A chilling piece of reporting from Amira Hass, in Haaretz, on the disgraceful treatment of civilians, including wounded civilians, following an Israeli attack on a neighborhood south of Gaza City shortly after the new year.
only on Friday,
January 9, almost seven days after they had been wounded – after
exhausting negotiations on the part of Physicians for Human Rights and phone conversations
conducted by Hussein al Aaidy himself with soldiers or officers in the
Coordination and Liaison Authority for the Gaza Strip – was the first
evacuation allowed: four of the wounded and four escorts.
They walked for about 1.5 kilometers, the healthy ones carrying the
seriously injured on stretchers: The wounds of the children Ragheda and
Nur, who were injured by shrapnel all over their bodies, were beginning
to become infected; they began to lose consciousness. Before their
evacuation, Hussein had cut into Ragheda's flesh with a knife – two of
his brothers held her as she screamed and cried – and sterilized the
wound with salt water. The grandmother, Kamela, shakes her head as she
tells us this, as though she wanted to chase away the memory.
The next day, Saturday morning, a week after they were shelled, the
healthy ones and the two wounded women also left. They understood that
it was dangerous to remain in the area, as "every moment we expected
another shell to fall on us, to be wounded again, perhaps killed,"
explains Hussein, almost apologizing for "abandoning" the house. Their
departure was preceded by negotiations over the phone conducted by Al
Aaidy, who speaks Hebrew, with an officer or soldier in the liaison
office.
"They wanted us to take a six-kilometer detour: I refused," he
recalls. "They demanded that we go south, to the area of Netzarim. I
refused. In the end, they agreed to let us go north, near the Karni
Crossing. But there were conditions: That each of us would be a meter
away from the next person. That we wouldn't stop. That we wouldn't put
down the children, whom we adults were carrying on our backs. That we
wouldn't put down my mother, whom two of us carried together. They told
me: If we can't count the 22 people who left the house, anyone who sees
you from a helicopter or a tank, will fire at you."
