Operation Cast Lead: An Eyewitness Account
December 8, 2009 by politicaltheatrics
Filed under Western Imperialism
Admins Comments:
The following is a copy of an exchange between myself and a Palestinian male named Abdallah who is currently living in the Gaza Strip. This is a personal account filled with very raw and emotional accounts, and due to these facts the interview was conducted over a 4 day period.
I began the conversation by asking typical questions concerning logistics; Abdallah is from a small village in Gaza known as Dair Al Balah which has a population of around 62,000 men ,women and children.
I must say,before you continue on to the interview, that this was a very stirring dialogue and there were moments where breaks were taken in order for Abdallah to compose himself so we could continue the interview. This was not just a war, but a massacre and it is still fresh on the minds of not only Gazan’s but all Palestinians.
The following is a PoliticalTheatrics exclusive not found anywhere else but here. If you wish to use this interview elsewhere please contact me.
A: I was on my way back from teaching at school.
Abdallah is technology teacher at a school in the Gaza Strip.
Q: What happened which led you to believe that there was a war?
A: Helicopters were in the sky and they were bombing everywhere, that’s how we first knew it was war. People started to run in the streets. Kids shouting. Women crying. Many fell down in the streets and cars exploded. It was like a nightmare.
Q: You said you were coming from school,tell me about what occurred thereon:
A:While I was walking back from school it looks like they had been bombing everywhere so I took another way home. And while I was walking I saw Apache helicopters in the sky and I saw the rockets shining out of them.
All the way home they were bombing most of the villages in the Gaza Strip; they wanted to hit us like a stroke, all the places at the same time. There were two to four helicopters for every village in Gaza and sometimes more.
Q: What transpired once you arrived home?
A: When I got home I found all my sisters crying so hard. Our windows were broken and the telephone service was down; the houses were shaking from the continuous bombing and then we started to see smoke everywhere. Then we heard that many guys from our neighborhood were dead. I asked my Mom to sit down and hold my sisters and then I went to the local hospital to see who was killed.
The sky on the outside of the hospital looked almost black, it was like a earthquake hit the place.
At the hospital I saw that many were injured and killed, the beds in the hospital were not enough and many were on the floor. Some of the injured and killed were in pieces, no-one recognized them and until now some are missing because they couldn’t find their bodies.
Q: Can you give me an overview of what Israel did once the war began?
A: They began to hack into our phone networks and spy on our conversations, and they attacked our radio waves saying that they will hit every house that had a fighter in it.
Then they cut off our cooking gas. We didn’t have cooking gas so we can cook with; the gas was cut after two weeks and so we had to start fires with cardboard and wood.We had to cook on primitive tools which cause much smoke and was not healthy.
They Israeli’s have planes without pilot , like spying planes (drones) , which kept flying in the sky , and the planes had rockets which hit all the time and the sound of it was so strong and so scary we kept hearing explosions the whole day.
My little sisters were so scared that they didn’t even want to go to the bathroom by themselves. We couldn’t go to school or the market and smoke was always everywhere. Hospitals were filled with dead and injured.
Israel literally wiped out entire houses and families and made sure to hit over crowded areas.
Q: What was happening to your parents (etc) and how were they reacting to the situation?
A: My mom was crying everyday and my dad was so worried. We spent many nights in total darkness because there was no electricity, and we couldn’t find anything to give light. Imagine it being night-time and being in the dark, hearing the sounds of F16′s and bombs – it’s really scary.
When there was anyone who was sick we couldn’t go to the hospital anymore or the pharmacy and everyday we would wake up to either the sounds of planes or bombing.
Q: Did you go outside during the bombing at all? If so,what did you see?
A: Yes,I had to sometimes so I can bring food for my family or to check on people from my family who lived away from us.
There were people who were sleeping in the streets because they didn’t have a home anymore from the bombing.
I remember once seeing more than 5 helicopters in the sky,smoke everywhere – crying mothers calling out for their kids, wives without husbands, kids without parents. It was really horrible.
Q: How did you get your food during the bombardment?
A: We could hardly reach the markets so we had to depend on whatever we had left in the house,mostly simple food like beans and bread.
We tried to share food with other families,as much as possible. But food wasn’t available in amounts that allowed us to do it frequently.
Q: What did you all do in terms of water?
A: We only got to use water for important matters and didn’t shower as we would for normal days. There was not as much water because the pipes were being broken during the bombing.
Q: How did your community act? Was there a sense of unity?
A: Yes of course. We shared what we had,cooked together sometimes using the same resources.
When a house was hit some of us went to schools with them and sometimes more than 20 people had to sleep in one classroom. In all of this there was a big problem and it was movement within the strip. Everyone else slept together in the streets.
Israel cut Gaza into three parts: The North,The Middle and The South.
No one could move from the North to the South etc
Q: How did you know that the war was over? What did you do once it was over?
A: We tried to follow the news and the radio,then we heard the bombs stopped.
After it was over we were shocked, it was the hardest time we ever had. Imagine sleeping and waking up to death and bombs everyday. The Israeli’s used many strong weapons and to be honest it was a war from one side.
We went to visit each others houses afterwards only to see destroyed houses, then we went to check on the rest of the destroyed villages.
Q: What did this war teach you?
A: It taught me that this world is so damn blind and so unfair. That,the life of a Palestinian is not equal to an Israeli in the West and that there is a lack of human rights in this world. That Israel has blind support from the West, especially the USA and UK. And that Israel will never respect us , or recognize our rights.
The democracy that America supports in Middle East , is bullshit.
They are criminals, they are the real terrorists,they scared every human in Gaza even kids.
Israel will never recognize our rights and the last war was the biggest proof. Before,they didn’t like Yasser Arafat so they kidnapped him and poisoned him, and now they are against Hamas.
I believe Israel is against every Palestinian who calls for his rights,who wants to fight back and never give up.
They made our life like hell but it gave us strength.
Because Israel, after using all this power, can never make us give up.
We didn’t choose to start the war but the Israeli’s continue their siege on Gaza and their unfair attacks. Israel has made every single soul in Gaza suffer , its a lie that they attack only the armed persons.
DISGUSTING
bombing children and not even a threat of a retaliation
how would you feel if this was your town and your people being bombed by vampiric parasites?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-RYm2FczbM
you are the people of palestine, palestinians who own the land they stole and now call Israel, this race of backward savages that kill man, women, child and beast to rob them of their homes, this so called nation, this mass killing gang of thief's, this shame they call israel that feeds on the life of palestine, that want you and your loved ones dead and gone.
you are a freedom fighting palestinian heros that will make history stop and look back at how savage the western world governments was, humanity will look back at all those so called leaders of today as nothing more than thugs and killers, they'll see our time as that of the dark age in the history of the human race.
you'll live on palestine as a people and a nation, that fought the evil of our time, this powerful demon that calls them self……. ZION.
This is not a rhetorical question; I really want an answer: Why are we not talking about helping Palestinians escape from Gaza? Israel seems to have a "Final Solution" planned that will result in all of them being killed, whether by bullets, bombs, starvation, dehydration, white phosphorous, or whatever. Maybe even gas chambers and ovens.
I do not put ANYTHING past Israel. So…what do we do now that we know the true nature of the beast on the other side?
A: The Palestinians have a right to live on their land, fight for their land, and die for their land as they wish – just as any other human being on the face of this earth.
If you read the interview in totality you will see a blatantly vehement passion to live and die for rights bestowed unto them that go beyond charters, UN resolutions et al.
The Palestinians do not want to flee or run away, the majority wish to remain and fight.
Many were driven out during the Nakba but the ones that remain wish to do so of their own accord and I know this from speaking to many over the years.
The Zionists will one day feel the wrath of their vengeful god, Satan.
Great idea Sparky, I am in. I have been advocating this for a long time but as I am female and a grandmother, people tend to ignore me but I am serious. If you can come up with an idea, I will be right beside you and let us hear now from anyone else who is ready to do something now about this horror against Palestine that is totally against human dignity. Our leaders will not do it voluntarily so what can we do personally and together to make them move on this NOW? Please give us an idea of whether you would be prepared to take a risk to right this terrible wrong that America and the Jewish Lobby as well as the UK has caused and carried on since 3 years after our military fought and freed Jews from the horrors of the Holocaust only to let them steal Palestine and commit a long, slow genocide against Palestine and in doing so, use disinformation to turn the USA and West against not only Palestine but against all Muslim countries who have never lifted a finger against us. America has been attacked over and over by Israeli false flag operations and before they land all of us in another horrendous war and slaughter we need to put a stop to this. Please, let us start a movement now!!
for one always speak out, never give up in exposing the zionist lie's and crimes, PLANT THE SEED OF GOOD AND GOD for the good of all man kind, they use hate to divide us into deferent camps, west, east and south and make us fight it out, they run the governments, banks, and news stands, right down to your schools, books and disney land, all because together they stand and feel as if they are gods.
we must stand together and point them out, let them see what happened in Iraq, 911 was a trap they set up to bring about war and death for the great of their kind, this super dubber land that never was, the GREAT ISRAEL that'll rule all of gods land, to bring about their king of the evil kind, as if they are waiting for their ANTI-CHRIST.
only the TRUTH will bring them out, into the light where they can not stand, you and I KNOW OF THEIR EVIL, I have seen it all my life, call them on it, show all what they do, what peace they talk about as they kill and rob, it is there for all to see, GAZA is where humanity stand, let all see their beloved jewish superman is nothing but a SAVAGE BEAST that feeds on helpless hungry and the unarmed.
our fight is not just in battle, we have to fight for the TRUTH, the zionist only weakness .
Nice words, Ray O Hope. Now how about we all get off our asses and do something about it? Stop the billions in economic aid to Israel. Make them sign the same damned treaties they expect everyone else to abide by.
No Actual Shortage Of Holocaust Survivors
Extracts from The Holocaust Industry by Norman G. Finkelstein of the City University of New York, published by Verso in 2000:
'The Israeli Prime Minister's office recently put the number of “living Holocaust survivors” at nearly a million.' (page 83)
'If 135,000 former Jewish slave laborers are still alive today, some 600,000 must have survived the war. That's at least a half-million more than standard estimates.. If Jews only constituted 20% of the surviving camp population and, as the Holocaust industry implies, 600,000 Jewish inmates survived the war, then fully 3 million inmates in total must have survived. By the Holocaust industry's reckoning, concentration camp conditions couldn't have been that harsh at all; in fact, one must suppose a remarkably high fertility and remarkably low mortality rate.. If, as the Holocaust industry suggests, many hundreds of thousands of Jews survived, the Final Solution couldn't have been so efficient after all exactly what Holocaust deniers argue.' (pp127-8).
'Both my father and my mother were survivors of the Warsaw ghetto and the Nazi concentration camps.. One of my father's lifelong friends was a former inmate with him in Auschwitz, a seemingly incorruptible left-wing idealist who on principle refused German compensation after the war. Eventually he became a director of the Israeli Holocaust museum, Yad Vashem. Reluctantly and with genuine disappointment, my father finally admitted that even this man had been corrupted by the Holocaust industry, tailoring his beliefs for power and profit. As the rendering of the Holocaust assumed ever more absurd forms, my mother liked to quote (with intentional irony) Henry Ford: “History is bunk.” (p7).
'The Holocaust proved to be the perfect weapon for deflecting criticism of Israel' (p30).
'Much of the literature on Hitler's Final Solution is worthless as scholarship. Indeed, the field of Holocaust studies is replete with nonsense, if not sheer fraud.' (p 55).
'Given the nonsense that is turned out daily by the Holocaust industry, the wonder is that there are so few skeptics'. (p 68).
'Annual Days of Remembrance of the Holocaust are a national event. All 50 states sponsor commemorations, often in state legislative chambers.. Seven major Holocaust museums dot the American landscape. The centerpiece of this memorialization is the United States Holocaust museum in Washington.. (This) museum's annual budget is $50 million, of which $30 million is federally subsidized.' (p72). (This is in spite of the fact that, as he points out on page 32, per capita Jewish income in the US is almost double that of non-Jews). 'With a reelection campaign looming, Jimmy Carter initiated the (US Holocaust Museum) project to placate Jewish contributors and voters, galled by the president's recognition of the “legitimate rights” of Palestinians.' (p 73).
To conclude:
'The Holocaust may yet turn out to be the “greatest robbery in the history of mankind”.. The Holocaust industry has clearly gone berserk.'(p 138-9).
'Through its deployment, one of the world's most formidable military powers, with a horrendous human rights record, has cast itself as a 'victim' state, and the most successful ethnic group in the United States has likewise acquired victim status. Considerable benefits accrue to this specious victimhood in particular, immunity to criticism, however justified. ” (p3).
Here's a thought.
How is it that Israel is so well funded? How do they buy these weapons they use?
It comes from dollars that are taken out of "your" pocket in the form of taxes.
Stop giving your money to the big war machine called "government" and see how fast all this ends.
peace
Let's be honest Israel is a threat to world peace. I can't understand why the U.S. govt. allows millions of citizens of the U.S.A to suffer hunger and poverty plus hopeless medical care and at the same time throws Billions of dollars at Israel. How much power do the Jews have in America?
What a tragedy, the noble palastinians are suffering the brunt of this evil Zionist take-over but believe me it is happening all over the world.
We must put the pressure on in all our countries, social unrest and truth are the Zionists greatest enimies.
They have become so embolden and arrogant that they think they can do whatever they want, well the people are waking up to them and with the grace of God we will bring them down.
So war is nasty. It always has been and it always will be.
This wasn’t a “war” this was a massacre.
One freedom I still have, I don't have to buy Israeli produce.
This is amazing. It took me weeks to read this due to how closely I followed the events earlier in the year and I knew it would bring back emotions of frustration and pain. For me to feel this way and not even have been there, I can only imagine how it would have felt to be there first hand.