RAFAH TODAY

8.30 p.m.: She went to buy some sweets from the grocer's. Her mother just gave her pocket money - a half shekel - (10% of 1 dollar) to buy some sweets from the neighboring grocer in Al Brazil Camp. She didn’t know that going to the grocer's would cost her her life. But that was what had happened to 3 year old Rawan Abu Zaed. Two bullets:one in her neck and the other right through her head. I interviewed a man standing close to me. He seemed in great pain ss he said: "I saw her get shot with my own two eyes. Yes I saw that innocent child wearing a blue blouse and trouser and no shoes. My legs could not carry me towards her because of the blood which was pouring out like a fountain." [...] By telephone 3 p.m. Rafah time: The journalists are surrounded near the Taha Hussein school. The IOF is refusing to let them move and they are all surrounded. Internationals, Israeli, local. All journalists. The Red Cross today is calling on the world to expose the crimes of the occupation. They were outraged at the murder of people inside their homes. They are not even asking people to come out of their homes before they demolish them. There is sniper shooting all the time besides the shelling. Anything moving is shot. The worst shooting is at night in particular. Any light in any window is a target for sniper shooting, so we all leave our lights turned off - of course whenever we do have electricity. They just shoot randomly and in all directions, and it does not matter who gets shot. The situation is far worse than anyone can imagine. Food and water supplies are scarce, and so are medical supplies. [...] News flash: Israeli newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth online wrote that Israeli Justice Yousef Lapid said: "The picture of an elderly Palestinian woman in Rafah searching on all fours for her medication after her house was demolished reminded him of his grandmother." Justice Minister Yosef Lapid on Sunday harshly criticized Israel's demolition of Palestinian homes in the Gaza Strip, saying it must end and warned that it could seriously damage Israel's standing in the world. Specifying the potential damage in the international community, Lapid said: "Israel must halt the destruction, and the demolition of houses in Rafah must stop. It is not humane, not Jewish, and causes us grave damage in the world. At the end of the day, they'll kick us out of the United Nations, try those responsible in the international court in The Hague, and no one will want to speak with us."

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Home demolitions in Rafah

The Rape of Rafah
All This...for What?
by Uri Avnery

The immense might of the Israeli army, assembled from all over the country, has attacked a small Palestinian township on the margin of the destitute Gaza Strip. Palestinians, both fighters and civilians, are being killed by the dozen, homes are being destroyed wholesale, the sight of the fleeing population bring back memories of 1948. All this--for what?

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Residents seethe as dead go unburied
by Amira Hass

They must pay the price
by Gideon Levy

On a day when bodies of children were being stuffed into a big refrigerator used to store potatoes, and when thousands of homeless people were fleeing for their lives (some of them refugees rendered homeless for the second or third time), life in Israel went on as usual, as though what was happening in Rafah was not being done in the name of the country's citizens. Such apathy renders all of us responsible - and yet there are some who bear a heavier burden of responsibility. In a climate less lax than the one which has gripped Israel in recent years, they would be ostracized.

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We're in bad hands

It is incredible how the commanders of such an experienced army have walked straight into their own booby trap. Many humble non-combatants have discreetly asked themselves this week what the point is of the operation in Rafah. How could it possibly succeed? How could something not go wrong?

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