Israel: Stop Shelling Crowded Gaza City (Human Rights Watch)

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Israel's use of heavy artillery in residential areas of Gaza City violates the prohibition under the laws of war against indiscriminate attacks and should be stopped immediately, Human Rights Watch said today. A Human Rights Watch researcher on the Israel-Gaza border on January 15, 2009, observed Israel's repeated use in the center of Gaza City of 155mm artillery shells, which inflict blast and fragmentation damage up to 300 meters away.

"Firing 155mm shells into the center of Gaza City, whatever the target, will likely cause horrific civilian casualties," said Marc Garlasco, senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch. "By using this weapon in such circumstances, Israel is committing indiscriminate attacks in violation of the laws of war."

According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), Israel yesterday shelled the relief organization's main compound in Gaza City, wounding three people. UNRWA believes that white phosphorus used in the attack set part of the compound on fire. Up to 700 city residents had fled there in the morning to seek refuge after intense fighting in the area. The Human Rights Watch researcher also witnessed ground-burst 155mm white phosphorus strikes in Gaza City.

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/01/16/israel-stop-shelling-crowded-gaza-city">Human Rights Watch - read more

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1. saying this will not help you

this from the article, they apologize for it? sorry that does not cut it, stop the bombing altogether.


"Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert apologized for the attack, but said Israeli forces had come under fire from the UN compound. "It is absolutely true that we were attacked from that place, but the consequences are very sad and we apologize for it," he said."

[Scurrilous]

2. Wedeman: Defiance amid destruction in Gaza

Editor's note: The Israeli government is not allowing independent media access through Israel to Gaza. CNN Senior International Correspondent Ben Wedeman crossed into Gaza from Egypt.

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"Bloodshed, fear, privation and anger were all clearly visible in Gaza as we finally managed to enter the territory. Unsurprisingly, there were also displays of fist-shaking defiance, but what I had not expected was the high morale.

We arrived in Gaza in darkness, so at first there was little to see -- but plenty to hear. Israeli planes were passing overhead the whole time, and drones could be heard buzzing through the night.

Then there were the explosions. One impacted not far from where we were staying the night. There was a huge blast. You could feel the shockwave passing through the building, shaking the floors and rattling the windows.

The explosions continued after sunrise throughout the border area. At the Abu Yusuf Al Najjar hospital, the largest medical facility in the border town of Rafah, their horrendous effects were visible.

We saw one person who had been riding a bike down the road when a rocket landed nearby. He suffered bone fractures and shrapnel wounds all over his body. His right leg needed to be amputated at the upper thigh.

Doctors, more used to dealing with bullet wounds than the current array of weaponry being used by the Israelis, said 20 percent of the injuries they were dealing with were light, 30 percent were serious to critical, and another 30 percent die within the first 30 minutes of arriving at hospital.

At a U.N. school where people were seeking refuge because their neighborhoods were bombed or under threat, crowds mobbed handouts of blankets and rations. Classrooms in the building were each crammed with six or seven families (all large extended families).

We toured an area near the border with Egypt where tunnels had been dug to get supplies into Gaza. There we saw dozens and dozens of houses completely destroyed, huge craters everywhere.

Earlier, when we caught the last bus from Egypt into Gaza, we spoke to Palestinian passengers, most of whom said they had been arrested in Egypt and abused by police before being deported. Their bitterness toward Egypt, particularly its president, Hosni Mubarak, and other Arab leaders over their perceived failure to provide support was echoed among others we spoke to.

This was matched by anger toward the United States, because most people know it supplies Israel with the warplanes bombarding them."

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