International rights activists, who are currently in Gaza, on Saturday spoke out from the Hamas- ruled enclave against a massive Israeli strike.
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) carried out massive air strikes against dozens of targets in Gaza early Saturday, reportedly killing more than 200 people and injuring another several hundred in response to Hamas ongoing cross-border rockets attacks.
In a press release Xinhua obtained, the rights activists from Lebanon, Britain, Poland, Canada, Spain, Italy and Australia, who arrived in Gaza with the boats of the Free Gaza Movement (FGM), a human rights group, said they are witnessing and documenting the Israeli attacks on Gaza.
"Israeli missiles tore through a children's playground and a busy market in Diere Balah. We saw many were injured and some reportedly killed," said FGM member Ewa Jasiewicz, both Polish and British.
He added that "every hospital in Gaza is already overwhelmed with injured people and does not have the medicine or the capacity to treat them."
"We are witnessing and documenting the current Israeli attacks on Gaza," according to the FGM press release.
Eva Bartlett, a Canadian and a member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), also noted that "at the time of the attacks, I was on Omar Mukhtar street and witnessed a last rocket hit the street 150 meters away where crowds had already gathered to try to extract the dead bodies."
Ambulances, trucks, cars -- anything that can move was bringing the injured to the hospitals, said Bartlett, adding that hospitals in Gaza had to evacuate sick patients to make room for the injured.
"I have been told that there is not enough room in the morgues for the bodies and that there is a great lack of blood in the blood banks. I have just learned that among the civilians killed today was the mother of my good friend," Bartlett added.
The morgue at the Shifa hospital has no more room for dead bodies, so bodies and body parts were strewn all over the hospital, said Dr. Haidar Eid, both Palestinian and South African, who is a professor of Social and Cultural Studies in Al Aqsa University of Gaza.
"The bombs began to fall just as the children were on the streets walking back from school. I went out onto the stairs and a terrified 5-year-old girl ran sobbing into my arms," said another ISM member Sharon Lock, an Australian.
ISM member Natalie Abu Eid, a Lebanese, said that "the home I am staying in is across from the preventive security compound. All the glass of the house shattered. The home has been severely damaged. Due to the siege, there is no glass or building materials to repair this damage."
According to him, one little boy in his house fainted while "an eight-year-old boy was trembling on the ground for an hour."
In addition, "we found the bodies of two little girls under a car in front of our house, completely burnt. They were coming home from school," Abu Eid said.
He accused Israel of committing crimes against humanity, violating international and human rights law, ignoring the United Nations and planning even bigger attacks.
This is more than just collective punishment, he said. "We are being treated like laboratory animals. I have lived through the Israeli bombardment of Beirut and the Israel's message is the same in Gaza as it was in Beirut -- the killing of civilians."
Jasiewicz also urged the world to act immediately and intensify the calls for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel. World governments need to move beyond words of condemnation into an active and immediate restraint of Israel and the lifting of the siege of Gaza, he said.
"This is incredibly sad. This massacre is not going to bring security for the State of Israel or allow it to be part of the Middle East. Now calls of revenge are everywhere," said Dr. Eyad Sarraj, President of the Gaza Community Mental Health Center.
However, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Saturday the time has come for his country to take military actions to stop continuing artillery attacks from Gaza.
"We are not happy about the clashes, but we are not afraid either. There is a time for calm and a time for battle; Now is the time for battle," Barak told a press conference Saturday.
He further explained that the offensive has three objectives: giving Hamas a forceful blow, fundamentally changing the situation in Gaza and ending the rocket attacks against Israeli citizens.
"The operation will be deepened and expanded as much as necessary. I don't want to delude anyone. It won't be easy or short, but we have to be determined. The war on terror is an ongoing war," vowed Barak.
Meanwhile, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 to give peace a chance, but Hamas overrun it, leaving the Jewish state with "no other option but to strike" in order to protect its citizens.
Israel would continue to provide humanitarian aid in order to minimize the damage to the civilian population, said Livni, stressing that Hamas should be held responsible for both the artillery attacks against Israel and Israel's military response.
(Xinhua News Agency December 28, 2008)