Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

Gaza doctor whose daughters were killed by IDF shells during interview with Israeli TV (Ranaan Cohen / AP)

The horror!  Oh, the horror!  Lord, how long can this madness continue??  It has sunk to a new level of depravity.  This video will take a very strong constitution and is not for everyone.  If you do decide to listen to it, please remember that no matter how outraged it will make you feel that we must not lose sight of the fact that the Palestinians must eventually make peace with Israel and it will not help to demonize an entire nation as you may be tempted to do.

Thank you (if that’s the appropriate phrase) to Israeli peace activist Assaf Oron for making me aware of this horrible potential war crime. Assaf has published a partial transcript of the conversation between the Israeli news anchor and the Gazan doctor, a gynecologist who trained in Israeli hospitals and works at Israel’s Tel Hashomer Hospital.

The interview begins after the shell has hit his home and his children and family have been killed:

Dr. Ezz-El-Din Abu El-Aish is a Palestinian gynecologist from Beit Lahiya, in the NE corner of the Gaza Strip. He works at Israel’s largest hospital, Tel Hashomer near Tel Aviv.

This impressive and peaceful man has been stranded at home during the war. Israel’s Channel 10 TV has regularly interviewed him by phone about the situation. On one occasion, a tank gun aimed at his home – and Israeli media intervention saved him.

No such luck today.

The link is a Hebrew news portal, the clip starts auto-playing after a few seconds. the article comes after a short commercial. What we see in the clip is Israeli anchor Shlomi Eldar holding a cellphone with Dr. Abu El-Aish on the other side, howling with misery. A tank shell has just hit his home and immediately killed three of his children (apparently they cut off the first seconds when the shell actually hit).

Eldar barely holds himself from crying, and then offers help. Ambulances evacuated some of the wounded to Israel.

Assaf quotes Eldar interviewed later saying:

“Through one example via phone, Israelis became aware of the magnitude of the horror visited upon the Gaza Strip. I am saying horror, because there are more than a thousand dead, a large part of them civilians, and I am sorry that it takes a phone conversation like this, and the tragedy of a Hebrew-speaking man, to transmit it.”

This AP story provides more details of the story:

Gazan officials identified Abu Al-Aish’s deceased daughters as 22-year-old Bisan, 15-year-old Mayer and 14-year old Aya. His niece was identified as 14-year-old Nour Abu al-Aish. At least two other daughters were injured.

Abu al-Aish, a 55-year-old gynecologist, is a rarity among Palestinians, a Hebrew speaker who trained in two Israeli hospitals. He is also is a known peace activist who was involved in promoting joint Israeli-Palestinian projects, and an academic who studied the affects of war on Gazan and Israeli children. He works at Gaza’s main Shifa Hospital.

“Everyone knew we were home. Suddenly we were bombed. How can we talk to Olmert and (Foreign Minister) Tzipi Livni after this?…I want to know why my daughters were harmed,” Ezzeldeen Abu al-Aish said on Channel 10. “This should haunt (Israeli Ehud Prime Minister) Olmert his entire life.”

“Suddenly, today when there was hope for a cease-fire, on the last day…I was speaking with my children, suddenly they bombed us. The doctor who treats Israeli patients.”

This Reuters story quotes the doctor saying:

“My girls were sitting at home planning their futures, talking, then suddenly they are being shelled,” he said in a voice shaking with emotion. “I want to know why they were killed, who gave the order?”

…The Israeli army said troops fired on Aboul Aish’s house because a sniper had fired on soldiers from the building.

Aboul Aish responded: “All that was ever fired out of our house was love, hugs and acts of peace, nothing else, ever.”

The IDF claims are outright lies. They don’t even care to make a statement having a semblance of truth. Their wanton brazenness is unspeakable. Only Israel’s Biblical prophets could rail with suitable passion and fury against such injustice.

I wish I believed in divine retribution so that I could have some certainty that justice would be done. But unfortunately, I believe, like Elisha ben Abuya, that there is likely “no judge and no justice.” The officers who ordered this tank to fire its shell will suffer nothing. They will feel, similar to Dan Halutz dropping a bomb on a Palestinian militant that killed many civilians as well, nothing but the backfire of their tank. They will sleep like babies, killers of young children that they are. Is this what the Israeli army has come to? Using tanks on defenseless families cowering behind thin walls? It has become the time of gnashing of teeth.