Doctors tackle damaged minds amid Gaza's post-war destruction

Fri, Aug 15 07:09 AM EDT image By Nidal al-Mughrabi GAZA (Reuters) - In a ward at Shifa, Gaza's largest hospital, child therapist Rabeea Hamouda is trying to elicit a response from two small brothers, Omar and Mohammed, aged three and 18 months, hoping for some words or perhaps a smile. For seven straight minutes the children, peppered with burns and shrapnel wounds sustained in Israeli shelling that hit their home in north Gaza, stare at him blankly, emotionless. Eventually, as Hamouda gently teases them, pretending to mix up their names and holding out a present while another counselor sings quietly, a smile creeps across Mohammed's face and the older one, Omar, cries out his name. "At the beginning, Omar was not responding to us at all, he was not even willing to say his name," explains Hamouda, who heads a team of 150 psychotherapists working for the Palestinian Center for Democracy and Conflict Resolution in Gaza. "Big progress has been made with these children," he says with a sense of relief and quiet accomplishment. "At the beginning they did not talk, they refused to communicate. But now, with the sixth session, we are witnessing good progress." Omar and Mohammed are just two of the 400,000 Gazan children the United Nations estimates are in need of psychological care as a result of not just the latest war in the territory but the three previous conflicts fought with Israel since 2006. The most recent conflagration has been the deadliest, with 1,945 Palestinians killed, many of them civilians and including an estimated 457 children. On the other side of the border, some 64 Israeli soldiers and three civilians have been killed. Whether the result of Israeli air strikes, having parents or relatives killed before their eyes, hearing militants firing rockets from their own towns or themselves being wounded, the psychological trauma for Gaza's young is profound. The symptoms range from nightmares, bed-wetting and behavioral regression to more debilitating mental anxiety, including an inability to process or verbalize experiences. There is also deep trauma on the other side of the border, with tens of thousands of Israeli children mentally disturbed by the regular rocket fire from militants during the month-long war and over the seven years since Hamas seized control of Gaza. While the conflict's destruction of buildings and livelihoods is clear to see and documented daily in television footage, the damage to minds is mostly invisible, yet can have far more damaging and longer-lasting consequences. "The first time a child goes through a traumatic event like a war it's just deeply terrifying," said Chris Gunness, the spokesman of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which has 200 psychotherapists working in up to 90 clinics in Gaza. "The second time is terrifying-plus-one because the child remembers the worst parts of the last war as well as the impact of the current one. Then the third time is plus-plus as the compounded memories of conflict build up. "This time, for an eight- or nine-year-old child in Gaza, it's very, very intense indeed because there is this cumulative toll of trauma from repeated conflicts since 2006." SMALL STEPS Hamouda and his team, like other psychotherapy units working across the small territory - home to an estimated 1.8 million people, more than half of whom are aged under 18 - can barely cope with the number of patients requiring help. The treatment is by necessity basic - an effort to draw children out, to have them paint pictures of their experiences or emotions, to get them to verbalize their circumstances. While a lot can be achieved with such simple techniques, many more require longer-term, personalized psychological care because of the enormity of the mental damage suffered. "First we provide wounded and traumatized children with immediate pyscho-social support and we give parents some guidance on how to deal with them," says Hamouda. Then there is home care and follow up for the more severe cases. "Houses can be rebuilt and some physical wounds can be healed, but the people's psychological condition needs more than money and time," he says. "It needs a big effort and persuasion, and overall it needs calm and stability." One of Gaza's most successful trauma assistance projects is the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme, launched in 1990. Hassan Zyada, a psychologist with the project, describes the latest conflict as easily the worst since 2006, with scores of Palestinians having lost multiple family members. "Our expectation is that more than 30 percent of the people here in Gaza will develop a psychiatric disorder," he said. Even health professionals are not immune. Six members of Zyada's own family were killed during the war: his mother, three brothers, a sister-in-law and a nephew. He is now receiving counseling from the clinic's chief therapist. "It is a really traumatic loss and it is not easy for me to deal with," he said, adding that several others on the team had suffered similar experiences. So widespread has the psychological damage become that UNRWA, which runs schools throughout the Gaza Strip, has now made psychotherapy a regular part of the curriculum. "We are rolling out a pretty massive program of parental and child therapy," said Gunness. "We're having to integrate this kind of therapy into our schools." (Additional reporting and editing by Luke Baker and Crispian Balmer)

Israel warns of long Gaza war as Palestinian fighters cross border

US Secretary of State John Kerry (C), speaks with Qatari Foreign Minister Khaled al-Attiyah (R) and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu before they make statements to reporters during their meeting regarding a cease-fire between Hamas and Israel in Gaza, in Paris, July 26, 2014. (photo by REUTERS/Charles Dharapak) Israeli officials: United States chose Qatar over us The sense of security which Israelis felt until two weeks ago came tumbling down with a crash. Summary⎙ Print The Israeli leadership estimates that the cease-fire initiative of US Secretary of State John Kerry responds well to the interests of Qatar, Turkey, Hamas and its own interests with Qatar — but hardly addresses Israel's security needs. Author Ben Caspit Posted July 29, 2014 Translator(s)Simon Pompan Residents of Israel's southern communities who have been reporting for years that they were hearing digging noises at night are now living in an inconceivable, nightmarish reality. To date, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have unearthed 31 tunnels, but there is concern that the number runs much higher. Worse, even once all the tunnels are ostensibly exposed, there will always be that lingering possibility that one or two still remain. That alone is enough to spell catastrophe for the Israeli home front. Before noon on July 28, five Hamas terrorists burst out of one of these tunnels, not far from kibbutz Ein Hashlosha. Their element of surprise was impeccable. This tunnel had already been tracked down by the IDF and had been taken care of from the Gaza side. As a result, it was “checked off” from the list of effective tunnels. In IDF jargon, the tunnel was “cleared.” But it was anything but “cleared.” The five terrorists emerged from the tunnel with total surprise, killing five IDF soldiers and seizing, according to Hamas, the rifle of one of the Israeli fatalities. Then they fled. Only one terrorist was killed while his four comrades returned via this so-called “cleared” tunnel. But there's more to this story. In northern Israel, too, along the Lebanese border, residents have been reporting for years that they could hear digging noises at night. In the north, the terrain is much less amenable to digging than in loess [sediment of sand and silt] — the common soil in the south of Israel. But if the North Koreans were able to dig tunnels through granite, so can Hezbollah's Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah. It's all a matter of function and time. Why do they hear those digging noises especially at night? It's because the relative quiet at night augments your auditory sense. Incidentally, an interesting fact that was gleaned from the Israeli defense establishment is that women, more than men, report hearing digging noises at night. It turns out that women have a heightened auditory sensitivity in the wee hours of the night. Women are attuned to hearing their children sleeping in an adjacent room, whereas men tend to dive right into a deep slumber. Until two or three weeks ago, the women who were complaining about the digging noises were thought to exaggerate or “imagine” things. By now it has become clear that they did not. Even 22 days after the start of Operation Protective Edge, where dozens of Israeli soldiers have already been killed in this ongoing stagnation in Gaza, Israel still faces a threat to which a solution has yet to be found. The most difficult problem of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu these days is that he has already maxed out on the limited international credit he had, having wasted the precious time in which a decisive outcome in Gaza could have been reached. Furthermore, other Israeli prime ministers in similar situations always had Washington by their side. This was the case during the Second Lebanon War, Operation Cast Lead (2008) and also Operation Defensive Shield (2002). In all those pivotal events, there was an American president who backed Israel, bought it time, defended it at the UN Security Council and in other forums so that the IDF could complete its mission. This time around, however, that's not the case. Perhaps even the opposite is true. The cease-fire proposal made by US Secretary of State John Kerry was unanimously rejected by the Israeli cabinet on July 25. The rejection left the secretary and his entourage totally dumbstruck. From that point on, a diplomatic crisis — perhaps an unprecedented one — unfolded between Israel and the United Sates. It came to a crescendo with a double climax on the evening of July 27. A senior American official held a conference call with Israeli journalists during which he expressed displeasure, disappointment and perhaps even anger at the offensive and baseless statements made against John Kerry and his endeavors. "These were highly offensive allegations," he said. And at exactly the same time, President Barack Obama called Netanyahu and demanded that he reach a cease-fire immediately. A very high-ranking Israeli official — a member of the security cabinet — recapped for Al-Monitor the chain of events in this agonizing affair. What emerges from this recap is the frigid shoulder that the American administration has been giving Israel at its most difficult moments. On the other hand, we can't blame it. For the past five years, Netanyahu has been systematically sabotaging his relations with Obama, showing, among other things, his unwavering support for his Republican presidential rival Mitt Romney. The Israeli premier was actively involved in the campaign to oust Obama during the American presidential campaign. He endorsed business mogul Sheldon Adelson who put down $100 million to this end. Netanyahu also appointed Ron Dermer, a staunch Republican, as his ambassador to Washington. Dermer continues to attend functions held by Adelson ahead of the next attempt to remove Democrats from power. Given this state of affairs, Netanyahu made his own bed and now he's lying in it. “The diplomatic efforts began with the Egyptian initiative,” the senior Cabinet source recounted the chain of events. “Israel accepted it in full. What it meant was an unconditional cease-fire, after which everything was to be put on the table. The Egyptians made it clear that the Rafah crossing would remain closed to Hamas, which they consider to be an enemy. However, they would have no issue with opening the crossing if it were manned by Palestinian Authority officials. “Toeing the line with Israel," the source reported, "the Palestinian Authority also accepted this initiative, as did Jordan. The Egyptians also got the go-ahead from the Arab League. The entire moderate Arab world went along with the Egyptian initiative, except for Hamas and its patrons from Qatar. The Turks, who also represent the Muslim Brotherhood party, sided with the Qatari proposal. What we saw was a power struggle within the Arab world; the moderate Arab world pitted against those countries that still serve the Muslim Brotherhood. It was clear to us that the Americans would go along with us. It's the right thing to do. It makes sense and it's called for.” Well, Israel was in for a surprise. The first surprise was reported exclusively in my article here about two weeks ago, July 18, titled "Israeli Cabinet members blame US for failed cease-fire." "What happened," the cabinet source recounted, "is that John Kerry did back the Egyptian initiative but also added that if it did not work out, there were other options. In other words, he let Hamas understand that there was something to talk about and that the Americans would allow Qatar and Turkey to run the show. Kerry's statement is what unleashed all the problems." "According to our view," the Israeli source said, "there's no room for protection money. We have no intention of paying for a cease-fire. If they want quiet, they have to stop shooting. The lever Qatar has over Hamas should have been used, but not in the way Kerry chose to do it. What should have happened was for the Qataris to convey a message to Khaled Meshaal, Hamas' political bureau chief, that his conduct was unacceptable. No one was going to accept dictates from him in lieu of stopping the rockets on civilian communities. The Americans didn't do that." Off the record, Israelis list the many vested American interests in Qatar. In addition to the big American naval base there, there are also mega-arms deals in the pipeline. "The American concept is misguided," an Israeli source has said. "The Americans behave as if they are Qatar's envoys, instead of it being the other way around. If the Americans had told the Qataris that they were calling off the arms deals unless Qatar set Hamas straight immediately, this whole thing would have long been over. But the Americans did the exact opposite." “What the Americans did,” the Israeli source continued, "is to take the Egyptian initiative and add all the demands featured in the Qatari initiative. What they were trying in fact to create is a mechanism that would fund Hamas government the day after a cease-fire was brokered. They were doing this despite knowing full well that transferring or laundering money for Hamas is considered a criminal offense in the United States. We're still shocked by this conduct,” the source said. “How could the Americans,” the source added, "have turned overnight into collaborators at the command of Qatar, Turkey and Hamas? In the initial drafts that were published, they barely mentioned the issue of the tunnels. They talked about ‘security’ in vague terms, ignoring the Israeli need to eliminate [the threat of] the deadly tunnels.” “I went over Kerry's proposal,” the senior source said, “and I was shocked. It had a whole list of things that had to be discussed. The word ‘security’ was inserted toward the end by way of a generality. The strangest and most upsetting thing was the reference to an oversight mechanism with the participation of Qatar and Turkey. Yes, the only elements missing from this equation were Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Al Jazeera.” On July 25, as the Israeli cabinet was deliberating and looking ashen-faced at Kerry's initiative, the secretary of state picked up the phone to talk with Netanyahu. Justice Minister Tzipi Livni was in the room with Bibi (Netanyahu). According to sources, Netanyahu handed the phone over to her. “Listen,” said the Israeli justice minister, who is considered the staunchest supporter of peace in the Israeli government. “I'm looking at your proposal and right now I regret that I'm not Khaled Meshaal. He gets everything he wants. He gets a generous payment for a cease-fire, which strengthens the extremists and weakens the moderates. There is no response here to our security demands and to our right for self-defense.” It was agreed that the parties would continue to talk. A few hours later, as noted, the cabinet unanimously rejected Kerry's proposal. To save the face of the beleaguered Kerry, a briefing was held on July 27. Since I attended that briefing, I think that the objective was not accomplished. Kerry is a well-intentioned man, Israeli officials are saying, but for the time being the results leave a lot to be desired. The facts speak for themselves. Truth be told, Netanyahu isn't the most popular figure in Washington. Yet in these times, Israeli cabinet ministers are saying, we expect Obama and Kerry to draw a clear distinction between the bad guys and the good guys; between peace-seekers and death-seekers; between zealots and moderates; between democracy and Islamic theocracy. Unfortunately, we have been proven dead wrong. Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/07/netanyahu-abbas-kerry-protective-edge-gaza.html#ixzz38zUlW7T6 =============== Israel warns of long Gaza war as Palestinian fighters cross border Mon, Jul 28 19:59 PM EDT image 1 of 20 By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Crispian Balmer GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A grim-faced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned on Monday of a protracted war in Gaza, dashing any hopes of a swift end to the three-week conflict as Palestinian fighters launched an audacious cross-border raid. The Israeli army said five of its soldiers died in two separate incidents, including four in a mortar strike. Local media also reported casualties in the infiltration, but there was no immediate confirmation of this. Inside Gaza itself, eight children and two adults were killed by a blast in a park as an unofficial truce sought by the United Nations for the Muslim Eid al-Fitr festival collapsed. Residents blamed the explosion on an airstrike, but Israel said a misfiring militant rocket caused the carnage. "It has been a difficult, painful day," Netanyahu said in a televised address to the nation. "We need to be prepared for a protracted campaign. We will continue to act with force and discretion until our mission is accomplished," he said, adding that Israeli troops would not leave Gaza until they had destroyed Hamas's tunnel network. Some 1,060 Gazans, most of them civilians, have died in the conflagration. Israel has lost 48 soldiers and another three civilians have been killed by Palestinian shelling. As night fell over Gaza, army flares illuminated the sky and the sound of intense shelling could be heard. The military warned thousands of Palestinians to flee their homes in areas around Gaza City - usually the prelude to major army strikes. The explosion of violence, after a day of relative calm, appeared to wreck international hopes of turning a brief lull in fighting into a longer-term ceasefire. Gaza's dominant Hamas Islamists said they had accepted a U.N. call for a pause in hostilities on Monday to coincide with Eid, which marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. Israel initially balked, having abandoned its own offer to extend a 12-hour truce from Saturday when Palestinian rockets kept flying. However, calm gradually descended through the night with just the occasional exchange of fire heard until a series of blasts shook Gaza in the afternoon. TOY GUNS Pools of blood lay on the ground in the Beach refugee camp garden in northern Gaza after it was hit by a huge explosion. "We came out of the mosque when I saw the children playing with their toy guns. Seconds later a missile landed," said Munther Al-Derbi, a resident of the camp. "May God punish ... Netanyahu," he said. At roughly the same time, another blast shook the grounds of Gaza's main Shifa hospital, without causing any casualties. Israel, which has previously accused Hamas fighters of hiding in the hospital, again blamed an errant militant missile. Foreign pressure has been building on Netanyahu to muzzle his forces, with both U.S. President Barack Obama and the U.N. Security Council urging an immediate ceasefire that would allow relief to reach Gaza's 1.8 million Palestinians, followed by negotiations on a more durable cessation of hostilities. Israel wants guarantees Hamas will be stripped of its tunnels and rocket stocks. It worries the Palestinian Islamists will parlay the truce talks mediated by their friends in Qatar and Turkey into an easing of an Israeli-Egypt blockade on Gaza. In his television address, Netanyahu said any solution to the crisis would need to see Hamas stripped of its weapons. "The process of preventing the armament of the terror organization and demilitarization of the Gaza Strip must be part of any solution. And the international community must demand this forcefully," he said. Hamas said its forces had infiltrated Israel to retaliate for the killing of the children in the Beach camp. "His threats do not frighten either Hamas or the Palestinian people, and the (Israeli) occupation will pay the price for its massacres against children and civilians," Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters. Speaking in New York, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon deplored what he described as a lack of resolve among all parties in the conflict. "It's a matter of their political will. They have to show their humanity as leaders, both Israeli and Palestinian," he told reporters. "Why these leaders are making their people to be killed by others? It's not responsible, (it's) morally wrong." SHELLING Some residents in Gaza reported they had received a recorded telephone message on Monday which said in Arabic: "Listen Hamas, if you are still alive, you should know that if you continue, we will respond, we will respond violently." In another attempt at psychological warfare, Israel dropped leaflets over Gaza listing dozens of names of gunmen from Hamas and its ally, Islamic Jihad, that the military says it has killed since the start of the offensive. An opinion poll broadcast by Channel 10 TV showed overwhelming Israeli public support for continuing the Gaza offensive until Hamas is "disarmed". Deputy Islamic Jihad chief Zeyad Al-Nakhala said mediation had made progress and the group was working with neighboring Egypt to craft a deal. "We are days away from the end of the battle, the clouds will clear and you (Palestinians) will see victory," he told Islamic Jihad's radio station Al-Quds. "We will not accept anything less than ending the blockade." U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry visited the region last week to try to stem the bloodshed, his contacts with Hamas - which Washington formally shuns - facilitated by Egypt, Turkey, Qatar and Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Tension between Netanyahu's government and Washington has flared over U.S. mediation efforts, adding yet another chapter to the prickly relations between the Israeli leader and Obama. Repeated U.S.-led negotiations over 20 years have failed to broker a permanent peace deal. The most recent round collapsed in April, with Palestinians livid over Jewish settlement building in the occupied West Bank and Israelis furious that Abbas had signed a unity pact with old foe Hamas. Qatari Foreign Minister Khaled Al-Atteya said Israel had not respected a ceasefire agreement brokered by Cairo that ended the last Gaza war in 2012 and it was time the blockade of the coastal enclave - also enforced by next-door Egypt - was lifted. Israel has signaled it wants a de-facto halt to fighting rather than an agreement that would preserve Hamas's arsenals and shore up its status by improving Gaza's crippled economy. The main U.N. agency in Gaza, UNRWA, said more than 167,000 displaced Palestinians had taken shelter in its schools and buildings, following repeated calls by Israel for civilians to evacuate whole neighborhoods ahead of military operations. (Additional reporting by Amena Bakr in Doha; Writing by Maayan Lubell and Dan Williams; Editing by Crispian Balmer, Paul Taylor and Peter Graff) ============================= U.S. officials defend Kerry from Israeli criticism Mon, Jul 28 18:17 PM EDT image By Steve Holland WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Obama administration officials rallied to the defense of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday after withering criticism in Israel of Kerry's failed attempt to secure a ceasefire between Israelis and Palestinians. The critiques of Kerry centered around ideas that U.S. officials say were sent to Israeli officials, based on an Egyptian draft ceasefire proposal, that would provide for an immediate end to hostilities and talks 48 hours later between Israeli, Palestinian and Egyptian officials in Cairo. The confidential draft was leaked to the Israeli news media, which interpreted the proposal as akin to a U.S. effort to get Israel to halt a military campaign aimed at destroying Hamas tunnels in Gaza that militants have used to launch attacks against Israeli soldiers. "John Kerry: The Betrayal," was the headline of an opinion piece in the Times of Israel about Kerry's attempt to secure a ceasefire. "Astoundingly, the secretary's intervention in the Hamas war empowers the Gaza terrorist government bent on destroying Israel," it said. "I must tell you: we’ve been dismayed by some press reports in Israel mischaracterizing his efforts last week to achieve a ceasefire," Obama's national security adviser, Susan Rice, told a conference of national Jewish leaders. "The reality is that John Kerry on behalf of the United States has been working every step of the way with Israel." The Israeli government has been suspicious of Kerry's motives, particularly after he was caught on a Fox News open mic earlier this month sarcastically describing Israel's offensive in Gaza as a "hell of a pinpoint operation." State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki rejected the criticism, saying Kerry's reason for engaging in the ceasefire effort is to end the rocket attacks against Israel from Hamas. She said she would not assign motivations behind the leaks, but added that "those who want to support a ceasefire should focus on efforts to put it in place and not on efforts to criticize or attack one of the very people who are playing a prominent role in getting it done." At the White House, Deputy National Security Adviser Tony Blinken said the proposal that was criticized was not a U.S. proposal, but a draft to elicit comment from the Israelis based on an original Egyptian initiative. "Virtually every element that unidentified sources complained about was in the initial Egyptian proposal and agreed to by Israel 10 days before," he said. The criticism from Israel has strained U.S. relations with the Jewish state at a crucial time as the death toll from Israeli-Palestinian violence in Gaza has climbed past 1,000, most of them civilians in Gaza. The United States is Israel's strongest military and financial backer, and successive U.S. presidents who have sought to mediate in the Middle East are always careful to avoid criticism of Israeli leaders. But in the current fighting, Washington has tried to straddle a line between reassuring Israel it has a right to defend itself while also trying to persuade the Israelis to adjust military tactics that are leading to the high death toll. Statements from the White House and the State Department reflect growing concern from U.S. officials about the scale of civilian casualties in Gaza, a death toll that White House national security adviser Susan Rice told MSNBC is of "grave and deepening concern." U.S. President Barack Obama held the latest in a series of phone conversations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday. The White House statement from that conversation said that ultimately any lasting solution to the conflict must end "the disarmament of terrorist groups and the demilitarization of Gaza." (Additional reporting by Roberta Rampton; Editing by David Storey, G Crosse and Howard Goller)

Twitter uproar over pic of 'applauding' Israelis watching night attacks on Gaza

Twitter uproar over pic of 'applauding' Israelis watching night attacks on Gaza Published time: July 12, 2014 14:15 Edited time: July 12, 2014 23:50 Get short URL Photo from Twitter/@allansorensen72 Trends Israel-Gaza strikes Air Force, Army, Conflict, Israel, Middle East, Military, Politics An image of Israelis in Sderot who gathered on a hill to watch and celebrate Gaza being bombed has gone viral on Twitter. The photo posted by a Danish journalist caused uproar online. Follow RT's LIVE UPDATES on Israeli military offensive in Gaza Allan Sørensen, the Middle Eastern correspondent for the Danish newspaper Kristeligt Dagblad, said that he took the image on Wednesday in Sderot, a city about two kilometers from Gaza. In just a few days the scandalous image has gathered about 8,500 retweets. The picture sparked confusion and outrage among social media users, with many questioning the morality of making a scene of murder a public spectacle and celebrating it. One more user commented that people like those in the picture were “encouraging a culture of death.” The newspaper’s follow-up article on Friday described the scene in details where over 50 people had gathered for a “party.” “The hill has been transformed into something that most closely resembles the front row of a reality war theatre. It offers a direct view of the densely populated Gaza Strip,” wrote the paper’s Middle Eastern correspondent Nikolaj Krak. The article said that while the majority of the 25,000 residents of Sderot hid in their homes in fear of another attack from Gaza, others brought chairs and sofas to watch Israeli night airstrikes while enjoying pop-corn, hookah and chit-chatting. "We are here to see Israel destroy Hamas,” Eli Chone, a 22-year-old American living in Israel told Kristeligt Dagblad. He then pointed to a dot of light in the sky explaining that, “it is a fighter who is about to dive. This means that it is about to shoot." Following the airstrike the spectators on the hill started cheering, and “solid applause” followed, the Danish correspondent wrote. Watch the latest report from the region by RT's Paula Slier: Palestinians survey the rubble of a mosque, which police said was destroyed in an Israeli air strike, in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip July 12, 2014. (Reuters/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa) Palestinian death toll reaches 130 In the Wednesday attack celebrated by Sderot residents, a Palestinian journalist was killed and several others were injured when a missile hit a press vehicle in the Gaza Strip, according to local media reports. On Tuesday, Israel launched Operation Protective Edge, which it claims is an attack against Hamas militants in Gaza. However, at least 130 Palestinians have been killed and over 900 injured, most of whom are civilians, according to medical officials. Israeli airstrikes killed nine people on Saturday. Israeli forces bombed a center for the disabled in the eastern part of Gaza City, killing two women, according to Palestinian medics. Three militants and four more civilians, including a 65-year-old man, were also killed by airstrikes in the coastal part of the city. One of the strikes targeted a mosque which was reduced to rubble. The Israeli government said it had housed Hamas weapons. Since the military campaign began, there have been no Israeli fatalities. However, over 120 Israelis have been injured, according to local media. Despite UN concerns, international pressure, and protests, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the strikes will continue. Since July 8, Israel has hit 1,160 targets, according to the country’s military press service. Army Chief Lieutenant-General Benny Gantz also hinted that Israeli tanks and troops are ready to enter Gaza by land.

FEATURE-Wife battering, sexual abuse get attention in Gaza

20 Jul 2011 13:50

Source: reuters // Reuters

* First safe-house for Gaza women has Hamas protection

* 'Keep it in the family' code keeps many victims silent

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA, July 20 (Reuters) - Most safe-houses in the Gaza Strip are meant to provide protection for armed militants on Israel's target list. Now Gaza is offering protected shelter to battered Palestinian women.

Its lone women's safe-house, opened two months ago, has had eight clients, all guarded by police from the Islamist Hamas movement that runs the enclave and enforces a conservative though not radical Muslim religious code.

So-called 'honour killings' are rare but not unknown among religious Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank, and like every society it is not immune to wife-beating.

"In 2010 there was no record of killing under the motive of family honor and this is a positive development," said Huda Naeem, a Hamas lawmaker who backed the safe house as a way station for women at risk within their own families.

But feminism in Gaza is a very fragile plant.

Women in many Arab communities can be killed by zealous relatives on the slightest suspicion of having relations with a strange man. And jurists in Gaza say there is no clear clause in the Palestinian law setting out the penalty for such murders.

Islam also prohibits adultery and some Islamic teachings call for the stoning to death of offenders.

Sobheya Joma, a woman lawyer at the Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR), said there was no way to know for sure if honor killings were really eradicated.

"The ICHR is worried because it has recently noticed that some deaths were listed as unexplained or accidental," Joma told Reuters in her Gaza city office.

"As long as there is no investigation into these cases and the real causes were not uncovered, you are still going to have doubts," she said.

TABOOS

For Palestinian women, talking openly about sexual abuse in the family is still taboo. But if it's accompanied by violence, some women can finally opt for the shelter of the safe house.

Of the eight cases of abused women now under the roof of the compound, some were minors. Other women have visited briefly and discreetly, seeking professional advice and support.

"The first case who came to us was a woman who had been subject to physical violence and was raped and then escaped from her home," said resident psychiatrist Suhad Qanita.

"We supported her psychologically ... and, thank God, eventually we were able to find her a husband."

Local human rights groups say it is the first such refuge in this Mediterranean coastal enclave. At one stage, women under risk were transferred to the other Palestinian Territory -- the Wesk Bank -- where they could be kept safe from angry relatives.

But it is now virtually impossible for Gazans to get to the West Bank because of an Israeli blockade, which is vigorously imposed following repeated Hamas attacks on the Jewish state.

The new safe-house sits in a large compound of Gaza's Welfare Ministry, alongside a rehabilitation unit for young offenders, and presence of guards provides security reassurance.

It can shelter up to 50 women, in large, clean rooms, watched over by attendants who provide advice.

There are four women currently staying in the shelter.

One woman, ready to give birth, said she came in because of a husband who beat her.

"We hope the new baby will lead to a reconciliation with her husband," said Qanita.

Of the three others, two minors abused by members of their families had been forced into prostitution.

BREAKING SILENCE

Qanita said she had been shocked at her new job when she came face to face with problems that were always hidden before.

"I hope this is not a widespread phenomenon, but to some extent it is worrying," she said. "There are girls who are being assaulted with impunity."

"We also try to educate families, and if a problem cannot be solved within the nuclear family we try to find an uncle or a relative ready to shelter the victim, but not in cases where a woman might be killed if returned to the family," Qanita said.

Providing aid to families and finding jobs in Gaza, where unemployment is over 40 percent according to the United Nations, are the main tools used by Welfare Ministry trying to help the enclave's 1.5 million people cope with a crippled economy.

Empowering women to speak up against abuse is tougher.

Women will tolerate physical and mental abuses in the family without bringing formal complaints, simply in order to safeguard the integrity of the home, said Naeem, who is one of just a handful of Hamas female lawmakers.

But women subjected to repeated sexual abuse are starting to seek outside help. Some go to police stations, others to tribal chiefs in what she said was a sign of growing public awareness.

Gaza might remain largely cut off from the outside world because of the Israeli blockade, but rooftop groves of satellite dishes indicate that modernity -- or the ideas of radical Islam elsewhere in the Arab world -- cannot be kept out.

"Opening the safe house has been a good step in the right direction, Everyday we are seeing a growing awareness amongst local people," said psychiatrist Qanita.

"The taboos are starting to crumble," she added. (Editing by Douglas Hamilton) ============ Court in UAE says beating wife, child OK if no marks are left UAE October 19, 2010|By the CNN Wire Staff Muslim women arrive for prayers last month at a Dubai mosque to mark the end of Ramadan. A court in the United Arab Emirates says a man is permitted under Islamic law to physically discipline his wife and children as long as he leaves no marks and has tried other methods of punishment, the country's top court ruled. The ruling came in the case of a man who slapped his wife and slapped and kicked his 23-year-old daughter, the document said. The daughter had bruises on her right hand and right knee and the wife had injuries to her lower lip and teeth, the ruling said. Advertisement Ads by Google The court ruled that a man has the right to punish his wife and children. That includes beating them, after he has tried other options, such as admonition (Cautionary advice or warning.) and then abstaining from sleeping with his wife. However, the court ruled that in this case the man exceeded his authority under sharia, or Islamic law. His wife was beaten too severely and his daughter was too old to be disciplined, the ruling said. "Although the [law] permits the husband to use his right [to discipline], he has to abide by the limits of this right," wrote Chief Justice Falah al Hajeri in a ruling issued this month and released in a court document recently. It was reported in the English-language publication The National. "If the husband abuses this right to discipline, he cannot be exempted from punishment," according to the ruling. Several experts said it is against Islamic law to permit wife-beating. Jihad Hashim Brown -- the head of research at Tabah Foundation, which specializes in the interpretation of Islamic law -- couldn't comment specifically on what the courts did and didn't say because he hadn't read the ruling. However, he said he feels confident that the UAE court didn't sanction injury or abuse. He said sharia law is complex and has been open to interpretation. But he argued that in Islamic law it is "absolutely unlawful" to abuse a wife, injure her, or insult her dignity. "When a situation in a marriage reaches the point where people feel like they need to hit someone, that is time for divorce. Anyone who would abuse, injure or even insult the dignity of their wife, this has now become a criminal offense which can be prosecuted in a court of law." Canadian-Egyptian scholar Dr. Jamal Badawi, who has written about this topic, said "wife beating is not allowed in Islam" and said the Quranic verses and sayings back "the prohibition of any type of wife beating," especially on the face. Summer Hathout, a lawyer and an activist for women's rights in California, argued that the UAE rulings are based on maintaning a patriarchal elite power structure. "To those of us who know Islam and the Quran, violence against women is so antithetical to the teachings of Islam," she said.

'Dad, why can't Ali Baba end the war in Gaza?'

Dad, why did my friend die?
29 Jan 2009 13:39:00 GMT
Written by: Jawad Harb


Jan. 29 2008

Saturday was the first day of school for my children. My 12-year-old son Yazan is in the 6th grade. He went to school and realized he lost six schoolmates. One of the boys used to sit in the desk behind Yazan, so every time he turns and looks behind him, the boy he used to talk to, to laugh with, is not there anymore.

The children lived through the air strikes, the danger, the lack of sleep, and now they have a world that they don't recognize. They can't understand why their classmates are dead. Yazan asks me, "Why did my friend die? Why was his house hit? What did he do wrong?"

They want to know why children were killed. They know that many adults were killed, but for them, it is more difficult to understand when it is children, children like them, who were hurt, or killed, or were in pain.

For Ziad, who is six, his school was destroyed in a bombing two weeks ago. They haven't found any place for the kids yet, so they sit in tents surrounded by rubble.

I sent Ziad to the tent school for two days, but I didn't like it. It's outside, so it's very cold, and it's in the middle of broken glass and brick and debris. I don't know what's in the rubble - we have heard that there could be remains of weapons like white phosphorous or depleted uranium, or unexploded bombs. It is not safe. So now, Ziad will stay home. He will miss his first year of school. He just started going to school in September.

He used to be so excited about going to school, but when I told him he would stay home from now on, he didn't say anything. Some of his friends have gone back to the tent school, but their parents are starting to think twice, too.

There are no temporary spaces for schools, but they will not allow construction material into Gaza. So many houses and schools are destroyed. The houses that remain standing are holding several families. It is a mess in Gaza, until we can start to rebuild. But how can we rebuild, without cement, or glass, or wood?

I can't tell you how agonizing these stories are that the kids are talking about. They keep talking about it - the war, what they saw on TV, their friends who died. They imagine how they died. Counsellors at the schools are doing activities for the children to talk to their sadness out. I hope these things work. It's a big trauma for the children. They are so young.

My daughters, who are older, don't open up to me. Maybe they talk to their mother. All my life I thought girls like to talk, but now I realize that sometimes it is hard to get girls to talk. They look so sad, but they only answer yes or no to my questions. They are still shocked. They smile less than usual.

One of my daughters is trying to write poems. She is talking about her experience in Gaza during the war, and how we Palestinians felt abandoned by the world. She wrote, "We were crying out for peace, we were crying out for help, but no one listened to us." She is 15 years old.

I am working again. It used to take me 30 minutes to get to work; now it takes one hour. The asphalt is destroyed. We drive slowly. There are holes everywhere.

At first, I was still shocked, especially seeing Gaza City for the first time, and the level of destruction - the houses, the schools, the buildings. At first, I couldn't work. I was sitting with my colleagues, asking about people, trying to find out who had died, because we couldn't find out during the war.

The one thing we all missed during the conflict was sleeping at night. At least now we are able to sleep peacefully again, and we all hope this will continue.

But there are many things ahead of us. CARE will continue to distribute food, and emergency supplies, and medicine. Gaza will need to rebuild. And children, like my children, will need help recovering from this trauma.
-------------
09 Jan 2009 12:42:00 GMT
Written by: Jawad Harb


Jan. 9, 2009 - 4 am, local time

This is the 14th day of the attack. It is 4 am.

My six children are so worried, restless and unable to close their eyes. With each airstrike, the house shakes right and left, and the children grab one another like cold rabbits seeking warmth.

We feel helpless and victimised. There is nothing worse than being unable to protect your children.

Airstrikes are becoming more violent and more horrible. They sound like they are very close to us, chasing us wherever we try to hide. The kind of psychological trauma Gaza's children have been exposed to is unbearable and incurable.

My sole objective and mission impossible as a father is to put my kids to sleep. During the past 13 days, I finished all the children's stories my mother used to tell me as a child.

The only story left untold is "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves". My children seem interested to listen.

I reached the part: "Then Ali Baba climbed down and went to the door concealed among the bushes, and said, 'Open, Sesame!' and the door flew open."

Suddenly my six-year-old son opened his eyes, and asked me: "Dad, why can't Ali Baba appear in Gaza and say 'End the war, end the war!' - and then the war would be over?"

At night, we hear screaming and crying
Jan 8, 2009 - 4:45 am, local time

This is the 13th day of the attack. It is really more horrible than we could ever describe. We feel like the sky is going to attack us. There is nothing worse than being tired, needing to sleep so badly, but being unable to sleep. We feel if we close our eyes for a moment, we will die.

It is 4:45 am. My six-year-old son just woke up, and asked me: "Dad, why is it so loud tonight?" He used to hear the bombing further away, which was quieter. He doesn't know that they are targeting houses closer to us tonight.

It is the crying of children in the neighborhood with each bombing which hurts us the most. It is unbelievable, and this is the first night we have heard this screaming and crying. Everyone is exhausted.

I couldn't help but go downstairs, and was surprised to see almost all my neighbours gathered in the main road by their houses.

"It is safer out here. At least we will not be buried under a demolished house," said one of my neighbours.

Another bombing happened when I was in the street, and people raised their hands together simultaneously and looked at the sky seeking the help of God, and it looked like they all agreed to do this at the same time.

The air strikes kept coming, one after another, with people looking to the sky seeking the help of God. Children continued to scream and cry with every bombing, and I continued to recall the words of my youngest son: "Dad, why is it so loud tonight?"

For a few hours, life was almost normal
Jan 7, 2009 - 4:30 pm, local time

My children are all sleeping. They went to sleep three hours ago, when the bombs stopped for the ceasefire. For three hours, it was totally silent. No bombs. They look so peaceful.

Last night, none of us slept at all. The bombs were falling every five minutes. It was a terrible night. You can't sleep with the war going on.

As soon as the bombs stopped for the ceasefire, the shops in my neighbourhood opened. My neighbours rushed outside to buy food. They ran, because nobody believed that the ceasefire would last the full three hours. They were afraid there would be an airstrike anytime. People bought food - rice, macaroni, cheese, salt, sugar, eggs. These are the only things left in the stores. Food is now very expensive.

We had electricity for four hours today, which means we had water. We washed our clothes, pumped water, and bathed the children. This is the first time I have ever been excited to wash clothing! For a few hours, life was almost normal.

The airstrikes just started again. I can see the smoke through the window, a few hundred metres away. It's right in front of me - black smoke. I am afraid.

With the bombs, it's not what you hear, it's what you feel. It's like an earthquake. The houses is swinging, left to right. It's like an underground wave that moves under the houses.

My children are waking up. The ceasefire is over. We will hope again for tomorrow's ceasefire, when we can sleep for a few hours again. It will be another long night. === Fighting in Gaza abates, but truce hopes look fragile Sun, Jul 27 16:18 PM EDT image 1 of 12 By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Maayan Lubell GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Fighting subsided in Gaza on Sunday after Hamas Islamist militants said they backed a 24-hour humanitarian truce, but there was no sign of any comprehensive deal to end their conflict with Israel. Hamas said it had endorsed a call by the United Nations for a pause in the fighting in light of the upcoming Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, expected to start in the next couple of days. Some firing of rockets continued after the time that Hamas had announced it would put its guns aside and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu questioned the validity of the truce. Israeli artillery guns also fired barrages into the Gaza Strip, Israeli media reported, although the object of the fire was initially unclear. "Hamas doesn't even accept its own ceasefire, it's continuing to fire at us as we speak," Netanyahu said in an interview with CNN, adding that Israel would "take whatever action is necessary to protect our people". Nonetheless, Gaza Strip residents and Reuters witnesses said Israeli shelling and Hamas missile launches had slowly subsided through the afternoon, suggesting a de facto truce might be taking shape as international efforts to broker a permanent ceasefire appeared to flounder. However, Israel's military has said it will need more time to destroy a warren of tunnels that criss-cross the Gaza border that it says is one of its main objectives. Egypt had also destroyed 13 tunnels which crossed into its territory, an Egyptian general said on his Facebook page. It was "a continuation of the efforts by the armed forces in protecting the borders of the state from smugglers and terrorists," Brigadier General Mohamed Samir Abdulaziz Ghoneim said. Israel and the Hamas Islamists who control Gaza had agreed to a 12-hour ceasefire on Saturday to allow Palestinians to stock up on supplies and retrieve bodies from under the rubble. Netanyahu's cabinet voted to extend the truce until midnight on Sunday at the request of the United Nations, but called it off when Hamas launched rockets into Israel during the morning. Palestinian medics said at least 10 people had died in the wave of subsequent strikes that swept Gaza, including a Christian woman, Jalila Faraj Ayyad, whose house in Gaza City was struck by an Israeli bomb. Some 1,031 Palestinians, mainly civilians and including many children, have been killed in the 20-day conflict. A Gaza health ministry official issued revised figures of dead, saying that 30 fewer people than thought had died in the conflict. Israel says 43 of its soldiers have died, along with three civilians killed by rocket and mortar fire out of the Mediterranean enclave. DIPLOMATIC BLOCK Israel launched its Gaza offensive on July 8, saying its aim was to halt rocket attacks by Hamas and its allies. After aerial and naval bombardment failed to quell the outgunned guerrillas, Israel poured ground forces into the Gaza Strip 10 days later, looking to knock out Hamas's rocket stores and destroy the vast network of tunnels. The army says its drive to find and eliminate tunnels would continue through any temporary truce. Diplomatic efforts led by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to end the 20-day conflict have shown little sign of progress. Israel and Hamas have set conditions that appear irreconcilable. Hamas wants an end to the Israeli-Egyptian economic blockade of Gaza before agreeing to halt hostilities. Israel has signaled it could make concessions toward that end, but only if Gaza's militant groups are stripped of their weapons. "Hamas must be permanently stripped of its missiles and tunnels in a supervised manner," Economy Minister Naftali Bennett said, "In return we will agree to a host of economic alleviations," the security cabinet member said on Facebook. Kerry flew back to Washington overnight after spending most of the week in Egypt trying to bridge the divide, putting forward some written proposals to Israel on Friday. Speaking off the record, cabinet ministers described his plan as "a disaster", saying it met all Hamas demands, such as lifting the Israeli-Egyptian blockade completely and ignored Israeli terms, such as stripping Hamas of its rockets. There was no immediate comment from U.S. officials. The obvious rancor added yet another difficult chapter to the already strained relations between Netanyahu and Kerry, whose energetic drive to broker a definitive peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians ended in acrimony in April. DESTRUCTION The main U.N. agency in Gaza, UNRWA, said 167,269 displaced Palestinians have taken shelter in its schools and buildings, following repeated calls by Israel for civilians to evacuate whole neighborhoods ahead of military operations. But in southern Gaza, residents of villages near the town of Khan Younis attacked the offices of the International Committee of the Red Cross, torching furniture and causing damage, saying the organization had not done enough to help them. During the lull in fighting inside Gaza on Saturday, residents flooded into the streets to discover scenes of massive destruction in some areas, including Beit Hanoun in the north and Shejaia in the east. An Israeli official said the army hoped the widespread desolation would persuade Gazans to put pressure on Hamas to stop the fighting for fear of yet more devastation. The Israeli military says its forces have uncovered more than 30 tunnels in Gaza, with some of the burrows reaching into Israeli territory and designed to launch surprise attacks on Jewish communities along the border. The military said on Sunday it found a tunnel that led directly into the dining room of an Israeli kibbutz. Other underground passages, the military says, serve as weapons caches and Hamas bunkers. One official said troops had found it easier to operate during the truce as the immediate threat to their safety was diminished. The Gaza turmoil has stoked tensions amongst Palestinians in mainly Arab East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank. Medics said eight Palestinians were killed on Friday in incidents near the West Bank cities of Nablus and Hebron - the sort of death toll reminiscent of previous uprisings against Israel's prolonged military rule there. The violence has sparked protests outside the region. Demonstrators in London marched from the Israeli embassy to the Houses of Parliament and Whitehall, blocking traffic throughout the West End. French police clashed with pro-Palestinian protesters who defied a ban by authorities to march in central Paris. (Additional reporting by Ori Lewis and Ari Rabinovitch in Jerusalem, Noah Browning in Gaza, Ali Sawafta in Ramallah; Writing by Mayaan Lubell and Crispian Balmer; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky and Stephen Powell) === "أوقاف الكويت" تمنع السويدان من اعتلاء المنابر تموز/يوليو 27, 2014 كتبه وطن الدبور "أوقاف الكويت" تمنع السويدان من اعتلاء المنابر منعت وزارة الأوقاف الكويتية، الداعية الإسلامي طارق سويدان، الموالي لجماعة الإخوان المسلمين من الخطابة في مساجدها. وكان الداعية الكويتي طارق سويدان، أعلن في أكثر من موقف تأييده الكامل لجماعة الإخوان المسلمين، وهو الأمر الذي أدى إلى الإطاحة به من قناة "الرسالة" التي كان يرأسها، والمملوكة لرجل الأعمال السعودي الوليد بن طلال. وكتب سويدان، في آخر تغريدة له عبر "تويتر": "طبعا أفرح بالعيد! فاليوم لنا أبطال يقولون للكيان الصهيوني "لا". واليوم لدينا شباب يصر على الحرية والكرامة، واليوم لدينا جيل ينشد العزة والنهضة لأمته، فتقبل الله تعالى منكم جميعا ، ولأهل ‫غزة بشكل خالص تهاني مضاعفة بعيد الفطر وعيد الصمود وعيد الجهاد وعيد إذلال بني صهيون". ===== Avashin ‏@Avashin · 22h Reports about failed attempt of SAA in brigade 93 to advance towards brigade 17. #Twitter, Retweeted by Wladimir Avashin ‏@Avashin · 27m YPG reinforcement arrived in Hassake. #TwitterKurds آخر تعديل علىالأحد, 27 تموز/يوليو 2014 ====