Wednesday's letter from Gaza

Dear friend 14/1/2009

Due to the rejection by Hamas of the Egyptian initiative yesterday, I was expecting a hard night , but I was wrong and I gained a long night's sleep , until I woke up on a very big bombardment from an F16 at 5:00 early morning .
I thought that this was in our area only , but I discovered that movement of the Israeli army in all fronts where it exists , was slow and not violent as usual , although the Israeli radio said that last night there were 10 injured soldiers .

On the other side the number of Palestinian victims comes to about 976 most of them were children ( 30%) , women (10%), and innocent civilians (30-40%).
Israeli radio quoted that the one side ( Israeli) cease fire will start today at 13:00 local time for 3 hours . It seems that Israel is changing the timing of the one side cease fire every day to prove to the Palestinians in Gaza that they have the upper hand .

Yesterday conversations with the people whom I met , all wanted this war to have an end , and blaming the leaders of Hamas who are sitting watching in Damascus while the civilians are killed every day in Gaza.
While I am writing this message( at (08:30) ,there were several big bombardments , which we don’t know yet what had been shelled .
We hope that the visit of Ban Key Moon to the area will be fruitful , to end this bloody and dirty war .
Some friends said that may Hamas is waiting for the new resident of the White House in the USA , which means that we have to continue this war for another week ! Everybody in Gaza is suffering , and wants this war to have an end soon . I heard that Hamas proposed a one week cease fire , but this proposal was rejected by Israel . An Israeli official is quoted that the cease fire of 3 steps is almost ready and to be implemented early next week !!!

On the occasion of the visit of the chairman of the Red Cross International to Gaza yesterday , I'd like that some of you to contact the Red Cross International to assist in protecting our Palestinian Ambulances , as well as the Civil Defense vehicles which is considered as targets by the Israeli Air fighters . Several paramedics and Civil Defense officers have been killed during their work to give assistance to the others ( In many cases , the Israeli army forbids the ambulances to reach the injured persons for long time , which resulted to death due to bleeding !! ).

Also while writing this message , and listening to my small radio (adjacent to me for 24hrs a day ) , I heard the Israeli radio quoting the fall of 2 Katusha rockets on Kiryat Shmona at North Israel ( This is considered the 2nd fall since 8/1/2009).

Although it is not so important for me , but the Palestinian Bureau of Statistics estimated the total economic loss in this war until 12/1/2009 by US$ 1.4 billion ( I have my share in this loss !!!) .

Today's letter from Gaza

Dear friend ,

As quiet as was the Israeli Southern town ( Sederot ) last night, so was it a terribly violent night for Gaza City , especially the South West , and North West parts of the City !! It was so horrible , I believe that it was the most horrible and heaviest bombardment nights since 27/12/208 .

I am living in the South West part of the City , where the Israeli tanks which came from their positions in Netsarim junction through the fields for fear of using the main roads .Tanks and other arms started shelling the area since 23:00 last night until 6:00 O'clock this morning . No one could sleep , and many civilian and private buildings been shelled , including a high rise building .
Myself and my family were sitting in our beds looking to each other , before going to sleep for 2 hours (6:00-8:00).
Israeli army declared that the cease fire period will be from 9:00 -12:00 our local time ( It is the fourth time that they change the timing of such period ! Maybe to let people believe that they have the upper hand for what we call self curfew ) .
Yesterday the Israeli helicopters shelled the main Palestine square in Gaza city when the cease fire period terminated ,while most of the people went to buy some small necessities including food and other needs . The result was 2 civilian victims and 10 civilians injured .
The Israeli Army is squeezing the City of Gaza from North and south as a pliers , in addition to their bombardment in the East , while the warships are taking care of the Western part of the city .

Number of Palestinian victims comes to 919 , one third of them were children !!where injured persons count comes to about 4260 .

Until now Israeli army shelled about 2200 targets in the whole Gaza Strip .
I wonder whether the Israeli army knows that he went to this war to achieve peace , as said by the Israeli leaders !!So I wonder why the army is planting hatred among the Palestinians against the attacks he carried out against the civilians . The criticism that fighters are using the civilians as a shelter never give the Israeli army the right to target the civilians , knowing how accurate the Israeli army can be due to the very high sophisticated technology he is using in this one side war ( Big army against some thousands of fighters !! ) .

Yesterday Ismae'l Haneyyah from his bunker sent a message that he is in favor with any initiative that can stop this war and guarantee the withdrawal of the Israeli army , in addition to lift the closure and open the crossing borders . The word carries some optimism hope to be real .

People are moving from place to place for their safety , where I believe that every single square centimeter in Gaza is unsafe !!

Despite the one way ( Israeli) cease fire started 45 minutes ago , but there are still some bombardments from the Israeli army !!

I hope that things will change for better , as we already – in my point of view – reached the worst day and night in this war !!

Today's letter from Gaza

My friend from Gaza writes today:

Last night can be considered quieter than the night that preceded it, especially in the South-Western side of Gaza City .... But this night was marked by heavy machine-gun fire from the helicopters, in addition to other arms such as tanks , Navy artilleries and F16 air fighters , which bombed several Buildings : One of them was the Resident of Mohammad Dahlan, which was confiscated by Hamas since the coup in June 2007.
As a result of this strike , the house of my cousin next to him was partially damaged ( member of Parliament from Fatah ), where his home was a safe haven for a large group of relatives who were representing 3 families in addition to his family!!

Another site which was struck by the F16 was a gas station which burst into flames and smoke still rising from it at the time of writing this letter.

Doctors in Gaza said that Israeli Army may be using Phosphorous missiles due to the burns they noticed on both dead and injured persons .

One can smell the war in every place in Gaza as a result of the excessive use of arms .
There was a continuous bombing raid on the smuggling tunnels in Rafah, in addition to the bombing on all fronts, especially the areas along the Gaza border with Israel (north, east and south) and by the Israeli navy war ships on the coast of Gaza.

The number of rockets fired from Hamas at Southern Israel yesterday, was 12 rockets and the day before it was 15 rockets , compared with about 50-80 rockets per day at the beginning of the war in the Gaza Strip !!!

However, on the other hand , we find that the number of casualties on the Palestinian side is increasing, especially among civilians, were number of victims yesterday was , about 38, mostly civilians, while Israel claimed that the death toll yesterday was 50 , most of them were Hamas fighters!!!

In my view, although the Israeli government had announced the recruitment of the reserve for the start of Phase III, but I think that there is a political dynamic on the cease-fire because Israel is afraid of entering the cities where all of very high density, because this will cost Israel many victims ( leaders didn't want to lose many victims before the parliamentary elections in Israel on 10/2/2009) , in addition that such entering will take much time (several months and perhaps a year or more). So I think that the work of the Israeli operations now is to move these troops from their positions to clear ( raze ) the land around it with the assistance of aircraft of all kinds.

Today , the Hamas delegation will come to Cairo, consisting of 3 members from the Gaza Strip and a 2 member of the Damascus Hamas leaders to continue the discussions on a cease-fire . This led to make Amos Gilad to delay his visit to Cairo by one day (tomorrow) , as by tomorrow may be the Egyptians will have answers from Hamas ( The Egyptians looks optimistic ) .

The statement of President-elect Obama that the U.S. Would put the case for war on Gaza, on the top of his priorities when being the President of USA on 20/1/2009 , so may this convince the Israelis that this process should be terminated as soon as the required internationally.

Personally and due to the horror and psychological situation we live , my spastic colon started to operate since many days ago !!

As per all my messages to you , let's hope that such dirty war will come to an end soon , and before it will be too late !!!