Yesterday, Mona El Farra wrote from Gaza:

Gaza 11-3-2012 4pm

The Israeli army continues its military attacks against the Gaza Strip. The attacks started Friday, March 10 at 5:30pm. I heard the first terrible explosion as I drove back to Gaza City from Khan Younis. There was a lot of smoke, shattered windows, and a fire in this blue car that was targeted by a missile from an Israeli drone. These offensive acts, though sup­pos­edly targeting Pales­tin­ian armed resis­tance men, are illegal according to inter­na­tional law. Every human is entitled a trial.

As usual, the entire civilian pop­u­la­tion including women and children, pays the highest price and bears the brunt of this terrible situation. Already several children have been killed, one was on his way to school when he was hit by shrapnel.

Our concern is not just the attacks but also the lack of med­ica­tions and supplies. If Israel continues this operation, the number of causal­i­ties will increase. The toll is 16 dead and 30 injured until this minute.

Gaza’s pop­u­la­tion already lives in a dire human­i­tar­ian situation. We are still under Israel’s military occu­pa­tion and the internal conflict between Pales­tin­ian political groups is not solved. But worst of all, the gov­ern­ments of the world are silent and indifferent.

We at the Red Crescent Society of the Gaza Strip and the Middle East Children’s Alliance appeal to the inter­na­tional community, and to our friends and sup­port­ers to spread the word about what is happening now in Gaza and pressure your gov­ern­ments to stop these attacks soon.

The human­i­tar­ian situation in Gaza is on the verge of collapse, the military attacks continue while we lack elec­tric­ity and our medical facil­i­ties and hospitals have little amounts of fuel to operate their backup gen­er­a­tors. We have insuf­fi­cient med­ica­tions. 186 basic med­ica­tions are lacking in our phar­ma­cies. Besides the insuf­fi­cient medical supplies, children in the special neonatal intensive care units as well as renal dialysis patients are in great danger due to the power outage. Our cancer patients are dying unnec­es­sar­ily, unable to have their treat­ments. Our diabetic and asthmatic patients, as well as many others with chronic illnesses who need their med­ica­tions regularly cannot get it. The list of the victims is too long to mention.

Please act imme­di­ately to stop this attack against Gaza pop­u­la­tion. You have been always great sup­port­ers and showed your sol­i­dar­ity, at the most difficult times.

Yours sincerely

Dr. Mona ElFarra

Vice President, Red Crescent Society for the Gaza Strip

As usual, Israel started the assault by assas­si­nat­ing Pales­tin­ian militants. I will use the Israeli ter­mi­nol­ogy, as there is nothing wrong with it. The men Israel assas­si­nated in the ongoing coun­terin­sur­gency campaign that is euphemisti­cally called the Israel-Palestine conflict were people who, when they are not living with their families, are mil­i­tantly defending their homeland. There is nothing wrong with that.

The usual rogue’s gallery, ever-eager to aggravate the race war, has weighed in to condemn the retal­ia­tory rocket fire out of Gaza. Their words are worthless when their deeds make that rocket fire almost inevitable. One result of the Egyptian insur­rec­tion is that the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces now has to make an occa­sional gesture to popular sentiment to take the boil off the social pressure that is slowly building against its col­lab­o­ra­tionist policies. Thus Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr said that “Egypt is highly dis­traught by the Israeli attacks…Egypt is currently exerting efforts and making crucial calls for an immediate end to this Israeli esca­la­tion to end bloodshed of our brothers.” Trans­lated into English that means, Israel, when you bomb a territory full of Arabs right next to our own our people notice. The Muslim Broth­er­hood and Salafi-dominated par­lia­ment passed a motion calling for the expulsion of the Israeli ambas­sador to Egypt and the halting of gas exports to Israel.

Neither will happen, as the par­lia­ment is powerless. But the pressure is not just building in Cairo but elsewhere: in El Arish sol­i­dar­ity marches took place today and more are planned for later this week. El Arish is a medium sized city an hour from the Egyptian border with Gaza. There, Muslim Broth­er­hood cadres are also more sym­pa­thetic to the Pales­tin­ian struggle than they are in places further afield where the impacts of Egyptian policies lack such clear immediacy. The Egyptian lead­er­ship, trying to calm the situation, offered Pales­tini­ans in Gaza fuel if a “ceasefire” takes hold. The Popular Resis­tance Com­mit­tees are rejecting a “ceasefire” until they can extract a promise that Israel will refrain from targeting their militants and lead­er­ship. They will never get that promise merely from nego­ti­a­tions. Indeed, Israel insists that it will not stop “pre­ven­tive targeting” oper­a­tions: “The Israeli army will continue to attack the ter­ror­ists in Gaza with strength and deter­mi­na­tion,” said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In other words, Israel will attack at will and reject on principle any ceasefire with the Pales­tini­ans in Gaza. Meanwhile the death toll inches upwards: 25 since Friday, with over thrice that injured.

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