5 Broken Cameras

"5 Broken Cameras" is a film, shot almost entirely by a Palestinian farmer, Emad Burnat. Emad bought his first camera in 2005 to record the birth of his youngest son. He registers life in the Occupied Territories, following his family through five years of village turmoil. Emad watches from behind the lens as olive trees are bulldozed, protests intensify, and lives are lost, through a cycle of five cameras. Each camera gets destroyed in a violent incident.

This is an extraordinary work, a deeply personal, first-hand account of the Palestinian resistance in Bil'in, a West Bank village threatened by encroaching Israeli settlements.

The footage was later given to Israeli co-director Guy Davidi to edit. The film was nominated for "Best Documentary Feature" in the 2013 Academy Awards. (More in this LA Times article)

Update (Feb 22):
Emad Burnat travelled to the US with his wife and son to attend the Oscar's ceremony. He was held up by US immigration on the account of "not having the right invitation", he was eventually released.
Reminded me of my own horror story with US immigration.

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Picture of the Day: Gaza - despite all odds

Palestinian girls look out from the balcony of their house in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.

More Pictures of the Day on The Road

Picture courtesy Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters

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Wanted for war crimes: the Sudanese president.

It's done. The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague has issued an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.

Al-Bashir is charged on two counts of war crimes and five counts of crimes against humanity. This makes him a suspected criminal wanted in the 108 nations who ratified the ICC's Rome Statute. The US is not one of them, by the way, since Bush "unsigned" the US back in 2002.

Bashir is the first head of state to be indicted by the ICC while still in office. (Full)

ICC Prosecutor Moreno-Ocampo said Bashir masterminded and implemented a plan to destroy in substantial part the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawah groups, on account of their ethnicity. "His motives were largely political, his alibi was a ‘counter-insurgency’, his intent was genocide". (Full)

While this is bad news for anyone in the world trying to get away with genocide, even within their own national territorial borders, here is a dark after-thought: Why would this happen for the Sudanese president and not for the leaders of Hamas and Israel who caused the suffering of Gaza civilians. Israel surely scored extra points for a criminal case due to its use of phosphorous bombs and targeting aid convoys, UN facilities and civilians.

How about indicting Bush and his gang on the basis of crimes against humanity? After all, they invaded a country causing thousands of deaths, millions of displaced, and dragging a whole region into violent turmoil? Unilaterally and on basis of forged evidence.

PS: Keep an eye on my predictions on how the situation will evolve inside Sudan.

Update March 5: Trouble already starts: Sudan expels 10 aid agencies
(more updates in the side column)

Discovered via The Road Daily.
Picture courtesy Antony Njuguna/Reuters

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Your graffiti on the Israeli wall: 30 Euros

Back in 2002, the Israeli government started the construction of "The Wall", a combination of wire fences and concrete walls separating Israeli from Palestinian territories. In several places, The Wall is formed by 8 meter high concrete blocks.

"The Wall" was constructed to prevent "the uncontrolled entry of Palestinians into Israel", in a desperate attempt to control the crossing of Palestinian militants and arms.
The Wall has been highly controversial in many ways, not at least because it splits communities into "ghettos" of isolation, while many see cooperation, if not integration, the way to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

The Wall brought one opportunity, a lighter message - literally then: A Dutch-Palestinian project brings people together through wall graffiti. For 30 Euros you can send in your text via SendAMessage. Young Palestinians will spray your message on the wall and send you three digital pictures of the graffiti.

The benefits go to projects of the Palestinian Peace and Freedom Youth Forum putting youth at work in volunteering projects in their society. (Full)

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Picture of the Day: The American School in Gaza

[Ed: no comment]

More Pictures of the Day on The Road.
Picture courtesy AP

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Who said the UN is only taking sides against Israel?

United Nations Humanitarian Affairs Chief John Holmes blasted Hamas for its "cynical" use of civilian facilities during recent hostilities in the Gaza Strip.

"The reckless and cynical use of civilian installations by Hamas and indiscriminate firing of rockets against civilian populations are clear violations of international humanitarian law," Holmes told the UN Security Council. (Full)

Picture courtesy AP Photo

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Amnesty International accuses Israel

In two separate cases, Amnesty International accuses Israel of not respecting international conventions during the recent Gaza conflict:

Under the Geneva Conventions, medical personnel searching, collecting, transporting or treating the wounded should be protected and respected in all circumstances. Common Article 3 of the Conventions says that the wounded should be collected and cared for, including combatants who are hors de combat.

These provisions of international law have not been respected during the recent three-week conflict in the Gaza Strip. Emergency medical rescue workers, including doctors, paramedics and ambulance drivers, repeatedly came under fire from Israeli forces while they were carrying out their duties. At least seven were killed and more than 20 were injured while they were transporting or attempting to collect the wounded and the dead. (Full)

The Israeli army’s use of white phosphorus in densely populated civilian areas of Gaza has captured much of the world’s media interest. However, the Israeli forces also used a variety of other weapons against civilian residential built-up areas throughout the Gaza Strip in the three-week conflict that began on 27 December.

Among these are flechettes - tiny metal darts (4cm long, sharply pointed at the front and with four fins at the rear) that are packed into 120mm shells. (...)

Flechettes are an anti-personnel weapon designed to penetrate dense vegetation and to strike a large number of enemy soldiers. They should never be used in built-up civilian areas. (Full)

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Gaza: Did Israel want a human(itarian) crisis?

Ben White wrote a provocative opinion piece in the Guardian, under the title "Israel wanted a humanitarian crisis:"

Targeting civilians was a deliberate part of this bid to humiliate Hamas and the Palestinians, and pulverise Gaza into chaos.(...)

First, to what this war on Gaza is not about: it's not about the rockets. During the truce last year, rocket fire from the Gaza Strip was reduced by 97%, with the few projectiles that were fired coming from non-Hamas groups opposed to the agreement. Despite this success in vastly improving the security of Israelis in the south, Israel did everything it could to undermine the calm, and provoke Hamas into a conflict.(...)

Estimates for the proportion of civilian deaths among the 1,360 Palestinians killed range from more than half to two-thirds. Politicians, diplomats and journalists are by and large shying away from the obvious, namely that Israel has been deliberately targeting Palestinian civilians and the very infrastructure of normal life, in order to – in the best colonial style – teach the natives a lesson. (Full)

Another clip, also published in The Guardian, features an audio-slides about the use of phosphorous shells in the bombing of the Gaza UN school.

Discovered via The Road Daily.

Picture courtesy PopulistAmerica

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Gaza: How "collateral" is the collateral damage?

Collateral damage is defined as: "Unintentional or incidental injury or damage to persons or objects that would not be lawful military targets in the circumstances ruling at the time. Such damage is not unlawful so long as it is not excessive in light of the overall military advantage anticipated from the attack."

Now look at this extract from the latest UN situation report in Gaza:

As of 12 January, there were five UNRWA [Ed: UN Relief and Works Agency] staff fatalities and three UNRWA contractor fatalities due to the fighting since 27 December.
There were also four UNRWA staff and four UNRWA contractors injured. One WFP [Ed: UN World Food Programme] contractor was killed and two others were injured.

At least 49 UN buildings have sustained damage during the fighting; one international NGO partner clinic has reportedly been destroyed; and several NGO compounds have been damaged. There have also been at least four incidents of aid convoys being hit by gunfire. (Full)

Now I ask you: how collateral is this really? Can this still be understood as "unintentional" and "incidental"?

See also Civilian and aid worker casualties on the rise in Gaza.

Picture courtesy AFP

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Gaza: UN aid headquarters shelled

The UNRWA headquarters in Gaza was shelled by Israeli forces today, injuring three employees and setting fire to warehouses of badly-needed aid.

This happened while UN chief Ban Ki-moon arrived in Israel, who commented to be "outraged". The UN operations in Gaza were temporarily suspended.

The fire, which was still raging hours later, destroyed an estimated "tens of millions of dollars worth of aid," the UN spokesperson said.

The UN is trying to evacuate the 700 people who took refuge in the compound.

The UN claims an other phosphorous shell landed in the compound, near the fuel depot.
Under international law phosphorous bombs can not be used in the vicinity of civilians. (See earlier post)

Another humanitarian group, CARE International, said it too had been forced to suspend all deliveries of food and medical supplies due to heavy bombardment in and around its warehouses and distribution sites in Gaza City. (Full)

More posts on The Road about Gaza

Picture courtesy Mohammed Saber/European Pressphoto Agency

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Gaza: the face of war.

While the political rhetoric, misinformation and propaganda about the Israel-Palestinian conflict continues, we should not forget the human aspect of the suffering. Let's put faces on a war:

From Times online: "Gaza families eat grass as Israel locks border".

As a convoy of blue-and-white United Nations trucks loaded with food waited last night for Israeli permission to enter Gaza, Jindiya Abu Amra and her 12-year-old daughter went scrounging for the wild grass their family now lives on.

“We had one meal today - khobbeizeh,” said Abu Amra, 43, showing the leaves of a plant that grows along the streets of Gaza. “Every day, I wake up and start looking for wood and plastic to burn for fuel and I beg. When I find nothing, we eat this grass.”

Abu Amra and her unemployed husband have seven daughters and a son. Their tiny breeze-block house has had no furniture since they burnt the last cupboard for heat.

“I can’t remember seeing a fruit,” said Rabab, 12, who goes with her mother most mornings to scavenge. She is dressed in a tracksuit top and holed jeans, and her feet are bare.

From CNN: "Aid worker: Gaza blockade lacks all humanity"

I arrived in Israel yesterday to work with Mercy Corps, an international aid organization, to assist the Gazans who are suffering from the conflict and over 18 months of harsh blockades that have left their cupboards bare and their banks empty of cash. (...)

In 2007 an average of 500 trucks a day entered Gaza with food and supplies. In comparison, yesterday, just 36 humanitarian trucks were allowed access to Gaza. With almost the entire population of 1.5 million Gazans dependent on humanitarian assistance, it is obvious that the incoming aid is not even remotely adequate.

We have spent the past 11 days working through Israeli red tape and protocols that seemed to change daily, to secure the permission to deliver food aid. We have a truck filled with rice, cooking oil, canned tuna fish and edible dates that will feed 2,000 people for about a week.

Yesterday the delivery was supposed go through but at 2:00 a.m. we received notice from the Israeli authorities that the delivery was being postponed because it contained edible dates as part of the package.

From AP: "Gaza medics face war's carnage daily"

Few are more exposed to the carnage of Israel's two-week military offensive than Gaza's medics, who number around 400 including volunteers. They work long hours, get little sleep and risk their lives daily. Many have lost friends and family, but the overwhelming workload leaves no time to process what they've seen.

Awaiting coordination with Israel often delays access to the injured, medics said. Some reported finding people stranded in their homes for days, or bodies lying in the streets uncollected.

"Disgusting is not the word," said Shawki Saleh, 24, a volunteer medic at Kamal Adwan hospital. "If it's not a dog, it's rats around the bodies. ... I've been doing this volunteer work for two years but I never imagined I'd see this. Who knows how many people are still under the rubble. We were carrying them out screaming."

In one long workday, medic Haitham Adgheir carried five corpses, saw six more at a Gaza hospital, and his medical convoy took Israeli tank fire that showered a driver with glass.

"My mind is like a video of body parts and injured people," said Adgheir, 33.

Picture courtesy Ismail Zaydah/Reuters

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The war in Gaza escalates. Civilian and aid worker casualties on the rise. Words "Crimes Against Humanity" coming up.

Today Israel dropped bombs and leaflets on Gaza, pounding suspected rocket sites and tunnels used by Hamas militants and warning of a wider offensive despite frantic diplomacy to end the bloodshed. It is clear this conflict is nowhere near to the end (Full)

Rejecting Friday's UN Security Council resolution that called for an immediate and durable cease-fire, Israel and Hamas continued to fight. Israeli jets and troops attacked Hamas targets in Gaza, and Palestinian militants fired about 30 rockets into southern Israel. (Full)

Meanwhile, the international community is building up criticism on Israel's indiscriminate targeting of civilians and aid workers:

• ICRC (the International Committee of the Red Cross) stated Israel has violated its obligations under international humanitarian law by refusing to assist civilians wounded in its attacks on the Gaza Strip. In the Zaytun neighborhood of Gaza City, ICRC workers found four small children next to their dead mothers in one of the houses. They were too weak to stand up on their own. One man was also found alive, too weak to stand up. ICRC stated "The Israeli military must have been aware of the situation but did not assist the wounded." (Full)
• On December 30, several Israeli gunboats intercepted a ship with aid supplies, the SS Dignity, in international waters. The ship carried international medical aid workers and three tonnes of medical supplies. One Israeli gunboat is believed to have rammed the boat on the port bow side, heavily damaging her. (Full)
• On Friday night, an Israeli drone missile hit a car from the Norwegian People's Aid (NPA), an international NGO. NPA stated the car was clearly marked with the NPA logo, and that it was impossible not to recognize that this was a humanitarian vehicle. The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated the incident as a clear violation of international law. (Full)
• Earlier this week, an ambulance belonging to an Oxfam partner organisation was hit by an Israeli shell, killing one aidworker, and injuring two others. (Full)
• A CARE aidworker was killed on January 6th in an aerial bombing. Mohammed Ibrahim Samouni, a father of six, was killed and his son was critically injured. (Full)
• Also last week, an Israeli tank shelled a clearly marked UN school, leaving 43 Palestinians civilian dead and almost 150 injured. 1,600 people were taking shelter in the school, according to the UN, who confirmed there were only civilians in the school, which was clearly marked with a UN flag and its GPS location was duely reported to the Israeli authorities. (Full)
• Human Rights Watch accused Israel of using white-phosphorus munitions during its offensive in the Gaza Strip and warned of the risk to Palestinian civilians who live near the fighting. The use of white-phosphorus in densely populated areas of Gaza violates international humanitarian law (Full)
  
• On Thursday a aidworker was killed after a UN relief agency convoy came under fire from Israeli forces. The attack took place as the lorries travelled to the Erez border crossing to pick up supplies. The incident happened during an Israel approved three hour seize fire aimed at allowing humanitarian aid to move into Gaza. This eventually caused UNRWA, the main UN agency providing aid to the Palestinians, to suspend all food aid. (Full)
• Israeli forces shelled a house in which they had moved around 110 Palestinians into 24 hours earlier. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) called it "one of the gravest incidents" since the beginning of the offensive. 30 people were killed. (Full)
• Similar incidents were singled out by Navi Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. She called for independent investigations into possible war crimes committed by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip. "I am concerned with violations of international law. Incidents such as this must be investigated because they display elements of what could constitute war crimes," Pillay told the press. (Full)
• As many as 257 children have been killed and 1,080 wounded (a third of the total casualties since Dec. 27) according to U.N. figures released on Thursday. (Full)

The UN humanitarian situation report on Gaza of Jan 9th summarizes the numbers: 800 dead, 3,300 injured and over 21,000 people displaced within Gaza.

Picture courtesy Mohammed Salem (ABCNews)

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Gaza: the wrongs and rights of killing civilians.

The Economist questions the proportionality of Israel's response to the Hamas rocket attacks:

In the arithmetic of death, the latest fight between Israel and Hamas has been an unequal contest: more than 350 Palestinians killed in Israeli air strikes in the first four days, many of them civilians, against four Israelis killed by Hamas’s rockets. But does such one-sided bloodshed make Israel guilty of using “disproportionate force”, as argued by, among others, Amnesty International and Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, just ending his six-month presidency of the European Union?

Proportionality is intimately bound up with notions of the just war, and has been enshrined in treaties regulating warfare’s conduct since the Hague Convention of 1907. But familiar as it is, proportionality is a slippery idea. It has two different meanings in Western theory. On the grounds for going to war, jus ad bellum, the cause must be important enough to justify force; any good that will follow must outweigh the inevitable pain and destruction. In the conduct of war, jus in bello, any action must weigh the military gain against the likely harm to civilians. (Full)

This is the more to be questioned as today two UN schools were hit by Israeli missiles, killing over 30 people.

Maxwell Gaylard, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territory, issued a statement saying:

"These tragic incidents need to be investigated, and if international humanitarian law has been contravened, those responsible must held accountable." (Full)

Meanwhile, Israel insisted there is no humanitarian crisis for the Palestinians living in Gaza, a statement contradicted by the UN humanitarian chief:

"This is, in our view, a humanitarian crisis. It's very hard for me to see any other way you could describe it, given the conditions in which the population are living." (Full)

Check the latest UN situation report on Gaza.
Join the discussion thread about Gaza on The Road's forum.

Discovered via AidNews
Picture courtesy Muhammed Muheisen/AP Photo

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Mapping the war in Gaza

Al Jazeera tracks the war in Gaza using a Ushahidi-like interface, combining input from news bulletins and live reports coming in via Twitter and SMS.

Discovered via Black Looks

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UN official on the Gaza conflict: "The extremists will benefit"

Lakhdar Brahimi, a senior UN politician/troubleshooter and a former Algerian foreign minister, gave an interesting interview in The Nation.

Why did this conflict happen now? Who will win, who will loose, in the end? What is the potential role of the US, Europe and Middle Eastern powers? Why has Obama not reacted?

What will happen in the West Bank as the result of the assault on Gaza?

If the past is anything to go by, these kind of total attacks that do so much harm to civilians generally reinforce the so-called extremists, not the moderates. I think it was said in Ha'aretz that no military action has reinforced the moderates in the history of Israel. One has to suppose that in this particular case Hamas will come out politically reinforced, no matter how much they will lose militarily. That is true not only in Gaza but also in the West Bank.

I'm afraid it will be true also in the rest of the Arab world. The Islamist political movements in the Arab world live really on the lack of success of the so-called moderates, the people who are cooperating with the West. They thrive on their failures, an in particular on their total impotence to help the people of Palestine. I'm sure that from Morocco to Indonesia really, the Islamists will gain capital out of this. (Full)

See also the UN situation report on Gaza
Join the discussion threat about the Gaza conflict on The Road's forum.


Articles discovered via AidNews. Picture courtesy BBC

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Gaza: Ripped apart by bullets.

A Palestinian family on their balcony in the Rafah refugee camp between Egypt and the Gaza strip. U.N. Security Council calls for an immediate halt to all violence in territory. (Full)

More Pictures of the Day on The Road.

Picture courtesy Mohammed Saber-EPA

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Israeli raids on Gaza heaviest for decades

Israeli F-16 bombers have pounded key targets across the Gaza Strip, killing more than 200 people, local medics say.

About 700 others were wounded, as missiles struck security compounds and militant bases.

Israeli PM Ehud Olmert said the operation "may take some time"- but he pledged to avoid a humanitarian crisis. "It's not going to last a few days," he said in a televised statement. An other statement said "Israel was responding to an escalation in rocket attacks from Gaza and would bomb as long as necessary".

These were the heaviest Israeli attacks on Gaza for decades. (Full)

Picture courtesy AFP

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News: Gaza, the sad facts of a forgotten crisis.

A UN report today states:

Following the resumption of violence on 4 November 2008, Israel has intensified to an unprecedented level the blockade on the Gaza Strip, imposed in June 2007. The 18-month long blockade has created a profound human dignity crisis, leading to a widespread erosion of livelihoods and a significant deterioration in infrastructure and essential services. The consequences for the Palestinian population are profound, pervasive and difficult to reverse.

The daily lives of most of 1.5 million Gazans are increasingly consumed by completing the most basic tasks, such as collecting and storing clean water, and searching for food, fuel and other essential supplies.

Residents of Gaza City are without power for up to 16 hours each day.

Half of Gaza City’s population is receiving water only once a week for a few hours. 80% of the water supplied in Gaza already does not meet the WHO standards for drinking.

Unemployment has risen to almost 50%. Only 23 out of 3,900 industrial enterprises are currently operational. 70% of agricultural land in Gaza are no longer being irrigated, leading to desertification.

20% of essential drugs are currently at zero level

The average Gazan household now spends two thirds of its income on food. 56% of Gaza’s population is food insecure. (Full)

And to make matters worse, the blockade and renewed fighting forced the UN to suspend its food aid deliveries (again). (Full)

Picture courtesy KabobFest

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News: The State Of the World Today...

I might be bitching on the snowstorm or my flight delays yesterday, but this is nothing compared to the sad state of affairs in the world.

A grab out of the humanitairan turmoil today. Were you aware?

• The crisis in Congo starts taking the shape of a genocide (Full)
• Children dying in Haiti, victims of food crisis (Full)
• 5 million people in Afghanistan now dependent on food aid (Full)
• Jordan rings the alarm bell on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza (Full)
• Zimbabwe is on the virge of collapse (Full)
• 17 million people are in urgent need of food in the Horn of Africa. (Full)

Picture courtesy Logan Abassi (MINUSTAH)

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News: Desmond Tutu: "Israel raid could be war crime"

A report to the UN Human Rights Council on Israel's shelling of Beit Hanoun in Gaza almost two years ago says it may have been a war crime. The report compiled by Archbishop Desmond Tutu casts doubt on Israel's explanation that the shelling resulted from a flawed artillery firing system. It calls on Israel to pay compensation to the victims, 19 of whom were killed.

The Israeli military, which was at the time trying to prevent rocket attacks by Palestinian militants, says its own inquiry shows the shelling of Beit Hanoun was caused by technical errors, but Archbishop Tutu's report is sceptical.Mr Tutu says there is evidence of a disproportionate and reckless disregard for Palestinian civilian life, contrary to international humanitarian law, which raises concerns that a war crime may have been committed.

"In the absence of a well-founded explanation from the Israeli military - who is in sole possession of the relevant facts - the mission must conclude that there is a possibility that the shelling of Beit Hanoun constituted a war crime," his report to the UN Human Rights Council said.

The report calls for an independent investigation into the shelling. (Full)


More posts on The Road about Palestine.

Picture courtesy BBC/Getty Images

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