A LETTER FROM GAZA

Note from the webmaster: Mohammed is in grave danger today. Please pray for him.

6 month old Mohammed al Bourai in the morgue	Mourners carrying the body of Tamer Abu Shaar to be buried in Deir Al Balah cemetery
Mohammed al Bourai body ready to be taken to hospital for final look by his mom and relatives	Nasser al Bourai he father of Mohammed al Bourai carrying his body during a funeral

GAZA CITY, - Tamer was nine, and no child soldier. He did not live in the area from where home-made rockets are launched into Israeli territory. The day he was killed, he was at least two kilometres from the place Israeli troops had entered Gaza, and met with return fire by Palestinian resistance.

His tragedy was that the family home was near Deir al-Balah in the middle of the Gaza Strip, close to the area the Israelis have set up as their Kussfim base.

"We were all inside the house when shooting started," Tamer's aunt Etaf tells IPS. "It was right after members of the Palestinian resistance stopped shooting at Israeli troops," she said, pointing towards the scene of those clashes a couple of kilometres away. But the Israelis marched into this area as well, hardly for the first time.

Members of the family decided to crawl out into the rain after a bullet hit a gas cylinder, Etaf said. "But Israeli soldiers continued to fire on us from a tank and Hummer military jeep." After some time, seeing that the gas cylinder had not exploded, Etaf said she crawled back into the house. Tamer followed, but never made it. "I saw Tamer shot, with a bullet in his head."

"He wanted to become a doctor when he grew up," says his mother Sabah Abu Shaar.

Like Tamer, other children are dying, and their mothers' dreams with them. A six-month infant named Mohammed al-Bourai was killed when an Israeli missile crashed into the house Wednesday this week, moments after he'd been fed. The family house happens to be close to the offices of Gaza's ministry of interior, and to the house of de facto Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Hanyieh.

The same day, three other Palestinian children were killed in an air strike. The following day, four Palestinian children were killed near the Jabaliya refugee camp while playing soccer. Two of the boys, all aged 7 to 14, were from the same family. A child's body was found in eastern Gaza, a victim of Israeli shelling.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Human Affairs says in a Gaza fact sheet that 80 Palestinians were killed in January of this year, and 82 were injured. The January deaths included four children and five women. The Israeli casualties through the month were nine injuries from home-made rockets.

Just over the past three days, Israeli air strikes have killed at least 35 Palestinians, among them nine children. Many more are injured, and some are in critical condition.

Following Friday prayers, tens of thousands of Gazans came out on the streets in protest against the Israeli air strikes. Matan Vilnai, Israeli deputy defence minister, has said that Gaza faces a "holocaust" if the home-made rockets do not stop. Since May 2007, these rockets have killed one Israeli.

Emergency medical care is now threatened. The head of the ambulance department at Shifa hospital says he has just 20 litres of fuel left in stock for the ambulances. Once this runs out, little help will be available to victims of the next Israeli attacks.

Israeli attacks and firing are now so continuous that many in Deir al-Balah say they cannot sleep. "We can't feel safe here," says Tashaeel, one of Tamer's elder sisters. "If we'd also left with Tamer, their bullets would have made a harvest of us all."

The family has tried in vain for UN help in moving to another area. "Bullets chase us day and night," says mother Sabah. "We can't go out, and we have nowhere else to go. No money to move to a safer place where I could save the lives of my children.

"Last week Israeli soldiers had attacked out house, and ordered my seven daughters, two sons and myself into the rain, with their dangerous dogs scaring us away," Sabah said. "Then they ransacked our house for several hours, leaving it in total chaos before we were allowed back in." Such raids are common, she said.

Tamer was killed in the next one. The grieving family is now without water after bullets punctured the overhead tank. The walls of the house are pock-marked with bullet holes. And all the time they fear that Israeli bulldozers will bring down this too.

As Palestinians in Gaza wait for more Israeli attacks, UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon has expressed strong concern. "These events underscore the urgent need for a calming of violence, and must not be allowed to deter the continuation of the political process," he said. But such statements mean little on the ground, and people in Gaza see no international action to stop Israel.

"Gaza today faces a real war, a crazy war," Haniyeh said during Friday prayers near the Shati refugee camp. He also criticised the U.S. for accepting Israeli claims of 'legitimate self-defence'. Despite Israel's best attempts at ostracising Haniyeh, his popularity seems only to have increased


Dear Friends,

I had a long day, an awful day, taking photos and writing from on the ground in Gaza

City and northern Gaza. I met with two children who survived Wednesday’s Jabalyia soccer bombing: the other 4 kids were, as you likely know, killed. One of the children I saw had no flesh on their legs, had burns all over their bodies from the tank’s shelling. This was one of the scariest things I have seen yet, and I have seen a lot more than that.

I asked one boy to give me details of what happened that Thursday afternoon. The 9 year old boy cried while he told that he’d seen the decapitated head of his cousin strewn far from his body, arms and legs, far away from where they were all playing soccer. His mother added that there wasn’t any electricity when her son was admitted to the hospital.

He was crying as he told the story, his tears hurting him even more than his psychological pain, as he has burns in his eyes. His mother uncovered his wounded leg where I could only see bones without flesh in places. I could not understand how he managed to lay down conscious, but knew it was a consciousness full of pain and anguish. I felt this pain in my own heart and head.

As I talked this child’s mother, she said that she’d had to evacuate her children, as it's no longer safe to be in that area where the children had been playing. The kids ranged from 6 to 14 years old. The two ones who survived said they had all been playing soccer in front of the door of their house in Jabalyia when the Israeli missile hit them.

I finally came back home some hours ago, after waiting a long time to find transportation. But, eventually managing to make it back to Rafah, I collapsed for a nap for an hour. My sleep was disrupted: I awoke scared by the bombing of F-16s (I learned later on). I ran from my bed through our dark house, and seeing no one from my family inside, I ran without shoes into the street. People were out in the street, young men running. I didn't understand, didn't know what I was doing other than that I was running but didn’t know to where. Most people's windows were down, shutters closed, as it is freezing cold at moment.

I was glad not to be injured by shattered glass and debris on the streets. I made it back home to write this on my laptop. But I’ve decided going back to sleep is not a good idea, no matter how exhausted I am. If I have to die (not my wish) , I want to be awake, so I know I’m dying, and by whom. Not asleep. Rafah Today