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U.N. ceases help after driver killed trying to reach civilians
By Ethan Bronner
New York Times
Published on Friday, Jan 09, 2009
JERUSALEM: International aid groups lashed out at Israel on Thursday over the war in Gaza, saying that access to civilians in need is poor, relief workers are being hurt and killed, and Israel is woefully neglecting its obligations to Palestinians who are trapped, some among rotting corpses in a nightmarish landscape of deprivation.
The United Nations declared a suspension of its aid operations after one of its drivers was killed and two others were wounded despite driving U.N.-flagged vehicles and coordinating their movements with the Israeli military.
And the U.N. Security Council approved a resolution calling for an immediate and durable Gaza cease-fire. Thursday night's vote was 14-0, with the United States abstaining.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for an investigation by Israel for a second time in a week following the more than 40 deaths near a U.N. school from Israeli tank fire on Tuesday.
The International Committee of the Red Cross reported finding what it called shocking scenes Wednesday, including four emaciated children next to the bodies of their dead mothers. In a rare and
sharply critical statement, it said it believed that ''the Israeli military failed to meet its obligation under international humanitarian law to care for and evacuate the wounded.''
Israeli officials said that they were examining all the allegations, that they did not aim at civilians and that they were not certain that the source of fire that killed and wounded the U.N. drivers was Israeli.
''We do our utmost to avoid hitting civilians, and many times we don't fire because we see civilians nearby,'' said Maj. Avital Leibovich, chief army spokeswoman for the foreign media. ''We are holding meetings with U.N. officials to try to work out a mechanism so that their work can go forward.''
She said that the army learned of the Red Cross allegations in a media report and that the Geneva-based committee had not yet presented the evidence of what she called ''these very serious allegations,'' to the army.
A Red Cross spokeswoman, Anne-Sophie Bonefeld, added that when the children and others were rescued on Wednesday, workers had to leave behind a number of bodies. On Thursday, she said, 100 civilians were rescued from the same Gaza City neighborhood. They were not wounded, but they were weakened because of being without food or water for two days.
Death toll: 750
At the end of the 13th day of the war aimed at stopping Hamas rocket fire from Gaza into Israel, the Gaza authorities said that the death toll passed 750.
For the second day in a row, Israel held its fire for three hours during the afternoon to allow in aid. It was during that pause that local ambulance crews and the Red Crescent found dozens of bodies under a collapsed building. Three Israeli soldiers were killed in combat; seven other soldiers have died during the military campaign, and three civilians have been killed by rocket fire.
More rockets flew into Israel and, for the first time since the operation against Hamas began, three rockets were shot from Lebanon into northern Israel. Hezbollah, which fought a war with Israel in 2006 that included thousands of rockets, said it was not responsible.
Efforts to negotiate a cease-fire continued as attention was increasingly focused on the growing humanitarian crisis and on growing anger abroad.
Vatican, Israel clash
Israel condemned a high-ranking Vatican official for comparing Gaza to ''a concentration camp.''
''Look at the conditions in Gaza: more and more, it resembles a big concentration camp,'' Cardinal Renato Martino, the head of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, said in an interview published Wednesday in an online publication.
He defended his comments in the center-left Italian daily La Repubblica on Thursday. While noting that Hamas rockets into Israel were ''certainly not sugared almonds,'' he called the situation in Gaza ''horrific'' and said conditions there went ''against human dignity.''
Israel sharply condemned the cardinal's use of World War II imagery.
''We are astounded that a spiritual dignitary would have such words that are so far removed from truth and dignity,'' said Yigal Palmor, a spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry.
The Vatican sought to play down the remarks, calling them inopportune.
John Holmes, a U.N. emergency-relief coordinator, said in New York that the three-hour daily pause in the fighting permitted by Israel in Gaza was insufficient. He said the Gaza authorities counted 758 fatalities, among them 257 children. The injured totaled 3,100, and 1,080 of them were children.
He added that the Gaza authorities reported that 20,000 were displaced and all were in great need of assistance, but conditions prevented officials from helping them properly. Sewage pumps were not running well because of lack of fuel, and the risk of a major sewage spill was growing.
''The continuing violence is making humanitarian aid increasingly difficult and almost impossible,'' Holmes said.
Antoine Grand, head of Red Cross operations in Gaza, said his organization's workers came under Israeli fire on Thursday.
Israeli officials said they were investigating.
The Jerusalem Post's Web site quoted an Israeli medic as saying the killing of the U.N. driver that contributed to the suspension of aid delivery was the work of a Hamas sniper.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
JERUSALEM: International aid groups lashed out at Israel on Thursday over the war in Gaza, saying that access to civilians in need is poor, relief workers are being hurt and killed, and Israel is woefully neglecting its obligations to Palestinians who are trapped, some among rotting corpses in a nightmarish landscape of deprivation.
Get the full article here.
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Posted 05:30 AM, 01/09/2009
All that has to happen is for the Philistines to stop throwing rocks and David will go home.
