May 21, 2009



After the return of the delegation of the Federation of Austrian-Arab Doctor from their visit to Gaza, where they could see the devastation and destruction left by the Israeli war machine during the so-called "Operation Cast Lead", a meeting was held in Vienna where Dr. Tarek Afifi, who was in the delegation, told his colleagues about his observation in Gaza. He described his feelings during the visit in such awful words that they can not be described in an English language. He said, that he felt death inside him during his visit to Izbat Abed Rabbo, a small village of farmers near Beit Lahia in the north-east of Gaza Strip. He said that the smell of death was suffocating when he saw the ruins of a big house and the pieces of an ambulance buried under it. In the windows of ambulance he saw some pieces of clothes of the medical team which was killed inside the ambulance while trying to get out victims of the Israeli bombing. Dr. Afifi then related the story of Abu Tareq, Mohammad Abed Rabbo, a volunteer worker in charge of the so-called camp which was established on the ruins of Izbat Abed Rabbo. Abu Tareq had told him how they murdered two of his children before his eyes, and also the story of the three young girls (Samer age of 9, Amal age of 7, and Sahar age of 4) who were murdered by an Israeli criminal while he was eating chocolate. Abu Tarek said that when the ambulance came to evacuate the three young girls to the hospital, the Israeli criminal, the same soldier who had murdered the girls, shot a rocket on the house, which collapsed over the ambulance and everybody inside the house. Abu Tarek said that another Palestinian who was riding a carriage pulled by a horse passed by the victims and he tried to help get them out, but the jewish soldiers completed their massacre by shooting the horse and his owner. Dr. Tarek also mentioned the medical situation in the hospitals of Gaza. He related that 500 kidneys patients face death because the filters for the kidney support equipment is over. He also mentioned the miserable situation at the Egyptian border at Rafah, and how the Egyptian workers at the border are unfriendly and humiliate the people who want to access Gaza. He said that the visit of his delegation to Gaza had been coordinated with the Egyptians at the Rafah border, but that after their arrival at 7AM, the Egyptians said that the intelligence officer in charge of opening the border had not arrived. But "soon" took hours: at 2PM they Egyptians said that the officer had arrived but the border was closed for the day, and invented that the Arab Doctors visit was not coordinated. Then they asked again, and they were finally allowed to cross the border after seven more hours of waiting. Dr. Afifi saw many people waiting at the Rafah border, among them a Christian Peace delegation praying while they waited for admission to Gaza. They told him that they had been praying there during the last four days.

