Safa Joudeh writes from Gaza City to a Palestinian friend in the U.S.:
It was just before noon when I heard the first
explosion. I rushed to my window, barely
did I get there and look out when I was pushed back by the force and air
pressure of another explosion. For a few
moments I didn't understand, then I realized that Israeli promises of a
wide-scale offensive against the Gaza Strip had materialized. Israeli Foreign Minister, Tzpi Livni's
statements following a meeting with Egyptian President Hussni Mubarak the day
before yesterday had not been empty threats after all.
What followed seems pretty much surreal at this point. Never had we imagined anything like
this. It all happened so fast but the
amount of death and destruction is inconceivable, even to me and I'm in the
middle of it and a few hours have passed already passed.
6 locations were hit during the air raid on Gaza city. The images are probably not broadcast in US
media. There are piles and piles of
bodies in the locations that were hit.
As you look at them you can see that a few of the young men are still
alive, someone lifts a hand here, and another raise his head there. They probably died within moments because
their bodies are burned, most have lost limbs, some have their guts hanging out
and they're all lying in pools of blood.
Outside my home (which is close to the 2 largest universities in Gaza),
a missile fell on a large group of young men, university students. They'd been
warned not to stand in groups, it makes them an easy target, but they were
waiting for buses to take them home. 7
were killed, 4 students and 3 of our neighbors' kids, young men who were from
the same family (Rayes) and were best friends. As I'm writing this I can hear a
funeral procession go by outside, I looked out the window a moment ago and it
was the 3 Rayes boys. They spent all their
time together when they were alive, they died together and now they're sharing
the same funeral together. Nothing could
stop my 14 year old brother from rushing out to see the bodies of his friends
laying in the street after they were killed.
He hasn't spoken a word since.
What did Olmert mean when he stated that WE the people of Gaza weren't the enemy,
that it was Hamas and the Islamic Jihad who were being targeted? Was that statement made to infuriate us out
of out state of shock, to pacify any feelings of rage and revenge? To mock
us?? Were the scores of children on
their way home from school and who are now among the dead and the injured Hamas
militants? A little further down my
street about half an hour after the first strike 3 schoolgirls happened to be
passing by one of the locations when a missile struck the Preventative Security
Headquarters building. The girls bodies
were torn into pieces and covered the street from one side to the other.
In all the locations people are going through the dead
terrified of recognizing a family member among them. The streets are strewn with their bodies,
their arms, legs, feet, some with shoes and some without. The city is in a state of alarm, panic and
confusion, cell phones aren't working, hospitals and morgues are backed up and
some of the dead are still lying in the streets with their families gathered
around them, kissing their faces, holding on to them. Outside the destroyed buildings old men are
kneeling on the floor weeping. Their
slim hopes of finding their sons still alive vanished after taking one look at
what had become of their office buildings.
And even after the dead are identified, doctors are having a
hard time gathering the right body parts in order to hand them over to their
families. The hospital hallways look
like a slaughterhouse. It's truly worse
than any horror movie you could ever imagine.
The floor is filled with blood, the injured are propped up against the
walls or laid down on the floor side by side with the dead. Doctors are working frantically and people
with injuries that aren't life threatening are sent home. A relative of mine
was injured by a flying piece of glass from her living room window, she had
deep cut right down the middle of her face.
She was sent home, too many people needed medical attention more
urgently. Her husband, a dentist, took
her to his clinic and sewed up her face using local anesthesia
200 people dead in today's air raid. That means 200 funeral processions, a few
today, most of them tomorrow probably.
To think that yesterday these families were worried about food and heat
and electricity. At this point I think
they -actually all of us- would gladly have Hamas sign off every last basic
right we've been calling for the last few months forever if it could have
stopped this from ever having happened.
The bombing was very close to my home. Most of my extended family live in the
area. My family is ok, but 2 of my
uncles' homes were damaged.
We can rest easy, Gazans can mourn tonight. Israel is said to have promised not
to wage any more air raids for now.
People suspect that the next step will be targeted killings, which will
inevitably means scores more of innocent bystanders whose fate has already been
sealed.
This doesn't even begin to tell the story on any level. Just
flashes of thing that happened today that are going through my head.
