Eva Bartlett

I was able to meet another extended family, take their testimonies that included the shelling of their house, phosphorus-like fires, sadistic drawings left behind by the Israeli soldiers occupying the house, the imprisonment of the elderly parents for four days with no food, no water, no toilets, no medicines, and the killing of their sheep and goats. Eva Bartlett writes from the occupied Gaza Strip.

It’s hard to believe it can get worse, but daily it does. Last week, I saw the white phosphorus clouds doctors have written about and condemned. From a tall Gaza City building, the panoramic view showed a spreading stream of poison, on eastern Gaza. The chemical burns deeply, to the bone, experts say. It is considered illegal warfare, not to be used in civilian areas. Eva Bartlett writes from the Gaza Strip.

Wael Selmi displayed a surprising kindness and welcome — you are welcome any time — given that his life’s work had just been leveled by the invading Israeli army. Even more surprising, given that the brothers’ furniture factory in northern Gaza was destroyed by the Israeli army four years ago, causing $300,000 in damage and losses. They’d had it just two years at the time. Along with that ruined factory, the family owns agricultural land which they cannot access near the Erez crossing. Eva Bartlett writes from the Gaza Strip.

When I’d met the extended Abed Rabu family, before the ground invasion began, they had just had their house bombed by an F-16. Their area has been occupied by Israeli tanks and soldiers since the ground invasion began. Medical workers cannot reach the injured there, and those who have managed to escape testify to imprisonment in their houses, abuse, point-blank shooting (to death), and a number of dead not yet known. Eva Bartlett writes from the besieged Gaza Strip.

”If this thing doesn’t stop in another week, some of them will die. And they know it,” Alberto said about the war on Gaza, as we looked at a photo I’d taken today of Saber, one of the emergency medics in Gaza who risks his life each day. I’d thought the same thing earlier, when I said “yatiek al-afia” (have strength) to each medic climbing into their ambulances. Eva Bartlett writes from the besieged Gaza Strip.

On 7 January, as Spanish human rights advocate and documentary filmmaker, Alberto Arce, and I accompanied Palestinian medics to retrieve the body of a man shot earlier by invading Israeli forces, we were also shot at as the medics carried the body towards the ambulance. It was in Dawwar Zimmo, eastern Jabaliya, near the area which has been occupied by Israeli soldiers since the land invasion began. Eva Bartlett writes from the besieged Gaza Strip.

Yesterday morning I awoke to an eerie near-quiet: for the time there were no bomb blasts, just the Israeli drones continuing to lord over the sky. Then the blasts came. Eva Bartlett writes from the besieged Gaza Strip.

After finishing a shift with the Palestine Red Crescent Society yesterday morning, we went to the United Nations-administered al-Fakhoura school in Jabaliya, which was bombed by Israeli forces, killing at least 40 displaced people who were taking shelter there. When we arrived, prayers were happening in the street in front of the school.

A good, kind, brave and very funny man was killed on 4 January as he loaded the body of a young civilian killed by the Israeli occupation forces into an ambulance. Emergency medical workers, Arafa Hani Abed al-Dayem (35), and Alaa Ossama Sarhan (21), answered the call to retrieve two friends: Thaer Abed Hammad (19), who was wounded, and his friend Ali (19), who was killed while fleeing shelling by Israeli tanks. Eva Bartlett writes from the besieged Gaza Strip.

In the haze of dust and smoke from the latest F-16 strike, a family self-evacuates. The dispatcher at the Jabaliya Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) receives call after call from terrified residents fleeing their homes. It’s a new year, a new Nakba, and an old scene; Israel is bombarding Gaza once again and the world is standing idly by, sitting on a fence very different from the electrified border fence encaging Gaza, or the separation wall dividing and ghettoizing the West Bank. Eva Bartlett reports from the besieged Gaza Strip.