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3 hour humanitarian corridor in Gaza totally insufficient says UN
Turkmenistan News.Net
Thursday 8th January, 2009
The daily three-hour pause that Israel began in Gaza Wednesday was a good first step but totally insufficient, UN officials warned.
"This pause is potentially a positive step but because we did not have enough warning and because there was a lack of clarity about what this was going to mean, it was very hard for us to make significant use of it, certainly today," UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes told a news conference in New York Wednesday, noting that it was still necessary to move through checkpoints.
“I hope we will be able to use such pauses more in the future if it’s clear that they’re going to be at a fixed time, if it’s clear they’re going to be respected and Gaza-wide… [But] three hours a day is simply totally insufficient for us to be able to do that [get food and supplies to all who need it] which is why it cannot be any kind of substitute for a full end to the hostilities which would allow us to really gear up our humanitarian operation,” he said.
“The single biggest problem we have at the moment, apart from getting goods in, is moving around Gaza both for ourselves and the population. The International Red Cross has said and they’re not prone to exaggeration that people are dying because ambulances cannot get to them in time, people cannot get to hospitals.”
UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) Director of Operations in Gaza John Ging, said, “That was a precious three hours and sadly now we have 21 more hours to go before they have another three hours of safety, and God knows how many will be killed and injured in the coming period.”
Mr. Ging said he visited the UNRWA school that was the scene of Israeli shelling Tuesday that killed 43 people and injured one hundred others, and all staff there insisted there were no Hamas militants inside the compound itself. Israel says it was returning fire against mortars coming from the area of the school and some media reports have quoted residents corroborating this.
Mr. Ging said the three Israeli shells impacted right up against the boundary of the school and both he and Mr. Holmes said the conflicting reports underscored why an independent investigation of the incident was so necessary.
Mr. Holmes also cited “other dreadful incidents that are coming to our notice,” such as a house in Zaitoun, south of Gaza City, where 30 people may have been killed in a strike, with many still under the rubble.
“The apparent level of civilian casualties continued to rise and to be particularly distressing,” he said, also stressing the need for more fuel, food and medical supplies to be allowed in. Israel has opened the border crossings to scores of supply lorries a day but much more is needed, he added. Meanwhile, there was an alarming build-up of a sewage lake due to the lack of power, with the danger of a potentially health-threatening flood.  Email this story to a friend
Comments on this story
Anonymous
01-08-09, 09:36 AM |
3 hour humanitarian corridor in Gaza totally insufficient says UN
This is what happens to people that fire rockets at other people,hamas didn’t want a truce before so why give them one now? The world has changed the rule of war so much that there is no need to end it anymore.don’t worry about all the arab whining,just get the job done israel.
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Athena
01-08-09, 04:40 PM |
3 Hour
Hamas doesn’t inform the Israeli citizen when we have 3 hour of quite
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galljdaj
01-09-09, 03:47 PM |
"Crash Course on the Arab Israeli Conflict."
Here are overlooked facts in the current Middle East situation.
These were compiled by a Christian university professor.
BRIEF FACTS ON THE=2 0ISRAELI CONFLICT TODAY....
(It takes just 1.5 minutes to read!!!!)
It makes sense and it’s not slanted. Jew and non -Jew — it doesn’t matter.
1. Nationhood and Jerusalem . Israel became a nation in 1312 B.C.E. Two
thousand years before the rise of Islam.
2. Arab refugees in Israel began identifying themselves as part of a
Palestinian people in 1967, two decades after the establishment of the
modern State of Israel.
3. Since the Jewish conquest in 1272 B.C.E., the Jews have had dominion over
the land for one thousand years with a continuous presence in the land for
the past 3,300 years.
4. The only Arab dominion since the conquest in 635 C.E. Lasted no more than
22 years.
5. For over 3,300 years, Jerusalem has been the Jewish capital.
Jerusalem has never been the capital of any Arab or Muslim entity. Even
when the Jordanians occupied Jerusalem , they never sought to make it
their capital, and Arab leaders did not come to visit.
6. Jerusalem is mentioned over 700 times in Tanach, the Jewish Holy
Scriptures. Jerusalem is not mentioned once in the Koran.
7. King David founded the city of Jerusalem . Mohammed never came to
Jerusalem .
8. Jews pray facing Jerusalem . Muslims pray with the ir backs toward
Jerusalem .
9. Arab and Jewish Refugees: In 1948 the Arab refugees were encouraged to
leave &nbs p; Israel by Arab leaders promising to purge the land of Jews .
Sixty-eight percent left without ever seeing an Israeli soldier.
10 The Jewish refugees were forced to flee from Arab lands due to Arab
brutality, persecution and pogroms.
11. The number of Arab refugees who left Israel in1948 is estimated to
be around 630,000. The number of Jewish refugees from Arab lands is
estimated to be the same.
12. Arab refugees were INTENTIONALLY not absorbed or integrated into the
Arab lands to which they fled, despite the vast Arab territory. Out of the
100,000,000 refugees since World War II, theirs is the only refugee group in
the world that has never been absorbed or integrated into their own peoples'
lands. Jewish refugees were completely absorbed into Israel , a country
no larger than the state of New Jersey .
13. The Arab - Israeli Conflict: The Arabs are represented by eight separate
nations, not including the Palestinians. There is only one Jewish nation.
The Arab nations initiated all five wars and lost. Israel defended itself
each time and won.
14. The P.L.O.'s Charter still calls for the destruction of the State of
Israel . Israel has given the Palesti nians most of the West Bank land,
autonomy under the Palestinian Authority, and has supplied them.
15. Under Jordanian20rule, Jewish holy sites were desecrated and the Jews
were denied access to places of worship. Under Israeli rule, all Muslim and
Christian sites have been preserved and made accessible to people of all
faiths.
16. The U.N. Record on Israel and the Arabs: of the 175 Security Council
resolutions passed before 1990, 97 were directed against Israel .
17. Of the 690 General Assembly resolutions voted on before 1990, 429 were
directed against Israel.
18. The U.N was silent while 58 Jerusalem Synagogues were destroyed by the
Jordanians.
19. The U.N. Was silent while the Jordanians systematically desecrated the
ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives .
20. The U.N. Was silent while the Jordanians enforced an apartheid-like a
policy of preventing Jews from visiting the Temple Mount and the
Western Wall.
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Anonymous
01-09-09, 01:05 PM |
Israel implements corridor then ignores it
On CNN today the commentators were saying during the corridor the bombings and the tank fire didn’t stop. They said there was no lull in the 3 hours as promised by the israeli army, in fact if anything it was intensified. Goes to show you what the israelis say has got nothing to do with what it does.
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