Dawwas: Gaza diary of 'Daddy Jeep'

Mohammed Dawwas, father of four boys, kept his sanity by writing a journal during weeks of sustained assault on Gaza, the fenced-in enclave where they all live. At two this morning, the cacophony in the skies stopped as the Israeli ceasefire took hold and the family got a little more shut-eye. Perhaps a proper bath will be possible soon. No one thinks that the grisly fighting is completely over. In fact, Qassam rockets still rain down on southern Israel. Read on:

Sunday, 11 January

Troops and tanks begin fighting in Gaza City suburbs. Around 20 rockets launched into Israel from Gaza.

'The whole night no one could sleep. Everyone is terrified. The Israelis said there would be a three-hour ceasefire and I went out with the car to buy water. My kids wanted to go with me because they hadn't left the house for days. I kept looking for more than an hour before I found some, but at that moment the bombardment started. My kids began crying and screaming. I filled up with water and drove home fast. I said, "Don't ask me again to take you out." They said, "It was a ceasefire!" I replied, "But it's a war."

Sometimes the kids joke. They give themselves names. My son Ibrahim, he's afraid, so he doesn't speak all day. They call him the Drone. Sammy, he's the F16; Ismail, he's the Apache helicopter; Imam, he is the Tank. Me, I am the Jeep.'

Monday

First Israeli reserve forces sent into action. Israeli Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, said Israel was deliberately "going wild" with military force to restore its deterrent capability.

'For the first time there is electricty when I wake up. I can listen to the news and use the electric kettle to make tea, not the kerosene stove, which smells. We wanted to go to the market so I drove through streets full of mountains of garbage, but had to make a detour because the security headquarters had been bombed, and I was driving on glass. I got some frozen meat at the market, then drove as far as Palestine Square to find a place to turn the car. Minutes later, as I arrived home, the square was bombed by the Israelis. Two people were killed and 10 injured – one of them could have been me.'

Tuesday

Israeli forces push deeper into Gaza City, with at least three Palestinians killed fleeing their homes. The UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon, appeals for a ceasefire.

'At about 4am the phone rang. It was the Israelis again. They deliver recorded messages saying they are preparing for the next phase of their attack on Hamas, and for our safety we should follow IDF [Israeli Defence Forces] orders 100 per cent. The night was terrifying. They destroyed towers in the north of Gaza, and we live in towers in the middle. The bombardment lasted all night. They even shelled the Al-Jazeera hotel on the edge of Gaza City, about a kilometre away.

My wife got a call saying she could get two sacks of flour because she works at the UN. She should take her card and ID and go and collect it. I did it myself – thank God it was not far. Flour for any family now is very valuable. There is none in the market, or if you find it, it's very expensive.'

Wednesday

Israeli military says it hit 60 targets, including the police headquarters and rocket-launching sites. Rockets fired into Israel from Lebanon. Palestinian death toll rises above 1,000.

'We had power for a few hours in the middle of the day. Everyone watched the news on television but then wanted to stop because of all the images of bloodshed and destruction. So they changed to another channel for Egyptian soap operas, but I wanted to see the news. We flicked back and forth. I'm really worried about how this war has affected the children. They are afraid to move from one room to another. They always ask for me or their mother to go with them, even to the bathroom.

I have an Israeli friend who called to ask about the situation. He was sad about what is happening and hoped that this crazy war would end. We receive a lot of random calls of support from Arab countries. The Libyans have the go-ahead from their government to call for free.

Today an office building about 200 metres away received a call from the Israelis, warning that they were going to bomb it tonight. Now, as we prepare for night, we have our windows open everywhere in case they do it, so that we will not lose the glass. We stay in a room away from the windows that face that building. The only thing we can do is go to the first floor. That is the safest place for us. We don't know if it's going to happen.

This could be psychological war. It's difficult. When you wait for this to happen and that to happen and you don't know, that really kills you.'

Thursday

UN headquarters, a hospital, a school and a media building attacked during intense shelling. Troops push further into Gaza City amid intense fighting, but rockets continue to land in Israel.

'Last night we were worried they were going to bomb the building close to us. It didn't happen, but it gets to you psychologically. We were holding each other every time a plane passed. We are on the seventh floor of a 14-storey building. Our neighbours went downstairs to the lower floor for safety, but we stayed. There was a lot of shooting, bullets, gunfire.

Now, from the window, I can see smoke everywhere. They destroyed the UN building, including the storage room with flour and food for the refugees. It's less than a kilometre away. Now it's all destroyed and there is a huge fire. I can hear shelling, I can see the smoke from shells everywhere. I hear voices over the local radio of people calling for rescue, they want ambulances. One says, "We are in a holocaust."'

Friday

Rockets hit a mosque during morning prayers. Reuters reports 45,000 Gazans fleeing battle zones are sheltering in UN schools. Hamas rejects Egyptian-brokered truce.

'It's been calmer. We slept last night for the first time in a few days. At 4am the Israelis fired a shell near where my parents-in-law live. It blew a big hole in front of their house, broke their front windows and damaged their front door. Thank God they weren't injured. This morning the troops withdrew from the south of the city – to our relief, as we were sure they would come here next.

The silent majority, I think, have changed their mind about Hamas. They question whether to vote for them again. Some say whoever was in power the Israelis would do the same. But that is for afterwards. Right now we all stand by Hamas because we are together in this problem. Right now, the Palestinian people, are suffering and paying the price. Gaza is destroyed. It's set us back 20 years. When things are more normal, people will see the catastrophe.'



Yesterday

Over 50 air strikes. After a UN school in northern Gaza was hit, the UN Relief and Works Agency said Israel's actions should be investigated as possible war crimes.

'We have heard that some calls from "supporters" in Arab nations are from Israeli intelligence. You can tell when they are intelligence calls because they ask questions rather than just give support. I might have had one, from a woman who said she was a Palestinian from Kuwait. She asked for my name; I did not give it.

On the radio we got a report that the Dawwas building where my cousin lives was on fire. I tried to call but the mobiles are not working well. I spoke to my nephew, who had no news but promised to call. I still haven't heard from him. I hope everything is OK, that the news report is incorrect. We are waiting and hoping the Israeli government will vote to stop this war.'

It did.
Crossposted from the Independent

Day 12 of Israeli offensive begins in Gaza

Abandoned classroom inside Gaza. No wonder they call it 'offensive'.

Mohammed Ali, an aid worker with Oxfam who operates in the Gaza strip, writes about survival under the assault from a father's perspective, which appears even grimmer than Safa's.

Gaza City: The air, the sea and the earth in Gaza City are now occupied by the Israeli military. They occupy Gazans' minds, nerves and ears too. In a bid to stop my children twitching, jerking, trembling and waking at every sound of an attack during their few hours sleep and their many waking hours, I put cotton wool in their ears - it has not worked. I wonder what damage is being done to my children's tiny hearts, theirs are not as big as mine, they can cope less with the stress that is being put on them.

We ran out of fuel for our generator, which meant that we were confined to a small room filled with eleven people, with little light for three days. We have not had water either; our well can only pump water if it has electricity which most of the Gaza strip has been denied since this nightmare started.

Unlike many other families, we were fortunate yesterday to find twenty litres of benzene to power our generator. No fuel has come in since the onset of this attack on Gaza so we had to pay seven times its usual price.

We have one day left of food and the nappies I bought two weeks ago are nearly gone. They are not good quality as little has been able to enter this strip of land since the blockade was imposed on us eighteen months ago. Bad quality nappies means unpleasant leakages, and for the last few days the little ones have had to be bathed in freezing cold water.

My sister recently decided to return home in spite of our protests. She feared that with food reserves running out we might have to eat one meal a day rather than the two we have been having of late. At home she has a little food left, enough to keep her and her family going for a while longer.

We are now eleven, huddled together in my parents' dining room. My brother and I and our families moved there, thinking that the first floor may be the safest option. There is a saying in Arabic, which says, ' death in a group is a mercy', I guess if we die together maybe just maybe we will feel less of the pain than in doing so alone.

I have had 8 hours sleep since the beginning of this conflict; we can hear attacks almost every minute.

I think to myself, if one of us is injured or needs medical attention what will happen? Ambulances are finding it difficult to reach civilians, roads are blocked by rubble, Israeli forces in their path...you could bleed to death... even if they did get to us, maybe we would be bombed on our way to the hospital...if we did reach the hospital there might not be enough room to treat us...little medication or equipment we need or any electricity to fuel the life saving equipment...we would not even be able to get out of Gaza for the life saving treatment we needed.

Hospitals are now running on back up generators making life even more difficult for the doctors who are trying to cope with the influx of those injured. If fuel runs out for the generators, those on life saving equipment will perish.

I heard a woman calling up the radio today, ambulance services could not reach her. I guess she thought the radio station might be able to do something. She was wailing down the phone "our home is on fire, my children are dying...help me! " I do not know what happened to her and her children, I do not want to imagine.

I spend much of my time thinking that this could be the last hour of my existence... as I try to fall asleep, I hear on the radio the numbers of people who have died rising by the hour ... I wonder if tomorrow morning, I will be part of that body count, of the next breaking news... I will be just another number to all those watching the death and destruction in Gaza... or maybe the fact that I work for Oxfam will mean that I will be a name and not just a number... I might be talked about for a minute and moments later forgotten, like all those other people who have had their lives taken away from them.

I am not afraid of dying -- I know that one day we all must die. But not like this, not sitting idly in my home with my children in my arms waiting for our lives to be taken away. I am disgusted by this injustice.

What is the international community waiting for, to see even more dismembered people, and families erased before they act?

What is happening is against humanity. Are we not human?

Safa's notion of a calm day in Gaza

Even from Jerusalem, a two hour drive away, the contrails of F-16 jets were etched in the crystalline blue sky this morning and looked ominous. When Safa was able to get online briefly in Gaza, she got annoyed and dismayed by some vicious hate e-mail, yet now wants her family surname noted in public as a byline. After all, Safa Joudeh recently was tele-interviewed by CNN and is an aspiring journalist. This articulate twenty-something Palestinian woman continues to share the view of the conflict in Gaza City from her family's apartment with Israelity Bites and a growing band of admirers. Read her post below:

I woke up to the smell of freshly baked bread, at around noon today. I stay up most of the night and catch a few hours sleep after the sun rises.

The house was freezing cold, as it has been for the past few weeks. I put on a number of heavy sweaters and a robe and wrapped a scarf around my neck, readying myself for yet another day if incessant drones and constant nearby explosions.

My mother has taken to making homemade bread the last ten days. Thanks her careful management of the small amount of cooking gas we have, and to her idea of buying a gas oven in anticipation of an Israeli invasion only days before the attacks began, she is able to bake occasionally. Furthermore, we had found a store with its doors partially open in our area a couple of days ago and were able to stock up on flour.

Having lunched with my younger siblings and my parents on bread, cheese, eggs and some leftover pasta, we all went out onto the balcony, and what a beautiful sunny day it was! The iciness had dissipated somewhat with the early day sun, the few trees outside were green and luminous and birds were singing!

We all stood for about half an hour, looking out through the metal railings like caged birds. We could hear an occasional explosion in the distance but that did not deter us from standing there breathing in the fresh air we so longed for.

It was time for the daily chores. My 3 brothers took 3 containers downstairs, where the residents of the 14 floor building we live in crowded around a small tap that had running water. Luckily we are on the second floor, most of the others had the task of walking up and down the stairs. All of our area has been without water for about a week. When they got back me and my sister poured some of the water into pails in the bathrooms and in the kitchen, and tried to tidy up the house as much as we could.

My father, a physician whose medical center is located on the ground floor of our building, went down to see a few cases. During this time his patients try to keep in touch with him via phone only, but some emergency cases manage to make it to his clinic.

The first few days of the attack we were all glued to the radio, but for the past few days, being confined to our home, we have begun to become restless and agitated. I have started to read again, and write using a paper and a pen instead of my laptop, then type up my writing when I'm able to. My brothers are spending time with the neighbors kids inside our building and my sisters try to keep the phone occupied for as long as possible (very inconvenient) . We have also began to spend a lot of time together, and value each other as people, friends and companions instead of just family.

Later that evening we all gathered around are television, after turning on the power generator, which we do for only an hour a day, due to the extreme shortage of fuel. Today was different however. There was non of the usual excitement, the rushing to charge cell phones and check emails, the flipping between TV channels… The atmosphere in our home, which had come close to being gay earlier in the day, was somewhat downcast and gloomy. We all understood what the other felt, we had lead the exact same life for the past 11 days, we had grown into the exact same state of mind, and we were experiencing the exact same emotions. Instinctively, and by the collective mentality of a people living under tyranny, not to mention the feelings communicated by family and friends, and the surprisingly similar courses of speech and action we knew that the state we were in was reflective of every single household in the entire strip at the moment.

It was a state of unease, a state of nervousness, disquiet, dissatisfaction and need to experience life again. It was a state that made you feel lost in limbo and wandering if the real world ever existed. It was a state of wanting to be anywhere but here, wishing that the clock would turn back and things were as they had once been before. It was a state of missing your school, your friend who you will never see again, your office that had been destroyed and the corner store that has been turned into a pile of rubble.

My mother looked at us all and, in a soothing and understanding voice said "its ok, at least we have our home, at least we're together, at least we're safe".

"But what does that mean if you're entire life has been taken away from you" asked my 12 year old brother.

At that moment a news report was telling the story of the the Samouni family in Alzatoon area of Gaza city. 60 people living in one large building. Several families, brothers, their cousins their children and their nephews and nieces, their elderly parents. 60 people. Israeli tanks entered Alzatoon last night and called on the family to stay within the building through microphones after posting a tank outside their front door. 60 people in the house. Israel proceeded to bomb the house, striking it through artillery fire. At least half of the 60 people died, the rest were seriously injured. One young man who had survived was sobbing hysterically as he lay in the hospital bed and the camera rolled.

I looked at my younger brother, I admit I was a little hard on the young boy but I couldn't help saying somewhat distastefully, "that's what it means"

That morning our relatives had left in order to clean out the rubble from their home and try to make it as habitable as possible. We worried for them, but the activity on the street told us people were ready to resume their lives, at least partially, despite the ongoing offensive against the city and its people.

Cross-posted on La Repubblica



Here are some typical Gazans who, as refugees, live in more crowded quarters than Safa's family and don't have the means for a kitchen bread-baking session. They risk their lives to line up in the street for bread outside a bakery in the Jabalia refugee camp, northern Gaza Strip. (Photo by Abid Katib/Getty Images for CARE International)

Israeli strikes, North Korean nukes, and conjecture of selective leaks

Journalists need to heed the con in conjecture and be a bit skeptical about rumours and anonymous leaks, backed up by notable cherry-pickers like John Bolton, the neo-con former US ambassador to the United Nations. The BBC diplomatic correspondent, Jonathan Marcus, examines the fallout after the mysterious Israeli incursion into Syrian airspace two weeks ago. Tel Aviv still maintains its official silence while the regional wardrums are throbbing. Condi Rice arrives at noon.

Nearly two weeks on from Israel's incursion into Syrian airspace, the mystery surrounding the operation shows little sign of disappearing.

Press reports suggest strongly that the Israeli jets destroyed a facility near Syria's border with Turkey.

All sorts of details of the operation have "leaked" out, but still the precise nature of the "target" remains unclear.

By far the strongest theory though suggests a North Korean nuclear connection - a linkage which the North Korean authorities have strenuously denied.

The story put about by largely unnamed US sources and backed up by the former US ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, is that North Korea - under international pressure to scale down its own nuclear weapons programme - has recently transferred equipment or technology to Syria.

And it is this equipment - possibly at a fledgling research centre - that the Israelis hit.

'Political agenda'

All sorts of questions remain. Experts on North Korea's nuclear programme are highly sceptical about the alleged technology transfer.

Joseph Cirincione, director for nuclear policy at the Washington-based Center for American Progress, a liberal think-tank, has gone so far as to describe the story as "nonsense".

Selective leaks are being used to play up the Syria-North Korea connection, he writes on the online site of the journal Foreign Policy.

"This appears to be the work of a small group of officials leaking cherry-picked, unvetted 'intelligence' to key reporters in order to promote a pre-existing political agenda. If this sounds like the run-up to the war with Iraq, then it should," he writes.

Gary Samore of the Council on Foreign Relations, another leading North Korea nuclear expert, was less dismissive when I spoke to him, but equally sceptical.

"I know that the Israelis have been worried for some time that the Syrians were eager to get nuclear technology from North Korea," he said.

"The North Koreans are looking to liquidate at least part of their enrichment programme, and perhaps want to offload the centrifuges and so on that they obtained from Pakistan."

So the Syrians might be "dabbling" with enrichment technology, but this would not represent "a near-term threat", Mr Samore says.

"There are North Koreans in Syria in connection with missile technology," he said, but on the nuclear front "we just don't know".

One thing he saw as strange, however, was the possible location of the "target" that the Israelis may have hit.

This seems to have been very close to the border with Turkey - an odd place for a potential nuclear research establishment.

Scepticism needed

Of course much of the controversy - given the fact that the Syrians and the Israelis have said very little (which is instructive in itself) - centres on the nature of the messengers, the shadowy leakers in Washington.

Only one of them, Andrew Semmel, a senior non-proliferation official, has gone on the record, and then there is the involvement of the controversial Mr Bolton.

Critics suggest that at least some of these people have a strong desire to derail the Bush administration's current negotiations with Pyongyang.

For whatever reason, the latest round of the six-party nuclear talks involving the two Koreas has been postponed at the last minute, apparently at the North Koreans' request.

But as Mr Samore pointed out: "Just because John Bolton is using this for political purposes doesn't mean that it is not true."

This episode once again highlights the problems for the media in dealing with this kind of story, problems that were exemplified - one has to admit in retrospect- by the run-up to the invasion of Iraq.

Journalists need copy. But they also have to weigh up what they are told. Official sources cannot simply be discounted.

But on the other hand, a sufficient degree of scepticism needs to be deployed. And just sometimes, that mighty media machine has to admit that it just does not know.

Peripheral players Bolton and Il


(Cross posted from Feral Beast.)