International Solidarity Movement eyewitness to Israel firing on medics, fear for safety

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AFP Photo

February 3, 2009, 9:19

Aid workers risk life and limb in Gaza

Humanitarian workers and rights activists in Gaza are helping locals put their lives back together after the three-week-long Israeli offensive. Many aid workers were in the region during the fighting and came under fire along with residents.

One such Aid worker is 31-year old Eva Barnett from Canada.

“The way the war in Gaza was being portrayed in much of the media was not the real picture,” Barnett said, an activist with the International Solidarity movement. ”It was a heartless attack on the people of Gaza, it was not about Hamas.”
Barnett came to Gaza both to help the Palestinian people and to tell the world about her experiences there.

She met one Palestinian farmer to find out more about how his helper was killed.
 
“You come to this area; it’s 700 metres from the border and people who worked on their land were shot at,” she said. “When we come here we realized we may be shot at.”
 
In the evening, Barnett writes her blog and contributes to several websites. She relates what she learnt and experienced during the day.

The world began to appreciate the risks activists face in Gaza five years ago when American Rachel Corrie was killed by an Israeli bulldozer.  

Corrie turned herself into a human shield to stop the Israeli army demolishing a Palestinian house.

Israel says her death was an accident, something Human Rights Watch disputes.

“People are being killed around us. Medics are being killed working on the same shifts as us, working from the same hospitals as us,” said Ewa Jasiewic, another activist from the International Solidarity movement. “And it can’t put you off.”

Ewa has been in Gaza for five weeks. She helps to co-ordinate ships bringing humanitarian aid from Cyprus.

For both women, being in Gaza during the war and reporting for RT was something they felt they had to do.

Still, it seems likely that the ink on the reports documenting this round of fighting will hardly be dry before the next round of fighting breaks out.

Human Rights Watch demands Israel stop using white phosphorus in Gaza

STOP UNLAWFUL USE OF WHITE PHOSPHORUS IN GAZA – HRW

NEW YORK, Jan 11 (NNN-IRNA) — Israel should stop using white phosphorus in military operations in densely populated areas of Gaza, Human Rights Watch said on Saturday. “On January 9 and 10, 2009, Human Rights Watch researchers in Israel observed multiple air-bursts of artillery-fired white phosphorus over what appeared to be the Gaza City and Jabaliya area, HRW said. Israel appeared to be using white phosphorus as an “obscurant” (a chemical used to hide military operations), a permissible use in principle under international humanitarian law (the laws of war). However, white phosphorus has a significant, incidental, incendiary effect that can severely burn people and set structures, fields, and other civilian objects in the vicinity on fire. The potential for harm to civilians is magnified by Gaza’s high population density, among the highest in the world. “White phosphorous can burn down houses and cause horrific burns when it touches the skin,” said Marc Garlasco, senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch. “Israel should not use it in Gaza’s densely populated areas.” Human Rights Watch believes that the use of white phosphorus in densely populated areas of Gaza violates the requirement under international humanitarian law to take all feasible precautions to avoid civilian injury and loss of life. This concern is amplified given the technique evidenced in media photographs of air-bursting white phosphorus projectiles. Air bursting of white phosphorus artillery spreads 116 burning wafers over an area between 125 and 250 meters in diameter, depending on the altitude of the burst, thereby exposing more civilians and civilian infrastructure to potential harm than a localized ground burst. Since the beginning of Israel’s ground offensive in Gaza on January 3, 2009, there have been numerous media reports about the possible use of white phosphorous by the Israeli military. – NNN-IRNA