Sunday, January 18, 2009

Palestinian tragedy played out live on Israeli television

I would hope that this awful tragedy does something to help the peace process.

Dr. Ezzeldeen Abu al-Ashi is a Palestinian who works in Israeli hospitals and lives in Gaza. He is very well known in Israel and, in more peaceful times, was embraced by the Israeli Army soldiers as he crossed into Gaza. He has been reporting each day into an Israeli television programme, telling of the reality in Gaza. Then Israeli viewers heard as he spoke live on television as his three daughters were killed by an Israeli army strike.

"No one can get to us," he screamed in Arabic on a live phone call with a channel 10 anchor.

"My God ... My God ..."Dr. Ashi told the anchor his family had just been killed, and that he was "overwhelmed." "My God ... My girls ..." he cried. "Shiomi ... Can't anybody help us please?"

The news anchor asked Dr. Ashi where his house is, and cameras followed as the journalist frantically tried to employ his network of contacts to send help to the doctor. Shortly thereafter, the Israeli Army allowed a Palestinian ambulance to speed to his location. Only one of al-Ashi's daughters survived.

"Everybody in Israel knows that I was talking on television and on the radio," said Dr. Ashi. "That we are home, that we are innocent people. "Suddenly, today, when there was hope for ceasefire, on the last day I was talking to my children ... Suddenly, they bombed us; a doctor who takes care of Israeli patients. Is that what's done? Is that peace?"

Eyewitnesses denied Israeli claims of sniper fire in the area. "But over 90 percent of Israelis still support the war on Gaza, while hundreds of other tragedies remain just a number in a rising Palestinian death toll," reported Al Jazeera's Roza Ibragimova.

Al Jazeera's English service has the full story here:

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