Bodies in the rubble, Israel blocks aid

Gazans dig bodies from rubble as cease-fire begins


By Ibrahim Barzak And Alfred De Montesquiou, Associated Press Writers – Sun Jan 18, 3:19 pm ET

JEBALIYA REFUGEE CAMP, Gaza Strip – For Palestinians searching the rubble of this devastated refugee camp, the mounds of concrete and metal hid all they desperately wanted and needed: the bodies of dead relatives, belongings and — bitterly — scraps of bombs now valuable enough to sell as recycled aluminum.

Destruction was everywhere on Sunday, in churned up farmland, dangling electricity poles, charred bodies of cars abandoned on pulverized roads, and broken pipes overflowing with sewage. The stench of rotting corpses, both human and animal, hung in the air.

For three weeks, Israeli airstrikes targeted Hamas militants who have been firing missiles at Israel for the last eight years, smashing much of Gaza's already shabby infrastructure and turning neighborhoods into battle zones.

The fragile cease-fire and first troops withdrawals on Sunday allowed families and medics to intensify the search for bodies — with more than 100 dead recovered Sunday, according to Palestinian health officials. The number of Palestinian dead now stood at more than 1,250, half of those civilians. Thirteen Israelis were killed in the fighting.

For two weeks, ground combat kept residents of Jebaliya like Zayed Hadar from their homes. On Sunday, Hadar searched through his family home with most of his 10 children. The three-story building had been flattened.

"We've pulled out my nephew, but I don't know how many are still under there," Hadar said, as several Israeli tanks rolled in the distance.


Israel kept out aid for Gaza


Jason Koutsoukis in Jerusalem
January 19, 2009
The Sydney Morning Herald

ISRAEL deliberately blocked the United Nations from building up vital food supplies in Gaza that feed a million people daily before the launch of its war against Hamas, according to a senior UN official in Jerusalem.

In a scathing critique of Israeli actions leading up to the conflict, the UN's chief humanitarian co-ordinator in Israel, the former Australian diplomat Maxwell Gaylard, accused Israel of failing to honour its commitments to open its border with Gaza during several months of truce from June 19 last year.

"The Israelis would not let us facilitate a regular and sufficient flow of supplies into the Strip," Mr Gaylard said.

The chief spokesman for Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Yigal Palmor, said the claims were "unqualified bullshit".

Mr Gaylard, who is the UN Special Co-ordinator's Office's most senior representative in Israel, told the Herald that when Israel launched its surprise attack on Gaza on December 27, the UN's warehouses in Gaza were nearly empty, with all food and equipment sitting in nearby port facilities. "The food was in Israel but we couldn't get it in. This is before. The blockade was very tight."

As the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, halted the attacks, declaring Israel had attained its goals in the lethal assault on Gaza that has killed more than 1240 Palestinians - a third of them children