did you know?

Last week I went to a reportback meeting from Gaza with Reem Salahi of the National Lawyers Guild, who went on a fact-finding delegation to look for evidence of Israeli war crimes. (Surprise! They found some.)

Here are some new tidbits to add to the atrocity file:

1. On the first day of the "war," Israel bombed the only forensic lab in Gaza. Along with most of the police stations, it was one of the first things hit. This, along with Israel's policy of making it as difficult as possible to recover the bodies of the dead in a timely manner, has made it hard to collect the kind of empirical evidence of specific war crimes that would stand up to a tribunal of any sort, were one actually to be convened.

2. The Israeli military has the GPS coordinates of every UN facility in Gaza--every school, warehouse, administrative building, etc. Every UN building is also required by law to have "UN" painted in huge letters on its roof. This is supposed to keep military forces from doing things like, oh, say, this or this.

Furthermore, John Ging, the director of UN operations in the area, was in direct communication with Israeli military commanders just minutes before the UN compound in Gaza City was hit. I'd imagine the conversation went something like this:

John: Um, your air strikes are getting really close. Could you please not bomb us?
IDF: Don't worry. We have your coordinates. We won't bomb you.
John: Okay, cool. Just checking in, since we have civilians taking shelter here because you destroyed their homes, and thousands of tons of food and medicine stored in our warehouses, and two fuel tankers in the compound that will explode and kill us all if you bomb them.
IDF: Don't worry, we won't bomb you.

Apparently, two brave volunteers decided not to take any chances and risked their lives to move the fuel trucks out of the compound. Minutes later, the warehouse was hit by an Israeli air strike, and thousands of tons of aid burned.

Speaking of which...

3. Okay, I had heard some about this one before the reportback, but full outrageousness of the situation is only becoming more apparent with time. The main problem facing Gazans now is an acute lack of even basic humanitarian aid. This is not a problem of lack of will or money on the part of aid organizations or the UN. Oh, no. There are TENS OF THOUSANDS OF TONS of food, medicine, blankets, tents, and construction materials waiting at the borders of Gaza. But Israel and Egypt control the borders, and they are not letting anything in.

Tons upon tons of food aid is literally rotting in El-Arish, the nearest Egyptian city to Gaza, as Israel allows in only the tiniest trickle of "essential" items, a ludicrously small sliver of what is needed. Among the items deemed "non-essential," and thus barred entirely: chocolate, jam, fruit juice, toilet paper, soap, pasta, lentils, honey, and cigarettes, along with glass, concrete, cement and steel--which are all, of course, needed to rebuild people's homes.

This is not a humanitarian crisis. It is a political crisis completely manufactured by Israel and its allies. The borders should be opened IMMEDIATELY and COMPLETELY.

If you would like to call the Egyptian embassy in DC and ask why they are withholding aid from Gaza by keeping the Rafah border crossing closed, their number is (202) 895-5400, fax (202) 244-5131/(202) 244-4319.