| Submit your comments on this article |
| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| Gazans back in UN schools as Israel resumes blitz |
| 2014-08-09 |
| [ARABNEWS] Cradling his baby daughter, Saeed Masri took flight Friday from renewed Israeli bombardment of Gazoo with little faith that even a UN facility can protect his family. Three hours after a temporary cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, ended, a missile hit the roof of a building opposite the apartment in Jabaliya where he was staying with relatives after his own neighborhood was shelled. "We were in Beit Hanun and were there during the war and the shelling, so after that I came to stay here with my cousins," Masri said as he trudged down the street with his family in tow. It was only a small rocket fired by a drone, intended as a warning for civilians to leave, residents said. It shattered the roof of the building and left no casualties, but an ambulance was parked around the corner in case it was followed by more attacks. Masri heeded the message immediately, packing some food into plastic bags, gathering his wife and five children and setting off down the street to find safety. His eyes darted as he spoke, looking back at the building just hit by the strike, his daughter silent in his arms and with the four other children milling around his legs. He planned to take shelter in a UN-run school to keep his family safe, but he had little hope it would guarantee protection. "The schools aren't safe either, they hit the schools," he said. At least 153 schools in Gazoo, including 90 run by the UN, have been damaged by Israeli air strikes or shelling during the conflict, the UN children's fund UNICEF says. "Why is the whole world sleeping, why?" asked Masri quietly. "Children and women are being targeted, and the world is sleeping." Um Abdullah, 50, who did not give her real name, said she was reluctantly returning to the school she and her family had sheltered in. "We were waiting for a second truce, but it did not come," she sighed. "We waited until the last minute, until 8 am, but it did not come." She had only been able to pack a small bag of clothes and another with some flat bread and tomatoes before fleeing again. She would now stay in the school until a lasting truce was reached. In the Tuffah neighborhood of Gazoo City, families trickled back to another UN-run school after receiving news of the failed truce. Hundreds of refugees from some of the worst-damaged areas have sheltered in the classrooms overlooking a central courtyard. Laundry was hanging from the rooms overlooking the courtyard, where there was a strong smell of sweat and waste. In the courtyard, Abdullah Abdullah ... the former foreign minister of the Northern Alliance government, advisor to Masood, and candidate for president against Karzai. Dr. Abdullah was born in Kabul and is half Tadjik and half Pashtun... , 33, had just arrived back after spending the truce at home. Like Masri, Abdullah was worried for his wife and children. "I'm afraid because the schools were targeted, because young people died, women and kiddies," he said. "We're all scared, I'm scared, my children are scared, my wife is scared." |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #5 The continuing cycle in Gaza summed up in about 1 minute. The Gaza-UN cycle. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2014-08-09 16:10 |
| #4 Yet another dark and stormy night wind blew through the bleak Gaza tenement. Laundry was hanging from the rooms overlooking the courtyard, where there was a strong smell of sweat and waste. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. |
| Posted by: Hupolush Grundy1293 2014-08-09 13:36 |
| #3 Heartwrenching. Most deliberately heartwrenching. And yet the bit Laundry was hanging from the rooms overlooking the courtyard, where there was a strong smell of sweat and waste. makes me wonder why the first order of business was not to organize toilet facilities, with regular dumping of waste into the outside rubble pits between bombardments. While the Palestinian refugees might arguably be too frightened to think beyond their immediate need to take a dump, as 'tis said, the UN personnel are supposed to be made of considerably sterner stuff. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2014-08-09 10:22 |
| #2 Grom, funny how Israelis taking shelter doesn't matter. Only the Paleostinians and their UN enablers - and never is it mentioned the UN "Schools" are unsafe because Hamas uses them to store munitions and fires weaponry from them as well. How long can this outright lie by western media go on without consequence to said media? Do we have to start taking direct action against reporters and editors for lying to us? |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2014-08-09 06:51 |
| #1 No mention, whatsoever, of Residents of southern Israel awoke early Saturday morning to the piercing sound of code red rocket ALERTS, as a barrage of rockets from Gaza targeted their neighborhoods. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2014-08-09 02:14 |