Children of Gaza: stories of those who died and the trauma for those who survived

[DogPoundPup]

Amira Qirm lay on a hospital bed today with her right leg in plaster, and held together by a line of steel pins dug deep into her skin. For several days after her operation Amira, 15, was unable to speak, and even now talks only in a low whisper.

In her past are bitter memories: watching her father die in the street outside their home, then hearing another shell land and kill her brother Ala'a, 14, and her sister Ismat, 16, and then the three days that she spent alone, injured and semi-conscious, trying to stay alive in a neighbour's abandoned house before she could be rescued last Sunday.

Ahead of her, she has a long recovery. First there is an imminent flight to France for the best possible medical treatment, many more operations and then months of rehabilitation and psychiatric care.

Only now, after most of the dead have been buried, is the first properly researched reckoning of the toll emerging. What already stands out is the striking cost borne by the children of Gaza, who make up more than half of the 1.5 million people living in this overcrowded strip of land.

MORE .. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/23/gaza-children-killed-israel

[rustydad]

1. Amazing

That now that Israel and it's attempt at genocide is off the front page all the usual subject shrills (read Zionists employed or directed by IDF) seem to disappear here on DU. Israel is like all violent groups that seeks to dominate either a part of the world or all of the world based on their connection to *god* or for any other reason, it will fail. They are in the long run nothing but a tool of the devil, a devil that does not exist, but whose fictional, imaginary plot they follow. Bob

[Behind the Aegis]

2. So many false statements and hyperbole in such a tidy package.

[DogPoundPup]

3. you're ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBf0lbriOOQ&eurl=http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_29400.shtml

pathetic

[DogPoundPup]

4. here's THE 'tidy package'...

If the Israelis want to get rid of Hamas they will have to be willing to negotiate in good faith.
That means being willing to make concessions, something they have continually demanded of the Palestinians but have been unwilling to do themselves.

Hamas are nasty, muddled and ultimately pointless. But they are not the problem. Israel's intransigence is. Without that there would be no Hamas.

[Behind the Aegis]

5. LOL!

More "pie in the sky."

[azurnoir]

6. So what is opinion of the article? n/t

[oberliner]

7. Which concessions do you think Israel should make?

Are you in favor of the two-state solution?

[Scurrilous]

8. A 14-Year-Old Victim of the Gaza Attacks

This Is the Story of a Girl Named Amira El Kerem, a Victim of the Gaza Assault

<snip>

Reporter's Notebook by SAMMI ZYARA

GAZA CITY, Gaza, Jan. 21, 2009

"Today the Israeli government announced the complete pullout of all its forces from Gaza. The recent conflict, which Israel said was meant to disable the Palestinian group Hamas' ability to fire rockets into Israel, ended with a cease-fire Monday, just before President Barack Obama was inaugurated.

Many in the Middle East are now looking to the new president to restart a peace process between Israelis and Palestinians. The recent conflict, which began with air strikes on Gaza Dec. 27 followed by the invasion by Israeli ground forces, led to 13 Israeli deaths, while over 1,300 Palestinians, many of them children, were killed.

ABC News' producer in Gaza, Sammi Zyara, helped save one such life while reporting on the story."

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