rawhiya. She had fled her home that morning at about 6.30am, when Israeli army bulldozers started to demolish it.

December 28: A Palestinian family react as they rush out of their burning home, following a Jewish air strike in the Rafah refugee Camp in Southern Gaza. AI received testimonies about the same incident from several other witnesses.39 Delegates also examined the house where the soldiers who shot Rawhiya were reportedly stationed, about 100m from the place where Rawhiya was shot. A hole had been blown into a wall of the house, a routine practice of Israeli soldiers when they take over Palestinian houses to be used as sniper positions. "My wife and our three daughters, two, four, and seven, my mother, and I went out. My mother was holding a white cloth tied to a broom handle and we were holding white cloths. Two of my brothers were also behind us. Outside there was a tank parked about 10m from the front door of our house, in our garden, which by then had been destroyed. Two other tanks were nearby.

We stood still outside the door waiting for the soldiers to tell us or signal to us what to do next. Two soldiers stood outside the tank in our garden, eating chips and chocolate and ignored us. We stood still for several minutes. Then suddenly a soldier emerged from the middle of the tank. He was out of the tank from the waist up, and he took aim at us and shot many bullets. My daughter Amal had nine bullets in the chest area. She was holding a teddy bear against her chest and it got ripped by the bullets, my daughter Souad got some 11 or 12 bullets also in the chest area, and my daughter Samar got several bullets in the chest and tummy, and my mother was shot in the arm and buttock. We ran back into the house and stayed lying on the floor for two hours. There was shooting outside. Then my father went out and the family followed and a soldier by the tank signalled to us to leave. He didn’t say anything, and just motioned to us to go. As we were leaving the soldiers were shooting around us. We walked for almost 2km, carrying my daughters and my mother. When got to the intersection with Salaheddine Road (Duwar Zemmo) a man with a horse cart who I later learned was called Adham Meqbel stopped to help us, but soldiers shot and killed him and the horse. Amal and Souad were dead, and we took Samar to Kamal ‘Adwan hospital, which was the nearest hospital, and she was later moved to the main Shifa hospital and then to Cairo and from there on to Belgium. She is completely paralyzed. She is the only daughter I have left and I have not seen her since that day. My wife is now with her in the hospital in Belgium." 1.3 INDISCRIMINATE ATTACKS 1.3.0 Is Israel Using Experimental Dense Inert Metal Explosives Munitions in Gaza?

A family residential building in Gaza City that was gutted in a targeted artillery attack. The apparent object is to make Palestinian homes uninhabitable. Jewish forces typically destroy the finest homes first. Human Rights Watch Medics and human rights groups are also reporting that they are seeing injuries distinctive of another controversial weapon, Dense Inert Metal Explosive, known as DIME, that was designed by the US Air Force in 2006. The munition was designed to create a powerful blast over a small area, and those struck by the weapon who survive suffer severe mutilations and internal injuries. Residues of these have been found on victims in Gaza. When it comes to the DIME weapons, we have seen a substantial number of amputations, where the amputees do not have shrapnel injuries. On the contrary, they have torn apart their legs, often one or two or even three limbs. Some of them are beyond salvage, because typical for these amputations is that there is no sign of metal fragments or shrapnel, only these very brutal amputations caused by some extreme power.

If you have a grenade or metal fragment amputation, it will be more like that from a hatchet or an ax that cut through bone and the muscle. But what we see in these suspected DIME amputations is that the whole limb is crushed in a way that must suggest some sort of immense power that has hit the lower part of the body.

A Palestinian firefighter shouts commands in front of burning residences ignited by the Jewish military's white phosphor bombardment of a residential area in Gaza. And we know that these small DIME bombs explode in a way that it will mainly affect the lower limbs. The muscles are split from the bones, hanging loose, and you have quite severe burns where this energy wave has hit. It remains to be seen how Israel has acquired the technology, whether they purchased weapons from the United States under some agreement, or if they’ve in fact licensed or developed their own type of munition. 1.3.1 WHITE PHOSPHORUS "It’s as though a fire is burning in my body. It’s too much for me to bear. In spite of all the medicine they are giving me the pain is still so strong." During Operation "Cast Lead" Israeli forces made extensive use of white phosphorus, often launched from 155mm artillery shells, in residential areas, causing death and injuries to civilians.

Homes, schools, medical facilities and UN buildings – all civilian objects – took direct hits. White phosphorus is a weapon intended primarily as an obscurant to provide cover for troop movements on the battlefield. It does so by releasing a thick white smoke as it burns. It can also be used to mark targets, to "trace" the path of bullets, and as an incendiary weapon.41

Beit Lahia UNRWA school where children were killed in a a massive targeted assault by Israeli artillery and white phosphorus on 17 January. It can be dispersed by artillery shells, grenades, and rockets. Jewish forces often air-bursted white phosphorus artillery shells over residential areas of Gaza. Artillery shells are for use on conventional battlefields and are not capable of pinpoint targeting. White phosphorus artillery shells used in air-burst mode cover an even larger area, as each shell explodes in mid-air and ejects 116 sponge-like lumps of felt impregnated with white phosphorus. These ignite on contact with oxygen and cascade down over an area the size of a football pitch or larger, depending on the height at which it is burst and wind conditions. In addition to the indiscriminate effect of air-bursting such a weapon, firing these shells as artillery exacerbates the likelihood that civilians will be endangered.

Until Operation "Cast Lead" the Israeli army had stopped firing artillery into Gaza after a gruesome incident ion 2006 in which 18 members of a family were killed in their homes by a barrage of artillery shells that struck several houses.42 White phosphorus is extremely dangerous for humans as it causes deep burns through muscle and down to the bone, continuing to burn until deprived of oxygen. It can contaminate other parts of the body, or even people treating the injuries, poisoning and irreparably damaging internal organs. Burn victims suffering a relatively small percentage of burns – 10 to 20 per cent – who would normally survive, often die if the burns are from white phosphorus. "Everything caught fire. My husband and four of my children burned alive in front of my eyes; my baby girl, Shahed, my only girl, melted in my arms. How can a mother have to see her children burn alive? I couldn’t save them, I couldn’t help them. I was on fire. Now I am still burning all over, I am in pain day and night; I am suffering terribly." White phosphorus continued to be used until the last day of Operation "Cast Lead", on 17 January 2009. On that day a white phosphorus artillery shell exploded at about 6am in an UNRWA primary school in Beit Lahia, where more than 1,500 people were sheltering. Two children, Muhammad al-Ashqar and his brother Bilal, aged five and seven respectively, were killed in the classroom where they were sleeping with their parents, siblings and some 30 other relatives, several of whom were injured. The children’s mother, 28-year-old Anjud, sustained serious injuries to the head and other parts of the body. Her right hand had to be amputated. The children’s 18-year-old cousin Mona lost her left leg in the attack.

Children in a state of shock, view the remains of the US International School in Gaza, destroyed by artillery and phosphorus explosives. The Jewish military targeted and destroyed all the major schools in Gaza. When AI delegates visited the school two days after the attack they found lumps of white phosphorus, which were still smouldering in the school yard, and fragments of 155mm white phosphorus artillery carrier shells. The classroom where the children were killed was burned down. Children who were sheltering at the school told AI delegates that they had been sleeping and when they woke up "fireballs were raining down on the school and everybody was scared and screaming". Other fragments of white phosphorus artillery carrier shells were found in nearby areas. It is not clear how many white phosphorus artillery shells were fired over the school and surrounding areas, but photographs and mobile telephone footage show the sky dense with fireballs raining down on the school.44

In the morning of 15 January 2009 several white phosphorus and high-explosive artillery shells struck the UNRWA headquarters in the centre of Gaza City, causing fires which destroyed dozens of tons of desperately needed humanitarian aid and medicines, as well as the workshops and warehouses. Several vehicles were also damaged. A UN worker and two civilians who had taken refuge in the compound were injured.46 Some 700 civilians resident in nearby buildings had fled their homes and taken refuge in the UNRWA compound earlier that morning, when Israeli forces had intensified the shelling of the area. A worse disaster was only avoided thanks to the courage of UNRWA staff, who drove the vehicles out of the compound under fire and thus managed to prevent the vehicles full of fuel from catching fire and exploding. Jodie Clark, an UNRWA staff member, told AI: "White phosphorus landed all over the area where the trucks and fuel tankers were parked, full of fuel. We tried to put out the fire but we couldn’t; the fire extinguisher did not tame the fire at all. Some of the burning lumps white phosphorus were right underneath the vehicles; there was a great danger that it would cause the fuel tanker to explode. I dragged the burning lump from under the tanker with a stick and we tried to drive the vehicles out of the compound as fast as we could."

Fragments of a US-made M155 white phosphorus carrier artillery shell fired by Israeli forces into Gaza The Jewish military fired perhaps several thousands of these munitions on homes, schools, government offices, police stations and food warehouses. The Jews especially targeted all UN facilities. On the same day then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was quoted as having said to the UN Secretary-General: "I don’t know if you know, but Hamas attacked from within the UNRWA compound". An Israeli army spokesperson also alleged that "terrorists were shooting anti-tank rockets from the UNRWA compound towards IDF troops stationed nearby. In response, the IDF returned fire".49 UNRWA vigorously denied the allegations, which were never substantiated and were subsequently dropped by the Israeli authorities. The army’s contention that "these results could not be predicted" lacks any credibility, as the army is fully aware of the danger of using artillery, which cannot be accurately targeted, in the midst of a densely populated residential area. Moreover, by the time this incident occurred, concerns had already been repeatedly raised with the Israeli authorities about the use of artillery in general, and white phosphorus in particular, in civilian residential areas.

Furthermore, even after the disastrous consequences of this and other attacks were documented, Jewish forces continued to launch such attacks in areas full of civilians. Al-Quds hospital, located in the Tal al-Hawa neighbour-hood in the centre of Gaza City, was repeatedly struck from morning to night on 15 January by white phosphorus lumps, white phosphorus artillery shells and tank shells, eventually forcing medical staff and patients to evacuate the facility. At the time, some 50 patients were receiving treatment at the hospital and about 500 local residents had sought shelter there from the bombardments and shelling in the area. The two top floors of the main hospital building and the administration building were destroyed by fire caused by white phosphorus. The hospital pharmacy was struck by at least one tank shell. Attempts by doctors and other hospital personnel, including visiting foreign doctors, to put out the fire with buckets of water and fire extinguishers proved ineffective. Fire-fighters and civil defence vehicles could not reach the hospital for more than an hour.

Another view of the interior of the American School in Gaza after Jewish forces bombarded it with white phosphor munitions. Many children to death in this attack. Military denial of white phosphorus use caused additional suffering for the victims. Jewish officials gave inconsistent statements about the use of white phosphorus. Initially they denied using it, then later stated that the Jewish forces used munitions that are in accordance with international law, then later announced they were conducting an internal investigation. Jewish spokespeople and officials at the highest level categorically denied the use of white phosphorus artillery for 10 days after the first reported case. The army Chief of Staff, Lieutenant-General Gabi Ashkenazi, told parliament on 13 January: "The IDF operates weapons in accordance with international law. We do not use phosphorus, only ‘smoke curtains’ (smoke screens)."51 Previously, on 7 January, an Israeli army spokesman told CNN: "I can tell you with certainty that white phosphorus is absolutely not being used".52

On 8 January, confronted with photographs of 155mm white phosphorus artillery shells, easily recognizable by their light blue-green colour and serial markings, being loaded by Israeli soldiers at the firing points on the Israeli-Gaza border, an Israeli army spokeswoman told the UK newspaper The Times: "This is what we call a quiet shell – it is empty, it has no explosives and no white phosphorus. There is nothing inside it."53 It is inconceivable that officials at all levels of the Israeli army did not know that white phosphorus had been used and was being used. Even in the unlikely event that they had not been informed, there was ample TV footage of white phosphorus artillery shells being airbursted over Gaza. The Jewish army and authorities continued to deny that their forces were using white phosphorus even when it was clear that civilians were being killed and injured by the substance and that victims were not receiving the necessary treatment because doctors in Gaza did not know what had caused the burns and how to treat them.

A family stands outside the ruins of their once-lovely home in Gaza. It was destroyed by a Jewish air strike. The Jews typically target the largest homes in Gaza. The Israeli military is fully aware of the dangers of white phosphorus for human beings. Documents written during Operation "Cast Lead" by the office of the Israeli army Chief Medical Officer and Medical Field Operations Headquarters highlight some of the effects. A document signed by Colonel Dr Gil Hirschorn, head of trauma in the office of the army’s Chief Medical Officer, states: "When the phosphorus comes in contact with living tissue it causes its damage by ‘eating’ away at it. Characteristics of a phosphorus wound are: chemical burns accompanied by extreme pain, damage to tissue. The phosphorus may seep into the body and damage internal organs. In the long run, kidney failure and the spread of infection are characteristic.

1.3.2 MORTARS A series of Israeli mortar strikes in the vicinity of a UNRWA school in the Jabalia refugee camp in the afternoon of 6 January 2009 killed more than 30 civilians, including local residents and people who had fled their homes and were sheltering in the school.56 Among the victims were 11 members of the Deeb family, including five children and four women, who were killed in their yard.

A Palestinian soldier examines the wreckage of a government office building in Gaza. Most government administration buildings in Gaza were prime targets by the Jewish military. Seven Palestinians, a school guard and six civilians who were sheltering in the school, were injured inside the school by shrapnel and flying debris and dozens of others were injured outside. The incident generated a controversy, partly as a result of erroneous media reports that the mortars had landed inside the school, and partly because the Israeli army and authorities wrongly claimed that Palestinian gunmen had fired rockets from inside the school and were subsequently killed there by Israeli strikes.57 Mark Regev, a Jewish government spokesman, told the BBC: "If you take over – I presume with guns – a UN facility. If you hold the people there as hostages, you shoot out of that facility at Israeli soldiers in the neighbourhood, then you receive incoming fire - I think that’s a war crime under international law."58

Colonel Olivier Rafawitz, an army spokesman, repeated the allegation and added that the UN school was seemingly booby-trapped,59 and a Defence Ministry official said that "booby-trapped bombs in the school had triggered secondary explosions that killed additional Palestinians there".60 In fact there had been no Israeli strike on the UNRWA school, or any Palestinians firing rockets from inside the school, or any fatalities – neither of civilians nor of militants – inside the school. Regarding the two Palestinians named by the Israeli army as the members of the Hamas rocket-launching cells killed inside the school, ‘Imad and Hassan Abu Askar, ‘Imad turned out to be a 13-year-old schoolboy who was among those killed in the street outside the school, while the identity of the second was unclear given that there is no one named Hassan in the family.61 Later, the Jewish army offered several different accounts of the incident, dropping the claim that rockets had been fired from inside the school. On 11 January the Israeli daily Haaretz quoted a "preliminary investigation" conducted by the Paratrooper Brigade, whose troops were responsible for the area. According to this, militants had launched a Qassam rocket into Israel from within a yard adjacent to the courtyard of the UNRWA school and Israeli forces targeted them with mortar shells equipped with a Global Positioning System (GPS) which has an error margin of 30m; one of the three rounds fired by the Paratrooper Brigade slammed into the UNRWA building, while the other two rounds hit the adjacent yard and killed Hamas gunmen "who probably belonged to the squad that fired the rockets".62

A crippled Palestinian man sits outside a tent - his new home. The remains of his family home are in the background. However, this version too was inaccurate, as there had been no Palestinian fire from a yard adjacent to the school, none of the Israeli mortars had hit the UNRWA school, and more than three mortars were fired into the area. When AI visited the area, the organization’s munitions expert identified at least four mortar strikes in the street outside the school with additional strikes nearby. In its media briefing of 22 April, the Jewish army offered yet another account. This time it claimed that "Hamas operatives used a site located only 80 meters away from the school to launch mortar shells at IDF forces". It said that soldiers responded with "minimal and proportionate retaliatory fire, using the most precise weapons available to them".

It also claimed that "a cell of five terror operatives and seven civilians outside the school grounds were hit". However, the army has not provided the names of the 12 people (the five gunmen and seven civilians) it says were the only casualties of the attack. This version, too, contains a number of inaccuracies and raises more questions than it answers. Firstly, contrary to the army’s assertion that a total of 12 people were hit, at least 30 people, most of them civilians, were killed and dozens of others were injured. Secondly, mortars are notoriously imprecise. They offer a very low probability of striking a precise target, carry a high risk of off-target strikes and should never be used in a densely populated area. Thirdly, by using mortars in such a crowded area – much more crowded than usual because of the large number of civilians who had taken refuge at the UNRWA school – Israeli forces would have known that they were likely to kill and maim civilians. Between 6 January and 22 April 2009 Israeli officials repeatedly spread inaccurate information. Israeli army spokesmen continued to claim that Hamas gunmen had fired rockets, and taken over and booby-trapped the UNRWA school where hundreds of civilians were sheltering. 1.3.3 FLECHETTES

Destroyed residences in Gaza City after another Jewish air bombardment. Several civilians, including a child, a woman and a paramedic, were killed by flechettes – tiny lethal metal darts – during Operation "Cast Lead". Tank shells packed with thousands of flechettes were used by Israeli forces on at least five occasions between 4 and 9 January, in the north of Gaza and in a village south of Gaza City. Flechettes are 3.5cm-long steel darts, sharply pointed at the front, with four fins at the rear. Between 5,000 and 8,000 of these darts are packed into shells which are generally fired from tanks. The shells explode in the air and scatter the flechettes in a conical pattern over an area about 300m by 100m.65 Flechette rounds are designed to be used against massed infantry attacks or squads of troops in the open and obviously pose a very high risk to civilians when fired in densely populated civilian residential areas. In 2001, Jane’s Defence Weekly quoted an Israeli military source saying: "The Israeli military obtained these weapons from the USA after the 1973 war and we have thousands of old shells in warehouses. The weapon is not regarded as reliable or effective and gunners have a difficult time in aiming this properly."66 21-year-old Wafa’ Abu Jarad, who was pregnant, her two-year-old son, her husband, her father and her brother-in-law were all injured by flechettes in the courtyard of their home. Wafa’ died of her injuries two days later. Her husband, Mohammed, told AI: "We had just had breakfast, then we had tea. We walked a bit in the garden, to the corner of the house, just a few metres from the front door.

Then we heard shelling, followed by screaming. We turned back, towards the door. As we got to the door, we were hit. Wafa’ fell on the steps. There was blood everywhere." X-rays show that Wafa’s husband still has a flechette lodged in his back, which doctors cannot remove because it is so near his spinal cord they fear performing such an operation on him could result in him being paralysed. 1.4 ATTACKING AND OBSTRUCTING MEDICAL WORKERS 1.4.1 MEDICAL WORKERS IN THE LINE OF FIRE

A small Palestinian boy stands with his grandmother outside the ruins of their family home in Gaza. The UN has charged the Jewish government with "wanton destruction". Clearly marked ambulances with flashing emergency lights and paramedics wearing recognizable fluorescent vests were repeatedly fired upon by Jewish soldiers as they attempted to rescue the wounded and collect the dead. Such attacks intensified after Israeli ground forces took positions inside Gaza on 3 January 2009. Palestinian ambulance crews tried as best they could to reach as many of the wounded and the dead as possible. They and the international volunteers who accompanied some of the ambulance crews risked their lives every day to carry out their mission. "It was about 3-3.30pm. We were called to pick up some injured men in an orchard near a house in the Dahdouh area in the south of Tal al-Hawa (Gaza City).

We parked the two ambulances next to a house, left the lights flashing and me and the other driver waited by the ambulances while Anas, Yaser and Raf’at went to pick up the injured. A child was on the dirt road indicating to them where the injured men were lying. As our three colleagues got near the child, a missile hit and then another. They were all killed, our three colleagues and the child; pieces of their bodies flew about. Then missiles were fired near the ambulances and we could not go to pick up their bodies and had to drive away without them; we had to leave our dead." "After [the missile strike] we could not go near to where his body lay. The day after I crawled to the place and I found my child’s body with no legs and I carried him to an ambulance a long way away because nobody could come near there. No ambulance could come to pick up the bodies; the ambulances that tried were fired at. After two days an ambulance finally came, accompanied by a foreign woman, and they took the bodies."

A photo of a Cactus restaurant, widely circulated on the internet by Jewish sympathisers, purporting to show that Gaza is really "in fine condition", and reports of damage have been "greatly exaggerated". At the spot where the paramedics and the child were killed, AI delegates found pieces of the paramedics’ fluorescent vests strewn on the ground and stuck on trees, and remnants of at least two US Hellfire missiles, which are usually launched from helicopters. The label read "guided missile, surface attack" and the USA is cited as the weapon’s country of origin.68 "We came about 15 minutes after the missile strike. None of those lying in the road had any weapon; they were just civilians, all young men; their bodies were scattered, not together. The paramedics picked up the first injured man and put him in the ambulance; then they picked up a second man and were transferring him from the stretcher to the ambulance when the shell hit the ambulance. Arafa fell, badly injured and the patient had his head and legs blown off."

Ahmad Abdel Bari Abu Foul, went up the stairs, both wearing red fluorescent medical jackets. They found two dead women, Ferial and Ayat Kamal al-Banna, and a wounded man, Mustapha Jum’a al-Basha. They placed him on the stretcher and began to descend the stairs. The stairs of the buildings were well lit by a window running down the length of the building. A shell or missile struck Dr. Saleh, cutting off his head, which fell on paramedic Ahmad Abu Foul, who was a few steps below holding the other end of the stretcher. He was injured by shrapnel from the shell. The wounded man on the stretcher was killed.

A Palestinian family sits around a fire outside the ruins of their 4-story home, which was destroyed in a direct missile attack by Jewish forces. "Situation Assessment. Rules of Engagement: Open fire also upon rescue" was handwritten on a note left by a soldier in a house taken over by Israeli forces during Operation "Cast Lead".69 The Israeli army media briefing of 22 April, in the section on "incidents involving shooting at medical facilities, buildings, vehicles, and crews", contends that "Hamas systematically used medical facilities, vehicles and uniforms as cover for terrorist operations", but provides no evidence for even one such case. Crucially, the army failed to provide any information or explanation of the many cases, such as those in this report, of ambulance crew members killed and injured by IDF fire. The briefing also does not provide any explanation for the many cases where Israeli soldiers deliberately blocked medical assistance to the wounded and prevented the removal of bodies.

The evidence indicates that Jewish attacks on ambulance crews and others who were attempting to evacuate the wounded were deliberate and recurred throughout Operation "Cast Lead" and throughout the Gaza Strip. These attacks violated all international humanitarian law, which affords special protection to the sick and wounded and to medical personnel and facilities. More specifically, intentionally directing attacks against medical units and transport, and personnel using the distinctive emblems of the Geneva Conventions is a war crime.

A woman weeps in anguish outside the ruins of her home in Gaza. The large house provided living quarters for 6 related families. Most died in the attack; the rest are homeless. The Israeli army did not allow any medical team access to the area for the duration of Operation "Cast Lead". On the morning of 18 January, after Israel declared a ceasefire and pulled out its forces, AI delegates went to the al-Sammouni area and witnessed medical rescue teams extracting bodies from the rubble. The house where the ICRC/PRCS medics had found the injured civilians and 22 bodies on 7 January had been bulldozed on top of the bodies, another act of wanton destruction. By 18 January, when they could finally be extracted from the rubble, the bodies were in a state of decomposition. Muhammad Shurrab, aged 68, and his two sons, 18 and 28, were injured when Jewush soldiers shot at their vehicle as they were returning from the family farm. The car was fired upon with a volley of more than 20 bullets during the daily three-hour ceasefire. The boys were seriously injured in the chest and leg, while their father sustained a light shrapnel injury to his hand. Repeated calls for help by Muhammad Shurrab to the soldiers in the nearby building remained unanswered. Muhammad Shurrab telephoned the emergency ambulance services but no ambulance was allowed to come to their rescue and they were not allowed to move. Kassab died shortly after. At 7.30pm the Israeli NGO Physicians for Human Rights – Israel contacted the Jewish army but was told that the rescue could not go ahead.

At about 1.15am – almost 12 hours after the three men had been wounded – the NGO again contacted the father, who reported that his second son, Ibrahim, had died shortly before, after losing a large quantity of blood. His injury was not very serious but he bled to death. Having been forced to watch his two sons bleed to death, and himself injured, Muhammad had to spend the rest of the night and the following morning in his car, unable to move and unable to receive any help. An ambulance was eventually allowed to rescue Muhammad and collect the bodies of his two sons at 12pm the following day – some 22 hours after they had been shot. Throughout this time the soldiers stationed in the nearby house neither assisted the wounded men nor allowed them to receive assistance or to move. They failed to respond to repeated pleas for help and communicated with threats to shoot them if they moved.

The Series: Genocide in Gaza The Jewish Holocaust Against Palestine

This is a set of 5 articles, dealing with the tragedy in Palestine today. It is an attempt, hopefully not in vain, to bring these events to the attention of more of the world. The inhumanity of the Jews' brutality and savage treatement of the Palestinians must be brought to consciousness in all countries, until the groundswell of public opinion cannot be ignored. It is not enough to put pressure on the Jews to cease their insane pogrom. Those who have perpetrated these atrocities must be brought to justice. The first article is an introduction to the situation and some photo and other documentation of the Jewish atrocities being committed. The second is a photo-essay based on a United Nations Human Rights Report on the Jewish Operation Cast Lead, and a catalog of the atrocities committed by the Jews. The final three articles are a photo-essay based on the a report by Amnesty International on the Jewish Operation Cast Lead, and a long listing of the atrocities committed by the Jews. Corresponding photos are introduced from a variety of sources to help document the savagery outlined in the text. You may care to read these in order: Israel's Genocide in Gaza - A Photoessay: Introduction: The Jewish Holocaust Against Palestine: Click Here Israel's Genocide in Gaza - A Photoessay - Part 1: Exerpts from the UN Special Report on Jewish Human Rights Violations in Palestine: Click Here Israel's Genocide in Gaza - A Photoessay - Part 2: A Report by Amnesty International on Operation "Cast Lead": Click Here Israel's Genocide in Gaza - A Photoessay - Part 3: A Report by Amnesty International on Operation "Cast Lead": Click Here Israel's Genocide in Gaza - A Photoessay - Part 4: A Report by Amnesty International on Operation "Cast Lead": Click Here

Additional Reading

As a companion piece to this Multi-Part article, you may care to read the 3-Part series titled: "Israel's War on Children". The documentation and disturbingly graphic photos of children shot in the head - deliberately - by Jewish soldiers, of small children burned to a crisp by white phosphorus munitions, are enough to sicken anyone with an ounce of humanity. Part 1: Israel's War on Children - Murdering Children for Sport:. Part 2: Israel's War on Children -Brutal Interrogation of Young Palestinians:. Part 3: Israel's War on Children -In Gaza, the Schools are Dying Too:.

Report by Human Rights Watch, December, 2010 (.pdf, 980K), titled	"Separate and Unequal: Israel’s Discriminatory Treatment of Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories".
DeSoto End of Mission Report (Intended to be Confidential: not for Public Distribution), May, 2007 (.pdf 5.9 Mb), titled	"UN Report on the Middle East Peace Process"
Report by UN Human Rights Council, December, 2008 (.pdf, 1.9 Mb), titled	"Operation "Jewish Violations of International Law on Gaza Ship Attack".
Jews are cutting, burning and uprooting Palestinian olive trees:	"Palestine's Harvest Horror":
300,000 Jews control 89% of the water in the West Bank, leaving 11% for 2.5 million Palestinians.	"Without Water, There is No Life":