Eva Bartlett writing from the occupied Gaza Strip, Live from Palestine, 18 January 2009
(Eva Bartlett is a Canadian human rights advocate and freelancer who spent eight months in 2007 living in West Bank communities and four months in Cairo and at the Rafah crossing. She is currently based in the Gaza Strip after having arrived with the third Free Gaza Movement boat in November. She has been working with the International Solidarity Movement in Gaza, accompanying ambulances while witnessing and documenting the ongoing Israeli air strikes and ground invasion of the Gaza Strip)
"17 January 2009
It's hard to believe it can get worse, but daily it does.
Last week, I saw the white phosphorus clouds doctors have written about and condemned. From a tall Gaza City building, the panoramic view showed a spreading stream of poison, on eastern Gaza.
The chemical burns deeply, to the bone, experts say. It is considered illegal warfare, not to be used in civilian areas. Yet the accounts grow of its use: heavy use in the Khosar region, east of Khan Younis, and in the northwest of Gaza, and in eastern Jabaliya, Sheik Zayid, Sheik Rajleen, al-Zaitoun, everywhere. The United Nations headquarters housing hundreds of fleeing Palestinians which was bombed on 15 January was hit with white phosphorus.
"Five days ago, in Jabaliya, I saw an abnormal material: white dust, spread out in spinning circles which spread the dust further. From inside there was something falling down which looked like snow. It covered a large area, over many houses," Maher al-Madhouan, head of the physiotherapy department in Sheik Radwan hospital, told me last week.
At al-Shifa hospital, Dr. Nafez Abu Shabaan, Head of the burn department, told me they've received some burn cases unlike anything they've ever seen. "We're not familiar with phosphorous burns, but some patients have very deep burns, very strange burns." He cites the case of a patient sent for a brain scan who three hours later, still alive, "came back smoking."....."
(Eva Bartlett is a Canadian human rights advocate and freelancer who spent eight months in 2007 living in West Bank communities and four months in Cairo and at the Rafah crossing. She is currently based in the Gaza Strip after having arrived with the third Free Gaza Movement boat in November. She has been working with the International Solidarity Movement in Gaza, accompanying ambulances while witnessing and documenting the ongoing Israeli air strikes and ground invasion of the Gaza Strip)
"17 January 2009
It's hard to believe it can get worse, but daily it does.
Last week, I saw the white phosphorus clouds doctors have written about and condemned. From a tall Gaza City building, the panoramic view showed a spreading stream of poison, on eastern Gaza.
The chemical burns deeply, to the bone, experts say. It is considered illegal warfare, not to be used in civilian areas. Yet the accounts grow of its use: heavy use in the Khosar region, east of Khan Younis, and in the northwest of Gaza, and in eastern Jabaliya, Sheik Zayid, Sheik Rajleen, al-Zaitoun, everywhere. The United Nations headquarters housing hundreds of fleeing Palestinians which was bombed on 15 January was hit with white phosphorus.
"Five days ago, in Jabaliya, I saw an abnormal material: white dust, spread out in spinning circles which spread the dust further. From inside there was something falling down which looked like snow. It covered a large area, over many houses," Maher al-Madhouan, head of the physiotherapy department in Sheik Radwan hospital, told me last week.
At al-Shifa hospital, Dr. Nafez Abu Shabaan, Head of the burn department, told me they've received some burn cases unlike anything they've ever seen. "We're not familiar with phosphorous burns, but some patients have very deep burns, very strange burns." He cites the case of a patient sent for a brain scan who three hours later, still alive, "came back smoking."....."
No comments:
Post a Comment