Yesterday, Mona El Farra wrote from Gaza:

Gaza 11-3-2012 4pm

The Israeli army continues its military attacks against the Gaza Strip. The attacks started Friday, March 10 at 5:30pm. I heard the first terrible explosion as I drove back to Gaza City from Khan Younis. There was a lot of smoke, shattered windows, and a fire in this blue car that was targeted by a missile from an Israeli drone. These offensive acts, though sup­pos­edly targeting Pales­tin­ian armed resis­tance men, are illegal according to inter­na­tional law. Every human is entitled a trial.

As usual, the entire civilian pop­u­la­tion including women and children, pays the highest price and bears the brunt of this terrible situation. Already several children have been killed, one was on his way to school when he was hit by shrapnel.

Our concern is not just the attacks but also the lack of med­ica­tions and supplies. If Israel continues this operation, the number of causal­i­ties will increase. The toll is 16 dead and 30 injured until this minute.

Gaza’s pop­u­la­tion already lives in a dire human­i­tar­ian situation. We are still under Israel’s military occu­pa­tion and the internal conflict between Pales­tin­ian political groups is not solved. But worst of all, the gov­ern­ments of the world are silent and indifferent.

We at the Red Crescent Society of the Gaza Strip and the Middle East Children’s Alliance appeal to the inter­na­tional community, and to our friends and sup­port­ers to spread the word about what is happening now in Gaza and pressure your gov­ern­ments to stop these attacks soon.

The human­i­tar­ian situation in Gaza is on the verge of collapse, the military attacks continue while we lack elec­tric­ity and our medical facil­i­ties and hospitals have little amounts of fuel to operate their backup gen­er­a­tors. We have insuf­fi­cient med­ica­tions. 186 basic med­ica­tions are lacking in our phar­ma­cies. Besides the insuf­fi­cient medical supplies, children in the special neonatal intensive care units as well as renal dialysis patients are in great danger due to the power outage. Our cancer patients are dying unnec­es­sar­ily, unable to have their treat­ments. Our diabetic and asthmatic patients, as well as many others with chronic illnesses who need their med­ica­tions regularly cannot get it. The list of the victims is too long to mention.

Please act imme­di­ately to stop this attack against Gaza pop­u­la­tion. You have been always great sup­port­ers and showed your sol­i­dar­ity, at the most difficult times.

Yours sincerely

Dr. Mona ElFarra

Vice President, Red Crescent Society for the Gaza Strip

As usual, Israel started the assault by assas­si­nat­ing Pales­tin­ian militants. I will use the Israeli ter­mi­nol­ogy, as there is nothing wrong with it. The men Israel assas­si­nated in the ongoing coun­terin­sur­gency campaign that is euphemisti­cally called the Israel-Palestine conflict were people who, when they are not living with their families, are mil­i­tantly defending their homeland. There is nothing wrong with that.