Plight of the Unpeople: UN, Red Cross Suspend Relief Work After Lethal Israeli Attacks on Aid Convoys

2009-01-10

UN, Red Cross Suspend Relief Work After Lethal Israeli Attacks on Aid Convoys

The measure came hours after the UN shut down major aid operations in Gaza after Israel attacked one of its aid convoys. Israeli snipers killed two Palestinian aid workers who were reportedly trying to retrieve the body of a colleague who had been killed in a previous Israeli attack. The killings reportedly came during the three-hour pause to the bombing agreed to by Israel to allow humanitarian relief.

UN relief spokesperson Christopher Gunness: “I can confirm that UNRWA has suspended its operations in Gaza because of staff security. We’ve had a shooting of a driver in a convoy clearly marked as a UN vehicle. There have been a number of attacks in which UN facilities have been hit with direct hits and others. We’ve had no choice but to suspend our operations until we can get guarantees of the security of our staff. We’ve lost—our staff have been killed. We’ve had no other choice."

The UN says it’s lost all confidence in Israeli pledges. Israel has attacked several UN and medical installations this week, including a UN school where forty-six civilians were killed.

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Vietnamese

"If you really want to get a sense of “what happened” in Vietnam ... just imagine that you’re actually crouched in your basement, that your home above is ablaze, that lethal helicopters are hovering overhead, and that heavily-armed teenagers — foreigners who don’t speak your language — are out there in your yard, screaming commands you don’t understand, rolling grenades into your neighbor’s cellar, and if you run out through the flames, into the chaos, one of them might just shoot you." - Nick Turse

America

“Everywhere I go, every town I visit, you don’t see any industries. You don’t see any factories. You don’t see anything. We don’t make anything. We are really the poorest country on earth, but people refuse to see that. We are only surviving. We are only looking good because of our military might, because we are an empire. But this force cannot go on forever. It should be so obvious that we’re only chugging along, bullying people into lending us money and sending us stuff that we don’t deserve, that we haven’t earned. How can we survive? Hundreds of thousands of Americans have been reduced to living like savages in this self-proclaimed greatest country on earth.” - Linh Dinh

Chagossians

"First, they tried to shoot the dogs. Next, they tried to poison them with strychnine. When both failed as efficient killing methods, British government agents and U.S. Navy personnel used raw meat to lure the pets into a sealed shed. Locking them inside, they gassed the howling animals with exhaust piped in from U.S. military vehicles. Then, setting coconut husks ablaze, they burned the dogs’ carcasses as their owners were left to watch and ponder their own fate." - David Vine writing about the ethnic cleansing of Diego Garcia

2009-01-10

UN, Red Cross Suspend Relief Work After Lethal Israeli Attacks on Aid Convoys

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