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<font size=3>Lives buried under the rubble in Gaza <br>
Report, <i>PCHR,</i> 19 February 2009 <br>
<a href="http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10325.shtml" eudora="autourl">
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10325.shtml<br><br>
<br>
</a>Maysa al-Louh, 16, sitting on the rubble of her home with the bombed
Sakhnin school in the background. (Sarah Malian/Christian Aid) <br><br>
Three weeks after the Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip, 16-year-old
Maysa al-Louh sits stoically on the pile of sand that consumes half her
home in Beit Lahiya. Under the sand, churned up by Israeli bulldozers
during incursions into the area on 4 January 2009 lie all her report
cards and school awards that were testament to her excellent academic
record.<br><br>
Nearby her grandmother tries to heat water on a pile of ash. The smell of
decomposing chicken carcasses is overwhelming: the family's chicken coop
that provided them with eggs, as well as their vegetable garden, were all
destroyed by the bulldozers and tanks.<br><br>
Thirty-five people lived in the three-story al-Louh house. The contents
of home life -- a refrigerator, notebooks, framed pictures, and plastic
flowers, lie scattered over the area. The adjacent Sakhnin Elementary
School was also damaged by artillery shells and some of its classrooms
are now a masse of mangled chairs, steel rods, shattered concrete and
broken glass. Israel says militants were firing rockets from the school
grounds.<br><br>
"We were trapped in our home for two days while the Israeli army was
based in the school nearby and operating in the area," says Maysa's
32-year-old mother Najat. "I had to give my children water from the
toilet cistern to keep them alive. Then they ordered us to leave our
house."<br><br>
"As soon as we left the house they opened fire on the area and some
of our neighbors were killed. My husband and I said our goodbyes to each
other when the tanks came," Najat adds. "We thought it was the
end."<br><br>
Najat is three months pregnant with her eighth child. Her youngest
daughter Sara who lies listlessly nearby, has been unwell for days, with
vomiting and a high fever. They have been unable to get her to a
doctor.<br><br>
When the family returned to their home after Israel's unilateral
ceasefire they discovered it had been shelled twice and all their animals
killed. 250 meters away, and visible through a hole in the side of the
house, is the toppled minaret of the local mosque, which took a direct
hit. An air strike also hit Beit Lahiya's large Ibrahim al-Maqadmah
mosque on 2 January 2009, killing 16 people and injuring dozens more. A
total of 2,400 homes were completely destroyed during the three week
offensive and over 12,000 were partially damaged.<br><br>
International organizations have established a number of tent camps
around the Gaza Strip. But in search of adequate shelter from the
elements, some displaced and homeless people have moved in with extended
family members in other areas. This is further squeezing Gaza's urban
centers and placing an extra burden on already densely populated areas.
It also means the scale of the problem of internally displaced people in
Gaza is less visibly apparent.<br><br>
On what was the second floor of the house, Najat's sister-in-law Faiza,
44 picks through the remains of their children's clothes. "Sometimes
I wish we'd died rather than this ..." she says. "There were no
militants near our house. Is this not sinful? Destroying homes, bombing
mosques, killing chickens. Is that not sinful?"<br><br>
Maysa has been too upset to study since the end of the offensive.
"She had 99 percent in English, but all her school reports and
prizes are under that sand," says her mother Najat. "What will
happen to her future?" She shows me her bedroom now consumed by a
mound of earth, and the edge of her bed that pokes out of the sand.
"I had a few savings under my mattress," she says. Who knows if
I'll ever find them."<br><br>
<b>International law and the destruction of civilian property<br><br>
</b>"Operation Cast Lead," or what Israel calls its 22-day
offensive on the Gaza Strip between 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009
had a devastating impact on Gaza's physical infrastructure.<br><br>
The preliminary list of damage to civilian property includes:
<ul>
<li>Two thousand and four hundred homes destroyed, and at least 12,000
homes damaged.
<li>Sixty police stations and 30 mosques completely destroyed.
<li>Twenty-one private enterprises, including cafeterias, wedding halls
and hotels.
<li>Twenty-eight public civilian facilities, including ministry
buildings, municipalities and fishing harbors.
<li>One hundred and twenty-one industrial/commercial workshops destroyed
and at least 200 damaged.
<li>Five concrete factories and one juice factory destroyed.
<li>Five media and two health institutions destroyed.
<li>Nine educational facilities including schools damaged or destroyed.
<li>Thousands of dunums (a dunam is the equivalent of 1,000 square
meters) of agricultural land razed to the ground.
</ul><br>
Israel's destruction of property and land belonging to Palestinians has
been a feature of its occupation since 1967 and is in clear violation of
international law. It has also contributed to the steadily deteriorating
humanitarian situation in the occupied territories.<br><br>
Despite Israel's withdrawal of its forces and settlers from the Gaza
Strip in 2005, Israel remains in control of Gaza's seas, external
borders, and airspace. The Gaza Strip is defined as occupied territory in
accordance with international law. Consequently, as the Occupying Power,
Israel remains bound by international humanitarian law. The targeting of
civilian property violates the most basic tenets of humanitarian law, and
is explicitly prohibited by both customary international humanitarian law
and the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949. <br><br>
Article 53 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits the targeting of
civilian property, except where such destruction is rendered
"absolutely necessary by military operations." As the Occupying
Power, Israel has specific legally-binding obligations towards the
civilian population of the Gaza Strip. If the destruction of property is
found to be disproportionate to the direct military advantage gained,
this would constitute a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions.<br><br>
The systematic nature of Israel's destruction of Palestinian civilian
property and its use of heavy artillery, tanks and fighter jets against
heavily populated residential areas has resulted in a disproportionately
high number of civilian deaths and injuries, as well as extensive damage
to civilian objects. The attacks are therefore illegal; they violate the
principles of distinction and proportionality, and as such constitute
grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions.<br><br>
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights is calling upon the High
Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions to fulfill their
obligations under Article 1 of the Fourth Geneva Convention to prevent
such crimes, as well as their legally-binding obligation in accordance
with Article 146 to bring persons alleged of committing grave breaches of
the Geneva Conventions to justice.<br><br>
<i>This report is part of the <a href="http://pchrgaza.ps/">Palestinian
Centre for Human Rights'</a> series "Aftermath" that looks at
the aftermath of Israel's 22-day offensive on the Gaza Strip, and the
ongoing impact it is having on the civilian population.</i> <br><br>
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