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Indybay Feature

Bloodied in Gaza as the world silently watches

by via the Electronic Intifada
Monday, December 29, 2008 :"There is a complete blackout in Gaza now. The streets are as still as death." I am speaking to my father, Moussa el-Haddad, a retired physician who lives in Gaza City, on Skype, from Durham, North Carolina in the United States, where I have been since mid 2006 -- the month Gaza's borders were hermetically sealed by Israel, and the blockade of the occupied territory further enforced.
He is out on his balcony. It is 2am.

"I can only see grey plumes of smoke slowly rising all over the city, everywhere I look," he says, as though they were some beautiful, comforting by-product of some hideous, malicious event.

My father was out walking when the initial strikes began -- "I saw the missiles falling and prayed; the earth shook; the smoke rose; the ambulances screamed," he told me.

My mother was in the Red Crescent Society clinic near the universities, where she works part-time as a pediatrician. Behind the clinic was one of the police centers that were leveled. She said she broke down at first, the sheer proximity of the attacks having shaken her from the inside out. After she got a hold of herself, they took to treating injured victims of the attack, before transferring them to al-Shifa hospital.

Now, three days later, they are trapped in their own home.

My father takes a deep restorative sigh, before continuing. "Ehud Barak has gone crazy. He's gone crazy. He is bombing everywhere and everything ... no one is safe."

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§Deserted streets and fear as Israel demolishes Gaza
by via the Electronic Intifada
Monday, December 29, 2008 :As Israel's relentless bombardment of the occupied Gaza Strip has entered its fourth day, the number of dead and injured has exceeded 2,000. Speaking via Skype, The Electronic Intifada correspondent Rami Almeghari described the situation near his home in al-Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip:

I am in al-Maghazi refugee camp, in the central Gaza Strip. This afternoon Israeli drones targeted a house in al-Maghazi with three missiles. Fortunately there were no casualties. But unfortunately there have been many casualties elsewhere in Gaza where they have targeted houses and mosques.

I went out of the house to deal with some urgent matters today. But movement is really risky right now. Anyone who moves could be a potential target for the Israeli warplanes that are buzzing overhead all the time. You don't know what the next target is. It is terrible, horrible for the population here.

Most of the shops and businesses are closed. Only a few food stores are open. There is very little movement in the streets. There are very few cars, for example, the on the Salah al-Din road, a main thoroughfare running through the Gaza Strip. People are staying in their houses, their neighborhoods. What is going on is unprecedented since Israel occupied Gaza in 1967. There is a great deal of fear, worry, anxiety.

Fortunately we do have access to the Internet, but the power outages are very prolonged. Right now I am talking to you using a gasoline-powered generator. But gasoline is in very short supply all over, so shortly I could be cut off from the world.

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